I've followed this years bonneville racing more than I ever have and I'm getting a little intrigued. always have been I guess, but I'm looking around at classes and records and have a couple questions... first off, I looked at the records in the vintage category and noticed the engine records don't seem to go below the H class. is there a reason for that?? next question, what are the rules on the XO class as far as eligibility. do they have to be specifically "passenger car" engines? what do you do if you come up with a big inline six that's larger than the 375 limit of XXO?? guess I should pick up a rulebook if it's only for the case of "bathroom reading" lol
It runs with it's cubic in class. For yor example it would be a "B". XO engines are not specific to passenger cars, some light truck engines are allowed depending on there year of manufacture. Not too many I, J, & K displacement engines were available in vintage catagory vehicles. There was a time when if the interest was shown and 3 entries arrived a class for them would be considered. Current Rules books are the best info and contain who to call with specific questions.
I was looking at some pretty interesting "big" straight 6 engines from old gas powered buses. something like a hall scott. sure it weighs over a ton, but it's also 1000+ cubes with a factory cross flow head! would be cool if there was a "XX" unlimited type class lol. okay, guess i'm not understanding the vintage classes. i thought the vintage class was just defining pre 38 bodies. The standard letter classes I-AA were for any engine. say, for instance the guys running flathead v8's in vintage roadster classes with 27 ford bodies. just wondering if I could grab a cheap motorcycle engine, drop it into a 27 body and go racing in a class that has no record listed.
Been done , people jumped on that right away when the RMR class came back a few years ago , a few did well with the hyabusa power plant
X and XX classes are engine classes. Roadster and Vintage and Classic classes are body classes. So you have XF and XO roadster classes. Need a pre 48 design engine in a pre 35 body. But you also have all the other engine classes AA through J. So you can run a Hall-Scott in AA Roadster or a motorcycle engine as do several. Yes reading the book is the best way to get some understanding of the classes. Still confusing to someone just starting out.
Where are you looking? The record for a 'busa powered GRMR is198.105. blown on gas. Fuel unblown is 170.363. And so on. I am not going to look all of them up.
not asking you to look them up, just wondering why the scta records listed online didn't go below H classes for the 6.b vintage category. http://nebula.wsimg.com/3738e9205ea...89604A3781742F233&disposition=0&alloworigin=1
There are no engine classes below 1500cc for roadsters in the SCTA rules. Other than a Bantam or a Crossley I can't think of any cars that had such small engines. Who wants to cruise around in a 61 CID roadster? If you really wanted to build such a little motor car, you need to build a lakester or streamliner.
gotcha, that was my initial thought. as for cruising around, all these cars are dedicated race cars after all the safety requirements are met. they will never see the street so that's not really a concern. It's all about building a race car to the class you think you can do well in. I'm familiar with bike motors installed in cars after racing them for 8 years on dirt tracks. obviously not a hamb friendly way to go but, the motors are cheap, put out decent power and are very reliable. get seat time without worrying about the motor too much etc.
a good friend of mine that ran bonneville for 40 years said all the rules are not in the book and the ones that are don't apply to everybody.my advice don't build a car and show up without going to speed week in advance watching tech & talking to racers
You are right about that. But the SCTA is somewhat like the HAMB, It has at least some tradition in the vintage rules. I found out all about that in 78 when i set a record in XX/Alt with a turbo 270 GMC engine. Since nobody else had ever done that my record eventually disappeared. But, you know a tank isn't all that bad. You could do that and have competition to run against.
the bold pretty much applies to every racing series and I've run a few. lol i hear you on being different too. when I ran the bike engined mini-sprints they did a limited midget engine deal to try to get guys to advance into midget racing from the sprints. ran a 130 cube VW engine against the 73 cube bike engines. was pretty even competition as non of the 4 of us running the VW had any experience. still, I managed to win my class those two years before moving up to pavement with a bigger motor. ran that for a year and decided touring and pavement was too much money so I bought my old motor back and the car it was then installed in was really fast. went back dirt racing. all the vw guys had either quit or gone back to bike motors that year so it was just me coming back in the midget. guys accused me of cheating. I can see why, the car was hooked and I could go from last qualifying car to the lead by the first turn. still pissed they told me not to come back with it after 7 races. ran 7 races in a 22 race season I still ended up tenth in points.
I think your idea is a good one. Just your body choice needs work. Lots of small sports cars and fiberglass replicas around you could use. Jack Costella made a couple of glass Berkley bodies that went to Bonneville. I bet he still has the mold and could do another. Some guys have used Honda 600 bodies for comp coup. Maybe you could make it into altered. Or a Crossley or Bantam or what ever. Jack has made a whole fleet of small bike motored lakesters and streamliners and a couple of three wheelers that run as sidecars. Lots of things you can do. Just not a roadster. Crossleys came with a 750cc motor. Step it up.
Just FYI Rich, Morris Minors had a 948CC engine and MG Midgets had - I think- 1275 CC engines with dual carbs. Fun little cars but the Morris had a laughable top speed. Some of my cousins are at Bonneville for their first time with a vintage gas 650 CC motorcycle and ran 119 on Wednesday - I don't think a car with a motor that size would get to 119 if you pushed it off a cliff.
Well another San Jose resident built a 750 cc car that went 266.561. And the Lingua family 500 cc car went 223.971. So it just depends on how far you are willing to go with the engine and how far you are willing to stretch the definition of a "car".
When the new records from this year are all finalized in a couple of days and are posted so you can print them out I'd say print them out and print out the engine size/ body style class listing and start coming up with something that has possibilities. Rich has been at this so long that I think I have photos I took of his car when I was there last. He pretty well knows the ins and outs as well as anyone around. While listening to the landracing dot com broadcast the other day and waiting for the Virginia Hamb truck to run I started trying to figure out what could be done with a little OT engine I have out her in a car that I got nailed by a dump truck in. I found out that there is a class that it might possibly have a chance to be competitive in if I had my niece's hubby who runs a tuner shop breathe on it a bit. It sure wouldn't be Hamb friendly by any stretch but it could be competitive in that class.
Yeah, 750cc bike motors are a bit different than the car engines of yesterday. 140hp stock in a tiny package that includes transmission! Strap me in that sausage casing full of a spicey mix of 4 wheels engine and driver! Sent from my SM-G965U using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
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