Hydraulic Throttle

I've been thinking about using a hydraulic throttle set-up. anyone have any experience with these, good or bad.

 

I ran one on the Pontiac/Hilborn dragster back in the 60's. Hated the thing. It got air in it and didn't open the throttles all the way. Perhaps they're built better these days.

 

Like JohnyFast., I tried to use one but never got it to fully function. I'm not sure what I was doing wrong. I ended up pulling it out of the car before it was ever on the road. I still have the thing sitting on a shelf.

 

what type do you have? do you have any pics of it.

 

I don't have any pics of mine but I can take some Sat. The brand name is CNC. This is a pic of it from their website. This is the same model that I have.

 

I've never heard of these in a car before....what's the advantage?

 

Slow throttle response.

 

I think that if it's in a tight application you can run the hose more easily than a cable or linkage.

 

They are great for rear and mid-engined cars and dune-buggies (which is the crowd that CNC caters to). Routing a mechanical linkage 9 feet and around a bunch of corners can be a PITA. I used their pull-style slave cylinder to convert from a long strech-prone cable to hydraulic clutch in my mid-engined time-trial car ('73 VW/Porsche 914-4 w/ DIY turbo/efi). Their stuff seemed to be pretty good quality.

-Ben

 

weekend bump

 

Back about the time you were trying this and I was building my first altered I was told by the "experienced ones" to stay away from them for the same reason - maybe they've been improved in the past 45 years.

 

My experiance was about the same. Once was enough.

 

Used one once...looked exactly the same as the cnc unit but I do not remember what the name was...(was a number of years ago) I stand by the others statements, PIA....never again...

 

well sounds like more bad than good, i'll just have to build it with linkage. thanks for the input.

 

I have used a CNC pedal for 6 years in my Bantam Altered and have never had a problem with it. Its fast to open the throttle and never has air in the system. I bleed it at the start of every season and have very good luck. But I might be the lucky one too.

Jon

 

why? what are you using as hyd fluid? bearing grease?

nobody complains about hydraulic brakes being slow to react, or hydraulic clutches. methinks something must be wrong with the setup, ie. fluid that's too thick.

 

i did a v-8 swap into a 63 econoline for a friend of mine one time ..i wasnt able to find the v-8 linkage pieces new or used ,so i used a hydro set up from moon equipment .after a little careful routing to stay clear of the exhaust it worked pretty good.

 

I crewed on a dirt car many years ago with a hyd throttle. we had a lot of problems until we went to a very soft return spring. then it worker a lot better. next year they had a engine location rule so we did not need the hyd unit...Bobby..

 

The only guys I know that were mesing with these were trying to make 2 engines work off one pedal (twin M/C so the slaves would move the same without cable stretch). They were basically trying to make a 4WD Toronado (one in the front, one in the back). They never stayed put together long enough to know (their dream ability was much better than their weld / fab ability). But they tried cables first, the rear engine always lagged the front with the cable setup. I asked why they couldn't just make them the same length and spool the front one up, just got a blank stare. They were using bicycle brake cable and sheaths for throttle cable as you could buy it on a roll from a local bicycle shop. A stronger cable (bigger diameter) wouldn't have such variance in stretch, but that was back in the late 70's and you couldn't order as much stuff as you can now, and they didn't think of using a tube or braided Teflon hose for sheath.

 

I've messed with one, on a 455 Olds powered Lamborghini kit car. Once bled, it seemed to work quite well(wasn't hard to bleed either). I worked on the car in Dec/Jan too and had no problem with throttle response even in the cold. I don't know how well it held up long term though as the car was only in our shop for a month.

 

I seem to recollect that one Micheal Thompson used a hydraulic throttle on his race car at Bonneville and he ran 406mph with it.A few trucks use them as well.Hillman Imps were another car that had them too,I think.If you look at the second motor you can see part of the linkage setup. keep on roddin'