BuggyMasters Review: Manco Scorpion 606

[BuggyMaster]

Manco was purchased by Ameican Sportworks a few years ago. This is one of the go karts they made prior to the buy out. This is another one of those machines with a great pro and a heavy con.

The pro is that they use what I consider to be the best go kart engine out there: The Suburu Robin. As a comparison, a Tecumseh engine is a service life of about 150hrs and they are done. The Suburu, on the other hand, sports a service life of about 1000 hours. Pretty big difference. Not just that, they also incorporate mecanismm into their engines that allows them to be started rather easily. This is a huge plus if you want your kid to be able to start the machine on their own. Finally, the engines just run great. An excellent engine, indeed coupled to a Comet TAV30 torque converter.

The heave con on these is the steering system. Just a poor design and just an overall funny feeling, almost a little unstable. If you are shopping for a go kart, you would be best served buying one with a dual a-arm design. If you look at the pic, take note that there is only one a-arm per side. The better, and more stable systems, use an upper and a lower. This doesn't mean that all of them with a single a-arm design are bad, but there is a noticeable advantage to the double a-arm system that is worthy of looking into. These also use a rear disk brake which typically works better than the band style.

Pros: Uses probably the best go kart engine you can get.

Cons: Poor design in the steering system

Overall Buggymasters Rating: 5 out of 10.

I would have rated it lower had they not used such a good engine.