ME-KN: THE FIRST MODENA ENGINES ENGINE FOR THE OK-N AND OKJ-N DIRECT DRIVE CLASSES

Giacomo Mantovani

21 June 2023 • 15 min. read

125 cc

DISPLACEMENT
The ME-KN engine has a bore of 53.93 mm and a stroke of 54.40 mm for a cylinder volume of 124.20 cm³.

TYPE
The ME-KN is a 2-stroke engine, like the vast majority of racing-type kart engines.

PUSH

STARTER
Starting is manual: to start the kart engine, you need to rotate the rear axle manually or push when the kart is on the ground. All this is facilitated by the presence of a decompression valve on the engine head, which makes it easier to push the kart itself.

DIRECT DRIVE

TRANSMISSION
There are two "big families" of kart engines: Direct Drive and Shifter. The ME-KN is a Direct Drive engine, therefore non-shifter, and without a clutch, therefore with direct drive: when the kart stops, it doesn't stay running, but switches off.

032-EN-17

HOMOLOGATION
The engine was designed and built by Modena Engines for the Direct Drive FIA Karting, OK-N and OKJ-N classes. Its international approval (which you can find here) is valid for 6 years and ensures that owners can take part in all types of events that adopt CIK-FIA regulations. There is only one engine, the one designed and built for the OK-N class, but simple technical interventions can also turn it into the version for the OK-N Junior class, the OKJ-N.

It is certainly no secret that, since its debut in karting in 2013, Modena Engines has always focussed more on the design and production of Shifter engines. Yet, by exploiting the know-how gained over the years, in 2019 the Italian company also entered into the world of Direct Drive engines, enhancing its range with the ME-K and ME-KJ models (which we examined in the article “Under Review | ME-KJ and ME-K: the debut of Modena Engines in non-shifter engines for karts”), mainly dedicated to the international classes established by FIA Karting, the OK and OKJ. It is starting from these very foundations that in 2022, in conjunction with the creation of the new Direct Drive OK-N and OKJ-N classes, Modena Engines gathered input from the International Automobile Federation and ventured into the creation of an engine that complies with the new approval criteria. That was how the ME-KN came about, the protagonist of this article, which can be used (with the necessary technical modifications) in both classes. To view and analyse this engine, we went to the company headquarters, about 100 km from Rome: here are its new features and those which, instead, are the components it shares with the ME-K and ME-KJ models.

OK-N E OKJ-N: EXPLANAINER

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The new ME-KN engine for OK-N and OKJ-N classes weighs 8 kg dry.