Dry Lakes Racers Australia

Still pushing on, most of the hit list stuff is done, even managed to DIY screen print a few T shirts for our fan club (our kids/grandkids).

Right now the hudson has still not moved under its own power. Key items such as putting in the tail shaft has been slowing this down. The clutch has just been bleed and I believe even the brakes are working now!!! So if all goes to plan John and Darren will give the old Hudson a little test drive on Wednesday.
20 days till race day!!!

I got a call from Pete Hulbert regarding the timing gear improvements that he has been working on. He did a test dump of pre entered competitors into the timing system to test it out. He said there was one oddball entry - a Hudson Terrplane! You guys are already raising eyebrows. See you on the lake. BTW - why are the brakes working and the tailshaft isn't - priorities!

Funny, our list is a virtual copy and our brakes are working but won't get a tailshaft till tomorrow.

Well good news!! the hudson drove around the parking lot today. So I guess we win with the tailshaft Chris. Still waiting for a picture from my teammates (I'm stuck away at work) but apparently it went well. And yea Lynchy, can't say I have seen too many 36 terraplanes around, i'm sure someone will get upset with us one day when they see what weve done to it. It was this or a chevy nova. Nova would have been easier, but this is better!!

So yes our tail shaft is in. If you look back to the start of the build you'll see we used a complete IRS rear end from a 2016 commodore, a bargain at $300 bucks only done 8000kms. Well the new cars use these rubber couplings instead of a traditional uni joint. Our tail shaft guy recommended we get rid of them so we made an adaptor to a 1350 uni.

Yep, just one final bill to add to the pile. Pays to ask the tailshaft guy the safe and the critical speeds your shaft is safe to. Ours is safe to 7860rpm with a critical speed of 9000rpm where it will explode.

Well we are now down to 2 weeks before race day. The hudson is pretty much done (for this year) its looking good I reckon. Last week we had the wheel alignment done. Balanced the left to right weights up and put a bit more lead up the front. Close to 50/50 weight distribution and the CoG is close to 300mm in front of our theoretical center of pressure. But who knows where the COP is really with those big curvy fenders. We have more plans to increase stability but that's going to have to wait till next year.

The lads loaded it up in the trailer today to see if it fits and how it tows. And how much room we have left for all our other crap. They seem to think they should be right for the 2200 km drive. They plan on leaving earlyish with a bit of fat in the schedule, I'll still be out of the country when they head off, so i'll do a bit of a cannon ball with my old man in the orange special bus and do my best to make it for sundays kick off.

So this week's plan is to put the hudson on the chassis dyno around the corner and run the car through the gears. Hopefully nothing else major emerges on the list of jobs to do. Its getting a bit late in the day. I would have liked to have made some covers for the spare wheel wells in the front fenders but ran out of time to learn how to use an english wheel this year. Least they look like they have a purpose with the pipes sticking out.

cheers

The concept and reality, it's come along way, still further to go. 9 months since we bought the car.

this is a truly inspirational build....... awesome work guys and look forward to seeing this in the flesh

Ditto from me, you blokes have done a top job with this project, I too am looking forward to seeing it.

Cheers
Dave

Well done guys. It will look fantastic on the salt.
Safe travels.

Great work guys can't wait to see it moving in anger!

got that "Just truckin thru at speed" stance to it ,, ya done well fellas

Well done guys, I am not sure which class you are entering, but are headlights allowed to be removed ? The photos with and without seem so drastically different. Good luck at the lake.

Classic Altered, I'm fairly sure we are allowed to remove them.

And cheers everyone, still not there yet but fingers crossed we make a run each this year.

Gus,
There will be ample opportunity for essentially unlimited runs on Track 2. It's always busy Monday and Tuesday but by Wednesday things start to settle down as more people have either blown up, run out of spares or realised they won't go any faster and the queuing times reduce significantly. By Thursday on Track 2 we are struggling to find competitors, especially in the afternoon and on Friday it's pretty much over. Track 2 is closed and Track 1 is very quiet, last year there were only 18 runs on Friday. If you can keep the car running you can run all week. So by then you and your mates, barring unforeseen circumstance, will have done your 125 and 150 mph licence passes and be qualified to run on the long course.

To get the best bang for your buck you will have to get out of bed early and be in line ready to run well before 0800 every day. It's Speedweek, not a holiday! At the end of each run, get your work on the car in the pits done asap and get back to the start line queue straight away. You can relax there, just remember to bring shade, water and food with you. If anything needs to be done after your last run for the day, do it before you leave the salt at sundown. You can use the one hour lunch break too. There's no point wasting valuable time, we only get four and a half days a year to run.

Cheers
Dave