History

In 2002, STRIKE began producing pistons to suit the Yamaha KT100S and ARC SPEC100 in the highly competitive controlled classes of bitumen racing. Initially standard piston size increments (0.05mm) between 52.00 and 53.00 mm were manufactured, but the need for fine incremental piston sizes was recognised and pistons are now available in 0.01mm increments, greatly extending the life of a cylinder. This gives the engine builder the rare situation of being able to hone a cylinder and then order a piston to suit, rather than vice versa.

With time, the pistons were then used in the more open classes of racing in dirt and speedway and a range of big bore pistons were created, with sizes up to 55 mm. This created a wave of new possibilities and many custom pistons are now produced to suit exacting specifications required by the engine builder. Examples of these include: high ring land, dykes ring, custom indexed anti rotation pin and surface finish options.

In 2004 another piston was released to suit the Yamaha KT100J used in bitumen and dirt racing, with AKA sizes ranging from 50.0 to 51.00 mm. This piston is also available in the 0.01 increments and a big bore version is also available. The big bore piston has applications in certain speedway classes and also the Yamaha MT110 stationary motor, commonly used in the hire kart industry.

With the general recognition of the benefits of clutches, eliminating the hassle of push starting a direct drive engine, STRIKE has developed a simple dry centrifugal clutch for the Yamaha KT100J and KT100S engine. This is currently in production for the KT100J engine, with sprocket sizes ranging from 11 to 13 T. The version for the KT100S engine is at the pre-production testing stage.

In conjunction with the clutch, STRIKE also produces a rugged self-contained external starter that can also be used on Comer, Leopard and Rotax Max engines.