Mangalore!!

[Graeme H]

What a great Day
For a "newby" it was great to meet some of the people I have only talked to via this forum.
The Day was hot (33C) reasonably windy.
2 intrepid teams from S.A. even made the trip over.

Animal had the jocks out.

A great day all round
All I need was something to run!!

Hopefully there will be another day before the 2008 event so I can get my bikes there for a shake down.
I have attached some pics from the day
Well done to all those who made this happen
Graeme
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[Graeme H]

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[SPOOK]

I too had a great time at Mangalore,discovered magneto is crook and has to be repaired but the main thing is that this venue I believe after talking to Rod Hadfield could be hired by the club on 3 or 4 times a year for tuning purposes. There would be a charge but I am sure all members would be happy to contribute. A big thanks to Norm for hiring the airstrip this time even thought he did not get a chance to run his own car. Cheers Spook

[David Leikvold]

Come on Doc, don't leave us in suspenders, how did the lakester go? Can you steer it, can you stop it, does it overheat, is it as fast as it looks, is it fun?

[Dr Goggles]

Yes , No , No , Yes and F#$% YEAH

http://www.landracing.com/forum/index.p ... 4.html#new

I'll put a post on "Commodore Valubles" soon...

[David Leikvold]

Doc, if Mangalore ever becomes Australia's Maxton you might like to consider some front disc brakes, there's plenty of room in there. The throttle stays flat much longer when you know you can stop. Good to see you found lots of little glitches when they don't matter so much. It should be a real weapon by March.

[momec]

Well done guys. Good to see the tank(her name being?) make her maiden voyage.
Hope we can organise more Mangalore mile days even only with a radar it will be worthwhile for the R&D.
Chris

[Dr Goggles]

Doc, if Mangalore ever becomes Australia's Maxton you might like to consider some front disc brakes, there's plenty of room in there. The throttle stays flat much longer when you know you can stop. Good to see you found lots of little glitches when they don't matter so much. It should be a real weapon by March.

there's room for the rotors but we'd have to find room for the booster and that's not anywhere forward of the firewall , and more than likely not in the engine bay either , um little short of room in the tail after the 'chute goes in so we might have to tow a trailer

we had a chat about the gearshift yesterday and we might go to two sticks so we can avoid the side to side movement that the present shifter has.

The car is back on the high stands , it copped some pretty heavy blows under the front , it doesn't matter because the whole floor is 5mm steel and then there is a 3mm Al skin under that .The ride height is lower at the front and that coupled with the slight spring in the tube axle meant that she bottomed out a few times . At one stage the Rev went past the end of the taxi-way where we were all standing and he had all four wheels about 100mm in the air ...that's a decent whack when you come back to earth with no padding on the seat...after my second run I said to someone " I feel like I've been lying on the ground with ten blokes kicking me"....my thighs are still sore today....I'm gonna be doing squats til March just to get the little legs a bit stronger.....

here's another shot
Colonel Grumm and the Hadfields..and the tank with it's shirt off

[Greg Watters]

Big Thanks to Norm for putting this day together

Good to get out and feel the speed again.

Great to see the bellytank underway after reading and hearing so much about it during the build
I'm sure yours is not the only one with scrapes underneath, that runway was a little rough

There was more than a little spirit of the salt out there with the couple of cars that could cope with the rough track flying by ,
I had a great day and i saw a lot of other grinning faces too

[PJQ2]

Few more shots from a great Salt Teaser...





One for the Sponsor...




Guess who's back with a BIGGER trumpet...


Real bugger to hear about Norm's fire the day before. Put the car out of action and wrecked his shed.

[Reverend Hedgash]

Fantastic day, went over to the shed yesterday and both of us were still smiling about it.

Three things that were in the back of my mind that needed to be proven on the car were the steering, vibration issues (after witnessing Wazavoodoo's short season in 2004) and engine issues at high revs.

The steering was very good in that it wanted to go in a straight line and any adjustment was responsive in a very predictable and positive way. The turning circle was large as expected but small enough to be able to U-turn on the runway without assistance or going over onto the gravel which is probably the ideal balance. Looks like a grader turning the way they fold over with the 30 degree castor! Our new front hubs (from Hoppers Stoppers who gave us a DLRA member discount!) proved them selves happily true too.

Good news about vibration is that there wasn't any discernable. The VN V6 is stock and hasn't been blueprinted or anything, just a minor porting by the Colonel and an extra throttle slapped on. (I am sure if we used our original option of the Buick V6 it would have been less smooth as it doesn't have the balanced shaft or roller rockers as standard..)

At high rev's it just wanted to keep going (as did we) but knowing there was an end to the track with an active runway going crossways with planes landing made us keep the horses in the back paddock until March. No fuel starvation issues were apparent so our plumbing, anti cavitation tank, fast flow filter and pump were all up to scratch.

It also sounded great! Definately a V6 with that odd rhythm but with a lovely mean note which someone described like an old prop plane which I kind of liked.

It therefore passed the major tests we needed.

Things we need to look into:

As mentioned by the Doc, gear selection, fumes getting into the cabin, and brakes (not such an issue at Gairdner!).

Getting in and out of the car was a bit of a squeeze (both of us putting on weight...) and so a seat redesign is in order.

Simple things like practicing the technique of getting the seatbelts on and correctly adjusted so that we don't have to be getting too in our race suit and thermals and can concentrate on the run more.

We also learnt a bit about just getting the car on and off the trailer which will help our trailer design still on the drawing board.


On Mangalore:

The track itself is probably about as perfect as you would want for a test day. It is long and smooth enough to check all that you'd want to check, but short enough (and rough enough) so that it isn't about setting records. "Self Limiting" was the term Steve Barnett used when I described it to him and I think that's a perfect description of the site.

I think this is an important point that if we continue with Mangalore (and I absolutely think we should) that it is seen as a test day only and for DLRA members only. Otherwise we'll have every dickhead with their off the shelf fast car out there doing burnouts very quickly, insurance problems, and worse waiting queues of gawd knows how long.

As it was it was a very friendly day of have a fiddle, take it out for a trundle and see if it worked come back for a blurt and another twiddle.

Thanks so much for all involved in organising the day, especially Norm who I am sure will surpass the current teething pains.

Reverend H+
EGL Mangalore 132kph (in third)

[Dr Goggles]

Reverend H+
EGL Mangalore 132kph (in third)

[momec]

Doctor a booster is not required for effective brakes. You only need to match the master cylinder size to your application and increase the pedal lever ratio as required. Very few real race cars have boosters, thats a road car thing more so.
Chris
PS great shot of the tank(whats her name) at speed

[Dr Goggles]

Doctor a booster is not required for effective brakes. You only need to match the master cylinder size to your application and increase the pedal lever ratio as required. Very few real race cars have boosters, thats a road car thing more so.
Chris

thing is the brake master at the moment is a trailer M/cyl and thats about all we have room for without a major redesign ...a booster would make it easy....but you're right . I reckon next time we run Mangalore we'll set up a tail-hook and just go flat knacker til the rope pulls us up....leave some nice eyeball prints on the visor.

[Reverend Hedgash]

Tanks working title name is;

the "Spirit of Sunshine"