Air-Cooled Light Plane Engine in a Hot Rod?

Holy Cahones!!! I'll bet that sounds incredible "flying down the road"

 

The Lujan Bros Dragster also Lycoming powered.

 

Wow...

Cool pics.

And then there are the ( watercooled ) Hisso's and Allisons...

 

I'm noticing a theme with the aircraft engined cars, none are for street use!
You can buy a 3/4 scale Spitfire kit that uses a Jag V12 motor. Subaru motors have replaced VW motors as the choice for sport aviation, they are less prone to temperature shock.
Lets not screw around with pissy little 4 cylinders............. What has 12 cylinders, 27 liters and is the best sounding noise maker of all time?

 

P-51 or Spitfire pure Music

 

The Beast was street driven...

http://www.minifarm.eu/john_dodd.htm

 

So was Rod Hadfields 55 Chebby with a Merlin, but they are liquid cooled.
Wasn't the question about air cooled motors?? .
Did this start as an air cooled thread and I just loose the plot?
French toast please?
Doc

 

Paul Harvey had a story about that car on the radio years ago.
First time I've ever seen anything else about it. That must have sounded amazing going down the road.

 

You are right...

Aircooled.

Back to the Lycoming Spl.

It was driven on the street a lot...

 

Art Arfons used Ranger 6 engines in at least one of his dragsters.
And an ill-fated air racer called "Pond Racer" built by Burt Rutan was powered by two modified Nissan V6's.

 

Ah, yes. Performed better with the air cooling, but, as always, in the race to please consumers, efficient technology comes in last

Now, of couse, those motors are quite pricy. Also, they have a short life between they need for top end overhaul, about 2,000 hours.

Didn't Tucker get them on a tip from H. Hughes? Howard probably had a financial interest in that??

 

it starts out as a slide show then half way through there is video of him starting it up. The way I understand it, he is still building the transmission. I think it is double tough anyway you look at it.

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Pietelpol Air Camper. The way I understand, that plane was designed around Henrys cheap and plentiful A 4-banger back in the 30's. Needed a little more cooling than a stock A radiator afforded, but the little bangers had enough power for low and slow action, and didn't overdrive the prop. Many, many of these were built from the 30's right up to today.

On the original topic: If you can think it, you can do it..... but it may take a lot of help!

 

if yer gonna break the mold, BUST it; put it behind ya and run a transaxle. plenty of Vee-rods around, although how much difference a VW and a Lycoming have between them i couldn't say. like the turbo setup on the one rail, not so much the multiple carbs on the other one... synchronizing them ain't easy or fun.

 

The first motor I ever worked on was timing a model A, the next (1956) was the PW R4360-59 on Stratotankers (KC-97 Aerial Refulers). Pan America and Northwest airlines used the civilian airliner (377 Stratocruiser) version. The hardest job when changing the spark plugs was opening the cowling and removing the air-baffles to gain access. Had 4 low-tension magnetos with a coil mounted right on the cylinder for each spark plug. It had 56 rocker covers too, that leaked a lot and gaskets had to be changed pretty often. Working underneath got one soaked with oil, near day's end we would strip to our shorts, rinse our coveralls in gas and dry them out in the sun before leaving the flight line. Gas was 115/145 Octane. Hamilton Standard 4 blade propellers, hollow steel blades filled with cork. Engine Oil tank held 30-something gallons of 50 weight Non Detergent oil, turbo supercharger oil tank held around 10 gallon of 30 weight Detergent oil. Right at 5,000 BHP at full Military Power at 50 Inches-hg MP delivered by Internal supercharger and external turbocharger. External turbo also provided for cabin pressurization. etc, etc,

 

Very little difference actually. The business end is just switched.

I have a set of the original blue-prints, at one time had visions of building one. Print shows how to modify the A motor with magneto(of course, battery ignition not practical because of the weight of the battery) and carburetor air box, etc, propeller drawings, and some modifications to the oil pan.

http://www.airminded.net/piet/piet.html

 

Hhhmmmm....

 

wouldnt be any fun to tie it down , and try to drive it ....i was thinking that there would be a video of it rolling along at 10 to 20 MPH than he stomps the Go pedal and it proceeds to roll over and over until it hits something or he shuts it down..those radials have serious rotational torque..some of the early planes with those huge single row radials had some serious crashes until they figured out how to counteract the force on take of throttle..or come in slow and low than nail the throttle to do a go around, only to flip the ****er 15 feet off the deck..
cool *** project tho..and he is definetly very very talented..maybe hes taken this into conciteration

the machining and techincal know how to build that transmission is off the charts

 

^^^ now thats wierd..I didnt say what it says I said in that box up there?^^

says i posted that...

never for one minuet did i think he was on top of the safety pile for sure..it was just an observation and would like to see it really going down the road..and used on all power levels just to see how it would react

 

i hit the multi quote ****on, i didnt even look at it. sorry not tryin to mis-quote you.


I have been following his progress for some time and cannot wait to see it run down the road. I really want to see it make a six second p*** but that is not where my money is

 

I saw a sand buggy powered by a large outboard motor in Arizona several years ago. unique sound for sure. jw

 

Oh, I admire his endeavor. With his obvious skills I'm betting, from a practical viewpoint, that he has a lot of weight in that frame.

 

My question is: How the hell is he going to keep that big aircooled cooled? Yes, I see the half-dozen little electric fans and the double alternators, but there is just no subs***ute for having unobstructed, 40 to 100+ mph airflow around an engine like that. Is he only planning on drag racing/demonstrating it? If so, I retract my line of questioning. Luke

 

That is a Continental