Hi All, been pretty quiet on the 'tank front lately. This is I guess the "holiday part of the year, but that is/has come to an end, we had our first "tank day" for the 09/10 racing year. So far all I'd really done was take the body off , let the tyres down and give it a bit of a rinse. On the weekend we did the job properly. We also went in search of the fuel pump problem that stopped the car AFTER the last run, we'd worked out soon after we got home that the pump wasn't working either it was burnt out or jammed. we dismantled the tail section where the fuel tank, fuel pump and filters are. Once I'd emptied the fuel out of the pump( Bosch 580 044) I hooked some wire up to it and lo and behold it works. I think that a piece of the epoxy liner had fouled it . I wrote on the pump " died '09 keep as spare"....we'll buy another even though it has only done about 30miles..........We'll revisit the filter pre and post pump but the main thing that gives me the shits is the fuel tank. I spent a lot of time building the Aluminium tank, then got it epoxy lined. What I should have done was make it from stainless , or even mild steel and made an inspection plate and then used an "in-tank" pump from a road car , the closed tank and external pump have proved to be a time consuming expensive hassle that has bitten me back. Otherwise the car looks good, we didn't find anything that had broken, the heat shields all worked and nothing seems to be cooked, there are things we could have done differently but as it stands we're happy . For next year there are a list of things that we have to do to satisfy the scrutineers such as the fire system capacity , losing the Front-runners , a NRV on the fuel system breather and fine tuning the 'chute system . Then there are the things that we want to do to go faster. There are a few here. We want to build the blower motor( M90 Eaton) and we are also looking into changing the rear end to a 10 bolt so we can go numerically lower. Finally there are various "tidy up" jobs we'd like to do, there are a few issues with the body fitment, the way the canopy hinge works and there is also steering column, instrument and brake issues that we'd like to improve ......but like I said all in all we're pretty happy..... One last thing , our good friend Frank Kletschkus ha finally finished his website and there are a bunch of great shots of the car ( and of course heaps of his other stuff) available to see, feast your eyes!!!!! www.frankkletschkus.moonfruit.com <input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden">
I was just thinking about this car the other day! I did a search but got sidetracked with other belly tankers.....Thanks for the update
What's with ditching the front runners? Is there a reference in your thread on the 'other' site? Is it speed specific (ie, you went faster than they like to see the FR's go?).
Yeah, they don't want you going over 200 on 'em.....so right now I have a straight six that I bought from another club member who did 159 with it on FleaBay so we can buy some more Eagles. Hope yr well Erik. <input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden">
1. shout your mate that did the photo's a coldie for me, AWESOME.....although, all those 'mug' shots of you guys certainly made it a challenge for him... 2. Great to see the development of this little monster, credit to you guys. Drewfus (member of the 'Stans')
Thanks, I figured that was it, but didn't know what speed they got pickey about them (sounds like roughly the same speed SCTA does, go figgure ). I'm as well as can be expected, plugging away on the Berk. Hopefully I'll get to see some of the prettiest summer we've had in the last 5 or 6 years, without it being framed by a garrage door mechanism. Of course when we get it to the salt, it will all be worth it (as long as we haven't screwed up something that keeps us from passing tech I sure hope not).
just checked out your blog, noice.....have you ever come across a rockabilly outfit called the Purple Drippers up your way? adios
here's some re-prints from our build diary elswhere....we're back into it for this years meet and we've got heaps to do, but it looks like we're on track so far.. We've been at it and things look like the almost on schedule...for the benefit of those that don't visit landracing.com( and because I'm lazy I'm gonna reprint some of the recent posts from our build diary there... I bought two big bits of fuel foam a few weeks back...today I cut the top out of the fuel tank. Just to recount, the tank is Al, and epoxy lined.....I didn't have a sock filter in it but did have a deep cross piece over the outlet to try and defeat vortexing. So anyway I hooked a hose up to the outlet, filled it with water and cut the top out leaving a 1 inch border.Lo and freakin behold, when we look inside there is about a pint of epoxy sitting in the end where the outlet is...the tank has been left to sit on a 45 degree angle before the goo has gone off , completely covering the cross piece, and filling the "sump" area of the tank........then a drill bit has been run up the outlet......top effort.... The Colonel is going to make a gasket and screw down the plate we've made for the top, and then attach the piece with the filler neck to that, stuffed full of foam we should be fairly confident that it won't cavitate... We're buying a slightly smaller pump than the 044 which is bigger than we need. I cleaned up and touched up the paint on the wheels, just a brush , rough as guts because the wheels have discs on both sides. We found that the last surviving 1.5kg Cold Fire cylinder had carked it...corroded through. We're going to run one 4 kg cylinder for the fuel tank, sump and upper engine bay nozzles and keep a single 1.5kg cylinder for the cab. We have decided to change the way the chute release operates. At the moment the doors are loaded by the drone spring pressure, this runs the risks of the doors opening accidentally and also means that sometimes the catch jams. We have decided to try and use a strap arrangement to retain the chute and drone and have the bay doors kept closed by magnets, when the pin is pulled it will release the strap allowing the drone to open the doors and pull the chute out. I gave the screen a cut too with some 800 1200 and then 2000, I'll finish that when I run a buffer over the car as it goes in the trailer. We also began to work out a better way to organize the canopy hinge....the current arrangement is made so that if the car is upside down the canopy pins can be popped and the canopy removed, but it tends to come of the ferrules which keep the pivot points aligned and allows the canopy to fall too far forward.. Back to the issue at hand which is "Australian Bellytank" .As my byline says we run a 3.8litre Buick based V6, it was extensively redeveloped by Holden at the time they first used it.The very first model they used it in was the VN Commodore. For some reason they used different cranks in the manual and auto models( they are referred to as the "six bolt" crank), the crank boss was bigger in the manual....so, you can't bolt a flywheel to an "auto" motor. When we first built the car we used a VN motor and as you can imagine the auto's were more numerous by about ten to one.So, of course the motors we bought were "autos".Come time to organise a flywheel ( yeah and they want a left nut for them as you can imagine) , we got a cast iron one...yeah I know, but the motor was stock with a rev limiter on it. rather than buying one of the available crank boss adapters I had one made( hey, you all would too)...however because of concerns about the positioning of the counterweight I got the shop to drill another set of holes so the flywheel could be rotated through six positions, rather than the asymmetrical pattern that only allows it to be bolted on one way JUST IN CASE there was an issue with the balancing when it went on the auto crank. Then, we got a one owner car from my brother which was the next model along ( the VP), by this point they had decided that that it would be a good idea to make the cranks the same...., great lot of help that was , this motor is known as the "eight bolt crank" so of course the flywheel we had didn't fit.That was the motor we ran at the 2009 DLRA meet with a home made dual throttle body manifold,nicely ported heads, heavy springs, some big home made headers and little else....I ran 161.4mph on the 150mph license run before we had to go home. At last years meet Scott Taylor a local magazine writer and sometime drag racer offered us a VN motor ( if you're follwing ...this is us going BACK to a six bolt again) that he had raced on the quarter and written articles about the build on, he'd run it with a turbo and run it like a yo-yo for a few years.He loved that we were running a V6 and was , with many others surprised at how quick our car went with an essentially stock motor. He'd built a new motor for his( as it was known) "blown VN" but soon after retired the car and sold all the ancillaries off the motor, living in a rural area he couldn't get any takers for the bottom end because of the freight cost and offered it to us at a great price.This motor has 9.6:1 pistons, a deleted balance shaft and now a new cam (http://www.landracing.com/forum/index.php/topic,862.800.html) we are using the same heads, manifold and exhaust. Today I bought a new cro-mo billet flywheel for it....problem being we need to fit it to the adapter, because of course it's a bloody auto motor. The adapter doesn't have the holes matched to the mount holes on the flywheel but rather the new set we had drilled so it could be rotated..........the new flywheel doesn't need a counterweight because the crank is balanced..........so now I have $750 worth of steel lying around and am nervously trying to work out whether we drill the extra holes in the new billet flywheel or drill another set of holes in the crank boss adapter( which already has six holes in it and not a lot of room left) Here are the two six bolt flywheels , the cast with the extra holes ( on the larger diameter circle)drilled is on the right , the new billet job is on the left. next is the adapter , first is the crank side.....allen head screws go in from this side into the flywheel then the clutch side showing the holes for the crank bolts.... why am I bothering to show you this dumb tedium? because it shows the tiny details and the infinite detail that you have to deal with just to get the car to where you want to be......and our car is basic, really really basic...to any of you who are watching, but don't race take it from me ........IT AINT ALL BEER AND SKITTLES some of it is a complete pain in the seat. The Colonel starts bolting the motor together on the weekend. We'll see how go from there..............if we're lucky, and lets face it we have been so far, we'll do what we hope to and get to 200 this year...... Any adapter is, by it's very nature, a weak link - I'd be cautious about swiss-cheesing it. I see 33% more RPM in your future. [/quote] Ya Know, when I read 33% there was an immediate clench. I'm not the worlds greatest engineer, yea, I'm not Plymouth on an engineer's boots.....but at anything above 7500rpm I'm thinking we're booked in for some sort of catastrophic failure, full stop.I hear the reasoning about putting more holes in that piece...however they are to be neatly spaced where you can see some circular marks between the outer ring of holes in the picture at the bottom in my last post, and it's , well, the way we're doing it now. The whole shebang(should I have used that word?) will of course need to be treated with some respect through the changes but there is a lot of metal in that thing still. The Colonel and I set it up yesterday after double checking the cast flywheel with the adapter bolted to it on the motor we, yeah OK the Colonel ,is building, the starter motor meshed ok so I took it home . I checked that the pcd pattern matched the flex plate pattern(remember we are using an "auto crank") and that the counterweight was in the same place(..I've made sillier mistakes) and then marked the center of the holes by using a drill press with a bit the exact size of the holes in the flywheel( this is of course all happening on the iron flywheel). It would be very difficult to maintain concentricity if I were to drill the moly flywheel to suit the adapter as neither of them have a center................... I did have one of those moments after i'd marked the holes , freaked out, "oh no, oh Subaru, you idiot"...then I took it off, lost my spot, then when I'd calmed down sufficiently to have another look I put the adapter on backwards as I tried to line the crank holes up.....so, when I got to the seventh position my brain started working..."six bolts, seven tries and it still don't fit , there MUST be something wrong"...... I took a few deep breaths, sat down , set the flywheel up on edge with two G clamps and concentrated, second position..it all lined up beautifully, the counterweight in the right place . Then I went to the case where I thought I'd put the set of crank bolts from the first motor we had...as if by magic there they were, things were starting to flow dude......... Yesterday I also managed to source all the bits required to change the fire system lines to steel....speaking of engineers , BSP/BPT anyone? The adapter is 3/4 inch thick..... It's taken 4 hours, I Subaru you not ,to drill and tap the six holes and dress the whole thing, that included a quick trip to get some more linishing belts, the new holes are the ones with the arrows, as you can see they are a pattern rather than the other outside ring holes which are symmetrical.As you can see I put a much finer finish on it the good news is the Gods of Speed were in a good mood and it bolted up without the need for ANY coaxing, the bolts ran in by hand. I deburred everything so I could confidently stick my pinky in and turn it . Now, to be candid I did very much think to myself that I may be better just getting another one made. I was in the blue corner , and I was in the red corner..... Like the battle I had over the fuel tank I paid special attention and respect to the possibility that the next one I made may have it's own problems, and cost money that should be spent elsewhere. Of course there was the obvious possibility that I stuffed it up and had to get to one made. In the big picture we could have had a whole one piece flywheel made( but it would have had a slip on ring gear rather than the machined teeth that are on the one I bought) but it may have cooked up it's own issues AND we would have had to get it balanced...as it is we have spent nearly $800, had I somehow got the measurements wrong( it has happened) we would have been stuffed. As for the fuel tank the Colonel is half way through setting riv-nuts around the access plate we cut out of the top and cutting a gasket for same, then we'll stuff the foam into it and bolt it up again.... on we go...yea verily Pushed on with other stuff, have cut the seat in order to fit the bigger fire bottle next to it, worked out how to fit a small bottle and it's attendant remote release at the back of the firewall and have also made provision for a camera mount on the top of the cab.........right now the 4am wake up is taking it's toll. Am currently trying to figure out a quick way to lengthen the brake pedal , the list is getting shorter. We miscalculated a little with the frame during our build and there is a frame bar that runs across what should be the front of the seat but it turnmed out that I ended up with my coccyx resting on it and at the end of Speedweek I was real sore....here it is with the floor plate in place, the flat section to the right of the aluminium has a half inch thick neoprene pad that is supposed to be the seat squab, my backside tended to end up on the curved section in the middle of the shot.... here is the bar itself, the groin belt mount are through it...., the belts mount to the left of the bar here I have sectioned a piece out of the top and then welded in some 3/16 flat, we'll modify the floor plate as well next weekend. I also lengthened the brake pedal by an inch and a half Colonel, now we'll be able to lock 'em up and flat spot the tyres.. :roll: :roll: :roll: All in all it's been a good day. [quote author=wobblywalrus] Really critical parts like connecting rod bolts are installed new and tightened down once. They are not loosened and retightened a second or third time. Over the years I have seen other critical bolts treated in the same manner. "One use bolts" we call them. It may be a good idea to use the old bolts to check and make sure the adapter fits and use a set of new good quality bolts to install it. Imbalance can be a problem with homemade items that rotate very fast. It is caused by parts that are out of true (not concentric), a weight imbalance, or both. If available, it is a good idea to run the tank on a dyno to make sure everything will hold together and not shake apart. If you like your new setup, it is worth it to have a new flywheel made and balanced after this year's Gairdner runs. Shift slow and easy. [/quote] Absolutely, on the flywheel bolts, they'll be unused items.The ones I mentioned are new 8.8 allen heads that have the knurling turned off and are a very close fit in the adapter so they are a flush fit.we never used the six bolt motor we first had. The adapter was made by a gear shop specializing in well, gears, if you read the detail, it was made so as to be able to be rotated, so a symmetrical bolt pattern was put into it and a new set of holes drilled in the flywheel. I didn't want to drill the cro-moly flywheel I have just bought but used the old one as a template...anything can happen of course but I'm confident it will be balanced. We'll be moving to a different motor next year so whatever happens it will be a different set-up. Tonight I saw a friend who has an engine tuner based next to his factory who has an engine dyno , he's seen video of the tank and wants to help with our mapping and EMS. ....that's gonna be handy :cheers: [quote author=wobblywalrus ] Rolled threads give a bit of added strength as compared to cut threads Provided there is enough room around the bolt heads, the flanged hex head bolts work well for this application, and I use them where I can. Also, an unthreaded shank except for the portion in the female threads works best, based on my experience. You'all seem to be on track and doing well. Running the belly tank is an accomplishment regardless of the speed. That setup is completely home built using "applied engineering." Have the best of luck. [/quote] Carroll Smith's great quote..."never, EVER, make a bolt" is pertinent here...I don't know it word for word but I have read his chapter "Why Things Break" lots of times.The strength of cut threads doesn't come anywhere near that of rolled threads due to the grain. Funny thing , when we got the eight bolt flywheel we used at last years meet it came with a set of factory bolts ,I turned the head off one of them at less than half the recommended torque setting, and yes I had run a tap through the crank holes just to make sure they weren't crudded up.It just came off like a cheap garden variety bolt head , when I undid the others and lifted the flywheel off I could wind the rest of it out with my fingers. The people we got the flywheel from insisted they had to be used and charged no small sum for them, it was a worry that one was so defective
Hi All ....we got back last week from Speedweek 2010 here.....we had a pretty good result....here's a story I put up on landracing.com about the week we had...... We left Sunshine at about 10am on Friday the 5th, the Rev and Colonel arriving together before PJQ and Frank who were in the Land Cruiser( the "Troopy") which tows the tank in Pete's(PJQ) trailer, Pete had had a little drama in peak hour traffic with fuel system and had had to bleed it on the side of the road. I'd trailered the car the night before and finally finished the sorting and packing of spares and tools ....but as always there were things that I wish I'd done as well. It's a left turn at the end of my street and then 450miles before we leave the Western Highway at Murray Bridge. The Troopy pulls fifty to fifty-five so the two station wagons went ahead. The train spotters will be interested to hear that my 3.8V6 with an older style fogger LPG system and a canvas top trailer got exactly the same fuel economy as the Colonel's 5.7V8 with an injected LPG system pulling a slightly bigger slope front trailer.... and I mean exactly the same, er, except when it used more..........it might be down to driving style :roll:... So we turn off at Murray Bridge and head toward the Barossa Valley one of Australia's premier wine districts where we were going to stay with our mate Dirty Dave , plumber and bike nut. Dave and Christine turn on a feed with the best t-bone steak I have had in a very long time....also there for the night was Brett de Stoop with his 1000cc waterbottle in tow and his mate and early DLRA member Nigel Begg who was one of the founders of Deus ex Machina the Sydney custom bike business . We head off the next morning after an early night , we miss the highly recommended organic farmers market and stop in Nooriootpa for fuel and the Reverend asks" where is the aeroplane museum?"......it's a few miles out of town. We find the place and get out of the cars for our first meeting with WH700 the Canberra bomber that our "bellytank" came from...the plane has two tanks on and we are still unsure as to why the one we have was separated from her but the build plate indicates it was one of the originals manufactured for the plane.We take some "family snaps" and get back out on the road for the four hours to Port Augusta. In the "Gutta" we shop for food and buy a few things we've forgotten, then we go to the bottle shop :-o From the Gutta to the Lake is 130 miles, the first thirty five are sealed then it's onto the dirt....Saturday afternoon is generally busy and so it was , after passing a bunch of buses and slower moving tows we settle in behind Gnome Racing's Torana being towed behind a turbo diesel and they were hammering ,we made it to the Lake in under two hours and the road was generally good, dust was severe but the corrugations weren't as bad as they have been. I drive straight out onto the Lake to claim a pit , laying out a tarp and dropping most of the tools and stuff off , a very very strong southerly wind is blowing. I head back up to the lakeside camp and we set up the "Casa del Canvas". Pete and Frank arrive with the Troopy and we send them down to the Lake to drop the trailer, Pete looked real tired , we owe him the world for towing our car these last two years, Pete decides to camp down the end of the campground with a view of the lake while we for some reason are in the boonies, our site at least was flat. We've barely eaten but after the massive meal we'd had the night before it wasn't surprising...we fixed a couple of gin and tonics, it started to spit. It was a cold , blowey, and yes ....wet night....estimates of between a half and an inch of rain ....exactly what had happened last year, the sun rose with doom and gloom on the UHF, the Lake, was closed. At least this year we had the car in the pits. We walked down to the Lake and out to the pits which thankfully were a good mile and a half closer to the shore than usual, the stream which runs around the southern shoreline was flowing fairly quickly to the east but there was between one and two inches of depth and it was at least a quarter mile wide. When we got out to the pits we found there was a quarter of an inch covering the whole area, visibly flowing south east toward the shore and the stream, it was miserable. We opened up the trailer and got the car out and started getting organised.........the wind was blowing , the air was warm and the sun was starting to peak out, this was going to get better, the salt was rock hard, it might have had a covering of water but it was like concrete. There were already quite a few spectators walking out to the pits and taking photos and asking questions....we need to build a little box with a button and speaker because my jaw got sore telling people about the car, I reckon i told fifty separate people what we'd done to the motor in about an hour, always ending with " I'd better get on with it". We buttoned the car up , made everything weather tight and headed to the canteen.....we were in the middle of nowhere, out of contact with a bit of time on our hands and there on the hill was a little shack that sold food and beer......it was time to let our hair down a bit...truth is we were stuffed, I think we hit the wall at about 10pm and bedded down. Monday morning was a better deal again, the air was dry, the clouds were gone .....we walked out to the pits and the surface layer of water was gone, the stream was only half as wide, this was going to happen. We set up the shade and the annex on the trailer and did all the fit up in the car, the seat, computer and harness, did the "wheel alignment" mentioned above , polished the screen and got the car ready for scrutineering....there were mixed message about when this would happen so the last thing we did before walking off the lake was to push the tank into the line for tech, we were number four. I got up at 6am and went for a shower, they are cold , and it was....I yipped as the water hit me...there was an old bloke laughing in one of the cans.." you're a braver man than me Gunga Din" I got on the push-bike and rode down to the pits, yep they were gonna start scrut'. I got the suit , helmet and log-book and unbuttoned the necessaries on the car. The Rev arrived just as Gaz finished . He picked us on a few things. We don't have a master kill on the extinguisher system to take out the hot side of the battery, he wanted more drainage holes in the bodywork, he picked a few bits of wiring that could be better protected , they will all be rectified for next year. I left the tank sitting near tech until Rod Hadfield came over and asked me" how long are you gonna leave that there for James?"......I was pretty keen on being right on the spot when they opened marshalling.....we pushed her back to the pit about a quarter of a mile away and then hung around trying to work out how to swing it. The drivers' meeting was confirmed for 3pm, to be followed by the track drive....before the drivers meeting we rolled the car back near tech, the moment it finished we pushed to the marshalling point, we were fourth in line.....we went on the track drive with Simon Davidson photographer from Street Machine , he's a great bloke even if he is from Sydney and drives a Ford. We get back from the track drive and it's all systems go. Its four o'clock as I drive straight into the crunchies from marshalling and everyone else drives around me...just like last year..this is the first proper drive I've had with the new motor...we elected to steer clear off the test track as it looked even rougher than last year, and I couldn't see then so we skipped it. The graded areas were rougher than last year we think because the salt was so much harder, another factor was that rather than using the club's old Dodge truck much of the work was done by tractors and some believe that the towing speed may have been too high giving a less satisfactory result. So, here I am at the start line area for the second year. Last year the car ran 160 odd and felt like it was on hotmix and required almost zero steering input, we had a new motor ...I was itching to go. There was a succession of minor hitches with the clocks, then the first guy off the line was an altered 125, who stated he would be running a record, well, he ran the long track and they couldn't find him.......Speedweek 2010 was on. I sat suited and belted in the car for nearly an hour, I'd had a small bowl of cereal and nowhere near enough to drink since dawn....I was feeling impatient....it turned out we were to run eighth. With a rolling push from a few guys I took off and the car felt strong, but I hadn't got my posi right ...the change to the seat base meant I was sitting lower....I shifted into third and was getting hammered while struggling to get a good view AND keep my helmet off the cage. The track felt rough and the cross wind was strong. The start line had been moved because of the wet to where it was only about 1 and a quarter mile to the quarter trap. The two mile mark was coming at me when I checked the GPS, this was a 175mph license and 'chute pass , I was pulling 138....at that moment I hit a patch of track that threw the car and caused me to back off momentarily, I got back into it and was immediately hit by a gust that pushed me from close to the right side of the track to hard on the left, once again I backed off , when I stepped on it the rear end broke loose causing me to back off....as I hit the first clock I glance down to see I was doing 155, I left the quarter at 165 and pulled the 'chute. It hit hard and as a consequence I clutched and hit the throttle at the same time giving her an over rev. I pulled off at the four mile worried that I hadn't made the cut.....I stopped about a mile off the track and waited for the Troopy.....the return roads were rough and the cones were scarce making it difficult to drive back unaccompanied and also for the first time there was a second track and I didn't want to risk the possibility of getting lost near the end of it. I followed the Troopy back going over the run in my head....while I was driving I kept hearing what I thought was a clatter from the motor, and then I began to notice that she was feeling unresponsive, nothing at part throttle and then blast off, it made it a real handful. We took it straight back to marshalling, I rolled the last few hundred yards, the Colonel was there...." how did it go?"...."there's something wrong" I said, "it doesn't feel right, i may have hurt it"......we fire her up and it's running on five, there is a clatter, after about ten seconds the Colonel kills it with a wry grin on his face and points at the left rocker cover and says "yep, there's something wrong, there, I can see a push-rod hitting the cover"............They announce that marshalling in closing so our number is taken and we roll back to the pit. On the way the Colonel says to me...." so, you've got that spare rocker gear with you?"....truth was when I elected not to bring the spare bottom end and a spare head the parts that I had with them were left behind too. We waited with baited breath as the first cover came off. There was the rocker sitting there , a tiny bit of swarf but nothing else...the bolt had simply backed out. Seems the Colonel had undertorqued them. We checked the push-rod for true and did it all up again, then the other side. What a relief that was. We hit the canteen , when people asked I confessed that I was disappointed, that I had been in a bad frame of mind, that I was impatient and that I had a bit of brain fade for the first fifteen seconds of my run. We had a great feed of roast chicken( no JN ,much better than it used to be) knocked over a few beers and had another early night, a camp near us kicked on til really late but we were in race mode. As we were going to sleep the Rev said ....." fourth gear is forward right?", .."yeah, fourth is forward".........Come Wednesday morning we were up at sparrows and down to the lake .In the pit we checked the basics and rolled her up to marshalling. As usual the Rev was everywhere but hanging around the car , I got him belted in, with the general adjustment of the harness better than we'd had it the day before with the catch centered better for the slightly lower seating posi. I stressed to him that he needed to "get into it early"....I didn't listen as he left the line, I raced back to take the Troopy......due to a change of arrangement at the last minute there was no way to avoid driving through the pits on the way to the return road...When we got down there the Colonel was waiting , " I think he broke it, he only pulled a hundred" ....we found him at the end of the GPS track, lost on the crunchies....he was very dull..." i put it in fourth, by the time I realised what I'd done it was too late so I got out of it and rolled through" he was shattered , I felt his pain.....we'd both driven three shades of shithouse and our pretty little car with it's new motor wasn't looking so great....... We went straight back to marshalling As I sat at the start-line area I thought hard about what had gone wrong on my first run and what I had to do to. I had just scraped in on my 175 license so at least I could use the long track now....The seat felt better and I moved my head around trying to find a sweet spot off the roll bar padding and the head rest, most importantly I decided that I had to concentrate on staying in it, that I had to steer out of any wind effect and NOT back off, the peakier motor and no suspension mean that squirting the throttle means wheelspin and an unsettled ride. I left the line and was on it from the get go, the car pulled very strongly and I made the gear changes cleanly.....this time I was over 170 when I left the quarter and the car was pulling well with the speed increasing evenly. I passed the five mile and the GPS read 193, then 195 then 193 then 189...I had my foot in it still so I took this as a sign to get out........... I made it a mile or so off the track before missing a cone and going crunchy...I stopped and got out....the GPS read "top speed 195mph"...I was soup...exhilarated and exhausted ,I felt like yelling......but why did the motor go away , there was no noise, no oil light just a rather quick loss of power. We thought about it. If it was windage and excess crank-case pressure we would have seen a rev-limit effect rather than the loss of power. We feel that the standard valve train is the cause as the hydraulic lifters will only handle 6250rpm for so long and then pump up holding the valves open. Other than that the ride was a little more "interesting" than it had been last year. Last year the track was really smooth and the car ran like it was on rails. This ride had a bit of wind in it and the track was much harsher. I fought the whole way down constantly steering back to the right in what felt like long carves with my foot on the floor .. We whipped the cowl off and gave it all a look over when we got back to marshalling, it was AOK, it sounded good we were fifteenth in line when they closed for the day. The next morning the Rev told me he thought it would be better if I made another run for 200 rather than he repeating his chute run , then he would go and if there was time have a crack at 200 himself. Anyone who shares a car will know that this was a fairly noble thing to do. At the line for the third time I reasoned that I had to get going even quicker than I had the day before, to keep the ET down and see if the difference would get me over 200 before the lifters let us down I sat at the start and really concentrated, I paced a bit with my right hand going through the gear change routine the night before the battery had given up, a motorcycle Odyssey type it was three years old, and dead .no-one had one with anywhere near the CCA we needed so the Colonel put an antenna base on the outside of the car as a hot contact so we could jump start her on the line without removing the cowl It all seemed to happen in a real hurry .one minute we were tooling about, next thing I jump in, we do the harness and then Cled waves us to the line, and signals me to go . I nail it and aim for the right hand side of the track , the motor is wailing as I go into third at about 4 and a half, I change to fourth at about 5 grand and try to settle. The wind is strong and I feel like Im crabbing .just as I hit the quarter trap my visor goes funny, like it was badly scratched, I think it may have been a bit of salt water from somewhere in the cab dripping into the air coming through the nose vent, whatever it was it meant I couldnt see the GPS, or read the tacho but I could see the track markers ..this was a pretty wild ride, I just kept my foot in it and steered her in long arcs fighting my way back to the right, in a straight line I had the steering quartered I just figured Id stay in it til the seven mile and so I did, I didnt feel the power go down like I did before but to be honest I had a bit on my plate and some of the subtleties were lost amongst the noise , vibration and hairiness (NVH) ..Somewhere between the seven and eight I hit a rough bit of track and I think I got airborne, braked momentarily and got a little out of shape and then when I couldnt see any cones I took the decision to pull off, then I saw the eight mile exit road, I lost track of that very soon after the motor roll started once and then wouldnt so I stopped I got out of the car and took my helmet off, the GPS read top speed 195mph .exactly the same as the day before, the clocks gave me an extra mile per hour, I reckon because Id topped out a little earlier ..the Rescue crew took about a minute to reach me, they wont tow or push so one of them helped me roll the car I think he was a rugby player because he was as strong as an ox, we pushed the car about 400yards at which point I said mate ,Im going to die in a second, then he ran back to the rescue vehicle and they called clear track .. I sat on the car , my adrenaline ebbing I realized wed found the limit of the motor for this year .it took about six minutes for the Troopy to catch up after various directions as to where to find me .this time towing home I sat on top of the car with the canopy open .we had managed to keep the cab completely salt free but riding it like this meant the wind blew the flick up into the cab but at least it was sort of bearable ..being towed over some of the return roads the day before had been excruciating .. As I rode back sitting like a rodeo rider it occurred to me that I drove a shorter distance to work each morning. As we pulled into marshalling again I noticed a drip of oil under the car and a smear of it coming from the front of the cowl, action stations We took of the cowl to find the front of the motor wet and the source seeming to be the front seal, where the oil pump is. The Colonel said . Its all over, pack her up I felt awful for the Rev whod handed me another drive at his expense and now we were packing up and hed had one unsatisfactory run Wed put 32 mph on our best speed from last year, we hadnt hurt the motor and we had plans for next year. It would have great to get to 200 but it was only our second year and lots of cars that had been knocking on the door got their 200 this year so it seems right that we wait We met hundreds and hundreds of people, lots of them were fans of the car and had been following these build diaries, it is very touching some of the things people come up and say, we appreciate every bit of it . The Reverend and I worked our guts out for years building this thing but there are two people particularly that we need to point out have been instrumental. The Colonel makes it all work, keeps our feet on the ground and provides a necessary balance in the team between our personalities . Pete (PJQ) is our immaculate transport, he is there providing support and anticipates everything, we couldnt do what we did without him and Im never sure how to thank him. We left first thing Friday and drove for thirteen hours, for thirteen hundred kilometers to my brothers house, we got home to Melbourne at 11am Saturday
As usual, a great read, and whilst I do know the pain, it is bittersweet. 1. get some taller rear tyres, and/or more gearing. 2. that extra 35mph might not feel like much on paper, but a great achievement considering the few runs you've actually had, many others have struggled chasing those last few mph, just look at the Moe boys as an example, and they kick butt. 3. How'd everyone else go? Stan (Bob) and the boys? Cheers, and thanks again for the great read, Drewfus
Hiya Drew, Bob ran 204 plus in Don Hudson's Cutlass...results are here http://www.dlra.org.au/2010.htm I'll try and get some photo's up soon.
Just to bring this back to top, for the tank photo's look here.....great stuff http://twixt-two-wheels.jalbum.net/Spirit%20of%20Sunshine/ Cheers, Drewfus
Hey Stu, Dik, Great work guys, it looks the goods. Sounds like you had a great time at the salt, haven't spoken with Pete since, but he keeps filling me in on your progress. Cheers Kyle
Thanks Kyle that means something coming from a guywho's donated skin to the cause, I need to talk to Ryan as I have a Telecaster that requires some pin-striping.... why you no been to Gairdner lately?
Here's some shots that have come in from Frank Kletschkus ( http://frankkletschkus.moonfruit.com/#/speed/4533837790 ) ....on his site are some absolute beauties.... these are all light-hearted....hey we can never be accused of taking this all too seriously....... On the Sunday after a big downpour on the Saturday night , up to when the lake was dry as a witch's tit, lucky thing though was the salt was still as hard as concrete...at this point there was about 3/16ths of an inch of water running away from you in the picture..... Packing the 'chute, the Rev, Nigel, the Colonel and ...hey if I hadn't them out you'd be able to see my tonsils..... Laundry hung out to dry on the return road..... Heading back to the pit , the Rev as beast of burden,Nigel Begg riding , Dr Goggles in undies on the push bike and Big Gaz( Aussie Jaguar build) in the DLRA top. Next we're on the line , The Reverend tucking me in....That's Cled Davies our starter and new Pres and PJQ our immaculate transport and good friend... On the way back on the return road from the eight mile, it's a long trip ( and, I have to tell you a darn sight more comfortable riding like this)and one tends to get a little peckish, those are barbecue shapes. Next we have a moment in the pit when after driving back on the return road I was sure I could hear a clatter, when we started it again at the marshalling area she was missing badly, at that point the Colonel said "turn it off I can see something hitting the cover, right there!"....we waited til they closed the track for the day so at least we had a spot in the line then headed back to the pit.....here we have us all looking on while the Colonel does a little Zen thing with his eyes closed as we wait to see what was revealed ....turns out the rocker stud had just undone itself, no damage other than a little swarf.....phew Looking straight down the gullet, not much room for anything else in that engine bay, striping by Ryan Ford.......... Thanks for the T-shirts Stainless,that's me the Colonel and the Rev' The Rev may well have been nodding attentively at this point but I pretty sure whatever I was saying would have come out as "mmmmmmble oomph blllblllrdd "...just like anyone talking fast with a helmet on and the visor down...... the hand motions are critical.
Been busy the last few weeks with organising some parts from the US and buying some heads for the motor... The Torsen centre I bought is sitting in Arizona with Bill "Sparky" Smith, he's marshalling a housing and some 2.41:1 and 2.56:1 gear sets and will take 'em to Bonneville where some mates of ours will bring them home....then we'll swap our Ford axle tubes onto the 10bolt pumpkin, and slip in the 28 spline Ford axles I just got on Fleabay for 50 bucks. Yesterday I bought a pair of stage three heads, whopping valves, roller rockers, a rocker girdle , O-ringed with a pretty greedy porting job where the short turn radius has been hoed out.. Our bet is they were built for a turboed motor , we don't need much bottom end so they'll be good for us and still good when we go to a blower. So this year it fell over at 6275rpm with the lifters pumping up or collapsing we aren't sure ....so we'll be checking on the oil pressure relief and adding another vac-u-pan AND drain backs for the rocker covers.If we see 7000rpm with the current rear end we'll be just over 210mph, when we go to the 2.56:1 diff that would be in the high 220's, with the 2.41 it would be around 240...that is presuming no wheel slip . The real issue this year was that we were only putting on 12mph/per mile.....if we gear it up we need to increase the power to maintain that figure or better, these heads might be just the thing...
Hi all, here's a new video that Scotty Taylor edited from footage he shot at the tanks first year out in 2009. Yeah it's running like a bag of shit off the line, but it gets up and goes by the 3 mile. Scotty sold us the bottom end that we have in the car now , he used to run it with a turbo on the quarter mile. I've been really busy trying to sort out what we're going to use for rockers and solid lifters with our new heads...it's taken a while but I'm getting there....anyway here's the vid.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQtW-eMPnto
The Jalopy Journal
