wheel size

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Dr Goggles
Posts: 1315
Joined: Tue Jul 05, 2005 11:23 pm
Location: Right behind you Chief !

good thinking 99

Post by Dr Goggles »

............Jack Dolan always says READ THE RULE BOOK and he doesn't mean "in case' you break the rules" he means because it is full of holes.Wheel covers are a great example , a water spray with Meth' added for an inlet cooler is another one( Broughan brothers) , fuel class!! We've already had a tinker with the "cycle style "guards idea but ultimately we'd like to make a one piece drop on 'glass or CRP body kind of like a Le Mans racer to put us in (and hopefully run well ) streamliner class....have you seen the "StreetLiner? or either of the Mal Hooper streamliners from the sixties? Dean Batchelor drew them and they were gorgeous 8) 8) 8) 8)

Our fire systems came ( as sponsorship) from Graeme Millard's company Gem Fire systems and are american "Cold Fire" designed units....when Graeme saw the way our exhaust snaked it's way through the body of the car (in an effort to heat the whole thing up to dangerous levels just because we wanted to send it out the tip of the tail)he suggested a solenoid to allow us to dump one of the canisters into the tail to cool the fuel tank area near the end of a run....so many great ideas , so little money , and even less time :roll:


Dave L wrote:" attention-getting situation "...ha ha ,I showed the car to a friend who is an Ambo' today...he was gobsmacked and understood my disappointment when I related John Broughan's comment about our car's chassis rigidity , lack of suspension , extreme castor and moderate power level and how he'd be very surprised if we could even deliberately make it "step out"

have to go and watch Top Gear now..............
...few understand what I'm trying to do , but they vastly outnumber those who understand why..
David Leikvold
Posts: 981
Joined: Mon Apr 16, 2007 11:57 pm
Location: Brisbane

hot under the collar

Post by David Leikvold »

Hey Doc, I had a look at the Mal Hooper car, the one with the Bluebird style body split along the horizontal midline, it is a good looking unit. Do it! I tried to find the Streetliner but all I got was recumbent bicycles.
Now for more gratuitous and unsolicited advice. You could do a few things to fix the exhaust heat problem without having to waste extinguishant every time you ran the car. Besides, the very quick cool down would probably crack the pipes. You could Jet Hot coat the pipes, or wrap them in that insulating bandage stuff, and cut a few small vent holes in the body above the pipes. The gill-style vents on the sidepods of last year's Renault F1 car would be just about perfect. They might even help fill the low pressure area that would form behind the car and would certainly help keep the whole engine bay cooler too. If the body is fibreglass, you could line the inside of it with aluminium foil or attach a sheet aluminium heat shield around the fuel tank. If all that wasn't enough you could build an insulated cover for the fuel tank.
If you intend using a snorkel style air inlet for the engine you could put it right in front of the vents and they might almost be drag neutral if you were lucky.
Before I was into karts I raced a Formula Vee which had very adjustable castor, make sure you build plenty of castor adjustment into the car, a few degrees can make a huge difference to straight line stability and steering weight. More is not necessarily better. One more thing, why does everyone who sees your car worry about your future prospects? Just kidding, you should show it to those of us who would understand.
Good, Fast, Cheap, pick any two!
Dr Goggles
Posts: 1315
Joined: Tue Jul 05, 2005 11:23 pm
Location: Right behind you Chief !

Holler under the cot

Post by Dr Goggles »

David Leikvold wrote:Hey Doc, 1./ I had a look at the Mal Hooper car, the one with the Bluebird style body split along the horizontal midline, it is a good looking unit. Do it! I tried to find the Streetliner but all I got was recumbent bicycles.

2./ You could Jet Hot coat the pipes, or wrap them in that insulating bandage stuff, and cut a few small vent holes in the body above the pipes. The gill-style vents on the sidepods of last year's Renault F1 car would be just about perfect.

3./They might even help fill the low pressure area that would form behind the car and would certainly help keep the whole engine bay cooler too. If the body is fibreglass, you could line the inside of it with aluminium foil or

4./attach a sheet aluminium heat shield around the fuel tank. If all that wasn't enough you could build an insulated cover for the fuel tank.

5./If you intend using a snorkel style air inlet for the engine you could put it right in front of the vents and they might almost be drag neutral if you were lucky.

6./Before I was into karts I raced a Formula Vee which had very adjustable castor, make sure you build plenty of castor adjustment into the car, a few degrees can make a huge difference to straight line stability and steering weight. .


1.One of them was called the Shadoff Special , can't remember which but one was front engined the other was mid-engined, right now the Reverend has our copy of Dean Batchelor's book Dry Lakes and Drag Strips which has all three of these cars in it. Hooper also ran the Brown-Hooper tank( in our opinion one of the best looking ever) which was Hemi powered and pipped the So-Cal tank .

2./ didn't coat them but did wrap the tail pipe under the fuel-tank.There are louvres along the top of the cowl.Remember that as the fuel level falls and the exhaust pipe temp rises you've got a runaway sitch where the fuel could boil , BAD.

3./Part of the reason to send the exhaust out the rear was to aid in the taming of the turbulence behind the tail by putting hot collapsing gas into it AND avoid sending it out the side of the car where it would tear up the boundary layer .After some calculations it seems we're going to change that and send it out either side fore of the axle because it actual volume is less than we thought ( at 180 it's a 2 inch tube if you get what I mean)and we need the limited space in the tail for the chute and a better fueltank.

4./ Talked to some guys at Nizpro( turbo nuts) and after that I welded in a piece of polished aluminium sheet between the tank and exhaust to defeat radiant heat. The fuel tank is covered in Adhesive foil and building foil The body is Aluminium.

5./ DANGER Will Robinson! the calculations to get forward facing scoops right in this game aren't necessarily that complicated but beware the high speed lean-out!!!

6./Graeme Robinson who crews on John Lynch's Bellytank and has extensive drag-racing and Hot-Rod building experience built our tube axle , at his suggestion it has 30 degrees of castor . I think we're gonna need a breaker bar on the steering column to pit it :lol: :lol:

Finally , if you haven't seen it here is the link to our build diary on landracing.com where you can see photo's

http://www.landracing.com/forum/index.p ... 2.180.html

I think I've gone on long enough .....still keen Westie? :oops:
...few understand what I'm trying to do , but they vastly outnumber those who understand why..
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w3stie
Posts: 77
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 10:16 pm
Location: brisbane, australia

Post by w3stie »

I think I've gone on long enough .....still keen Westie?
_________________


I don't know what you're all talking about, but... yes :D
David Leikvold
Posts: 981
Joined: Mon Apr 16, 2007 11:57 pm
Location: Brisbane

forget I spoke!

Post by David Leikvold »

Doc, thanks for showing me the link. Your car is great, my advice looks to be entirely superfluous! Well done, I look forward to seeing it run in 2008.
W3stie, if all this confuses you make sure you come to the July meeting at Don Noble's workshop at Coopers Plains (details elsewhere in here). You'll come away knowing a lot more and meet some of the people on this forum too.
Good, Fast, Cheap, pick any two!
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