Congratulations Goggles and crew , just been reading the spread on you guys in the SM Hot Rod Annual !!!
Thanks Fella.... check the writing credit ...it's all going to the racing budget.. Got the new cam from Wades today W A D E C A M S H A F T S P T Y L T D Profile Actuation Make/Model R/Ratio 1644a Roller Follower Holden V6 3.8 In1.6 Ex 1.6 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cam Lift Duration Duration Valve Valve Lift Phase Adv @050 Clr Lift tdc <) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Intake 361 300 249 0.016 0.5616 113 107 Exhaust 361 300 249 0.016 0.5616 098 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Timing Timing Adv @ 0.05 Open Close Open Close Exhaust 77 Bbdc 43 Atdc 53 Bbdc 16 Atdc Intake 40 Btdc 80 Abdc 19 Btdc 50 Abdc 83 35 Deg Over-lap Deg Over-lap it's ground on a fresh billet, I can see why they can't do this grind on a re-grind the lobes are big and fat..... The motor is being torn down this week. we're getting the new roller/roller rockers modified for our new series three heads, we're putting inserts in the hydraulic roller lifters to lock them solid, getting new push rods. we've bought a manual crank so we won't have to use a crank adaptor to mount the flywheel and they along with the pressure plate and balancer have gone off for balancing. Next week we get the bits from Phoenix Az that we are going to assemble our new rear end from. we have a Torsen series two centre and some 2.41:1 gears for it, 28 spline axles and a ten bolt housing. That will be next years project as this years money is going on the motor and dyno time. Also next year we will begin building our destroked motor for which we have got a Buick 181 crank, that will take us to the very top of F class, the initial idea is to build another bottom end using some longer high quality rods and some nice pistons . We have the cam from this years motor and the heads so we could use them or we could just take it as a short and run the cam and heads off the 232 when we want to change classes. Hope you're all well.
Ironically I have looked on this thread and never commented! I see a couple shots here (and that album) that I did not see on landracing.com
Great thread Guy's, love the tanker. I hope to build one someday, I know you mentioned destroking but, I'd think about trying to clean up the parasitic drag too. A round pencil sticking out in the wind has as much drag as an entire aircraft wing (something to think about). I'm not shure what the rules are but embedding your axles & links in an airfoil will most certainly reduce your drag. Additionally you might smooth the body and tape your gaps too. Good Luck, I'll be following this thread, Thanks.
All good points and something that we have spent a lot of time thinking about....just not a lot of time acting upon.There are a lot of renders of the car from the build time with nacelles on the axles. At the moment we're up against it to get the motor built, and I'm buying a tow-truck to take the car there, Pete's old diesel cruiser ain't up to or for it this year and the C30 motorhome that the Reverend has is U/S at the moment.we've done the basic clean-up on the frame and last weekend the Colonel went through the wiring.Today I'll get the wheels out and give 'em a bit of air and try and get the new steering column mount finalized. I bought a new set of injectors last night, we need a new battery amongst a heap of other stuff...but mostly we need more time.
Yup, to me the logistics and support are a bigger hurdle than building the car! I dont own a large pickup,motorhome etc and pops is getting tired of the miles we put on his!
The lake road is 100miles of punishing dirt on the way in....and then of course , on the way out. Building a car is hard, but eventually you finish that, Sadly the lake doesn't get closer or easier to access each year. I bought a Ford Trader 3litre diesel flat tray with a winch and ramps today, it'll do the bizzo.
that last 100 mile is a back breaker, especially on the way back after everyone's carved it up, not cool. Good to hear on the new towcar, get off the net and keep putting that car together.... Cheers, Drewfus
Hi All, long time no post. Well we didn't get there...which is lucky in a way because the meet was cancelled, the lake was under water. We were running way behind schedule but I did have the tank on the transporter ready to leave when the call came through...We'd been thrashing for weeks, spent three days on the dyno and found 311hp at 6300rpm...problem was it was all over by 6400. We suspect a fuel map issue and have some potential fixes in the works . The problem was that last year we ran 193 , we needed to run the motor to 6550 to get 200mph. I have just started the work to change the differential to the ten bolt that I bought last year.Then we can run a 2.56:1 centre and get 200 with about 5850, I'll get some pics of the work up soon. BTW: I'm going to be at Bonneville for Speedweek this year with a photographer, writing stories and catching up with people. No tank this year, we'll only be there for 13 days. Dr G
I'll be catching up with a mate down from Milwaukee there , he's 6 foot 5 , I'll be the little guy with those two.... anyway I gather you're expecting something pretty substantial Boris........got those matching pedal Ramblers finished yet?
Hey I posted this elsewhere but this is the site that it sort of belongs on....I've been busy sorting out the ten bolt conversion for our rear and have been hard pressed to work out how I was going to get the axles tubes out of the Ten bolt housing so I can transplant it in to the tank.....man, the plug welds they hold them in with are made from some seriously hard shit....We want to keep the Ford axles and brakes but change the centre to a Torsen 7.5 inch ten bolt ....I have bought some hollow bar and am going to use it to replace the axle tube in the ten bolt and slide it into the Ford tubes which remain as part of the car...that will give me the necessary "wobble room" to align the pinion as the height is different and the crown wheel centre-line is too.So, Went to the machine shop, no worries! ..."We can do that"....on the way out I see what looks like 2/3rds of a car...." what are you doing with that?"........"Oh I wish it'd go to the tip, it's the boss's"... "er how much does he want for it?" to cut a long story short I drove home( seeings how I just happened to be in a TOW-TRUCK) with a Ford Prefect missing the firewall and front bodywork back to the middle of the roof $300.... Just to refresh the memory We have this sitting in my back yard.... I was going to use a Prefect front end....this one has everything... and a tiny little diff..... Except for the odd nut and bolt It's complete from the floor down.....So....I have the front end needed for the little rust racer, the rear end , four wheels, suspension ,steering , brakes( yes cable brakes)..... The original idea was to build a small tube chassis......hmmmm, but now I have one I can narrow a lot and shorten a little....check out the cute little steering box. . I have to confess we stood there staring at it for a while and thought "oooooh, what about a speedster body".......but I'm a tank guy, I have a tank, that's what's gonna happen......
Dr G, I've seen this on Landracing.com and never get tired of it! Very cool build! Hope to meet you on the salt.
I got back from Bonneville( yep, my first time) and after seeing the little 165gal tank that was getting around decided to get off my arse and get started on the Sprite of Sunshine. I unbolted the spring perches first on the front, then the rear...not much holding these little cars together.... I grabbed a piece of angle iron and roughed out the wheelbase.... I clamped the front and rear radius rods together as , conveniently, they were just at the right point... I popped half of the tank on top for a look see...hmmm, not too shabby Next, I had to separate the rails, heavy duty chassis this, almost needed both hands to lift it, just kidding. The instructions I had for "constructing a tank-racer using a Ford 10 type chassis and Sea-Fury auxillary tank" suggested reversing the rails.... It's hard to believe that there wasn't some sort of cooperation between the two manufacturers as the way the rails follow the tank when laid in ass first is uncanny..... Another angle With the rails laid on like that I went round with a tape( no it's not mine I borrowed it from an anally retentive friend)....uncannily it was 180mm all round, like, der who thought this was going to be complicated.... Anyway rushing along, I had a look at the two perches and decided I'd use the rear as it was a little flatter I notched the front of the rails I haven't got any oxy acet bottles at home so I called up the Professor and we used the hot wrench to bend the little radius rods after I'd cut them leaving enough forging in the end to drill and tap a 7/16 unf hole for a rod end This is a shot of the pinion on the little Prefect diff, the mount holes for the torque tube will serve to mount a plate so I can support the opposite side of the chain drive from the primary on the motorbike engine I'm going to use, I'll have to extend the primary so that the chain will clear the crankcase, thus it will need to be supported or it won't last long. I'm using a 250 V-Twin Honda, I'll mount the crank line on the centre-line of the car, then step across from the primary to a cog on the pinion, we'll probably go 1:1 for starters as the bike runs a 14/41 and the Prefect diff likely wouldn't be under 4:1( haven't bothered workin it out yet) Rear suspension isn't in the picture here, literally AND figuratively the rear is going to be solid, so I took the spring off and removed the radius rods. The radius rods were mounted to the hubs but they will be shortened and flown from the old shock mounts that can be seen on the axle. <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} </style> <![endif]-->
Thanks guys. How did you go at Bonneville big fella? It was great to meet you and your Pa, car looked great too. I had the greatest time....big plans!
Whoops, missed this post from a few months back. Yep, two little bundles of joy, which brings the tally up to FOUR. One boy and three girls... seriously outnumbered now! LOL Can't wait to see the pics from B'ville. I've been chatting to Davo about the trip. He reckons you were treated as some kind of God-like creature while you were there.
Dr Goggles, it was a pleasure meeting and chatting with you on the salt! Hopefully, we can do it again, over beer or cocktails. I love this tank build your doing, and can't wait to see the progress.
Funny you should mention that Buddy, One of Simon's( the photographer I was traveling with)first job's was getting a bottle of Don Julio Tequila , we found that a medium size shaved ice from the little trailer next to track one with (funnily enough) Margarita flavour and a slug of the Julio made for a great breakfast juice.I owe Stainless a few beers, Tman when I come back I will have the most obscure boutique brewed beer to wave under your beak and Rex? it's your turn to go to the ice trailer. I donated a bottle of Jamesons irish whiskey to the White Goose Bar and got the feeling they thought it was a pretty flash gesture......hey it was less than half of what we pay for it here!......cheap beer, cheap whiskey...a man could get himself into trouble. And Brootal, I'd been corresponding with a few different characters and keeping the Australian bellytank build diary over at landracing.com updated pretty constantly so I had a few people to meet. Two of the highlights were meeting Glenn Freudenberger( Freud) and then in San Diego after Speedweek we caught up with Jack Dolan, who is very unwell but was a great help and encouragement to us early in the build of the bellytank. He has a whole hilarious history of his own in landspeed racing , records with Vesco and many others but mostly as a smart shitstirrer. It was an astounding fortnight, once again, and unexpectedly, my life has changed.
Best of 140 on the exit of the 3 (GPS, they don't give us guys running the short course exit speeds like the fast guys get at the 5). Not bad figuring we started the event with a 100 MPH pass. Plans are for a little more aero work, a trans that has gears closer together than the moons of Jupiter and a bit more power (flat tops at least, if it's in the budget Wossner has pistons for it @ 13.2:1 ). Good to meet you too, sounds like the trip was a success, hope to see you again, if not next year, then in years to come.
Just found this thread and found it very informative. The H.A.M.B. Plastic Model Builders are doing a group build called on the salt, pre '64. I want to build a belly tanker, but really don't know much about them, especially pre '64. I've tried to do research on them, roll cages, safety equipment, and such. I must be looking in the wrong places, because I haven't found much. One of the things I was curious about was suspension. Since lightness is hp, I considered making it unsprung. I'm glad to see that you successfully did that. Why is the second one going to be sprung? Speaking of weight, how much does your's weigh? No pun intended, but it's built like a tank! I presume a pre '64 would have a lot less survival cage. Could you post better pixs of the canopy releases? This is an area that I was worried about also. Thanks for you story, pixs, and any help. Don
Be looking forward to that beer! BTW, got my lakester framerails laid out yesterday. Talk about 10# of crap in a 5# bag!
i have enjoyed the thread and the belly tank construction pictures.. so many of them tanks where dropped and iv not seen one around here ever.. good luck on your tanks guys. chris.
We've got some blow moulds in 1:10 scale, we built some models during construction and did send some to modellers but we have never built a replica of the car as it is Ask away, the builds have followed the SCTA rules pretty much, as they've become more comprehensive so have the cages and safety systems. The brief/motive for the two tanks is completely different. The Spirit is a race car, we liked trad lines but we wanted to draw on some current thinking and the successful ideas that have been used since the fifties . There are many arguments abvout suspension, my general feeling is you should only use something if you can prove it will work. I kept seeing suspension that was screwed down so hard it didn't function properly, if it doesn't have a response rate capable of following the track it is a hindrance. MAny of the fastest cars use no suspension, many of them do. We don't because it simplified things and gave a cleaner shape, on a good track the car feels like you are on the freeway at 60mph, unfussed , very smooth. The Sprite is a hot rod, I am using a WW2 tank, a 1940 chassis and a V-twin from a late model bike, because it is available, if you don't use a unit combo there isn't enough room in these tanks. I'm using the front suspension because I have it, it looks good ...... Dunno , I reckon around a tonne or so, but when we built it other owners/builder told us to use the heaviest plate we could afford because by the time it was finished we wouldn't have room to put ballast in it, the floor is 1/4 inch so is the flywall and the scatter-shield, the rear superstructure is 1/2 inch plate. We used tailgate catches from a Ford Station wagon, one on each side of the canopy, the release is a door handle which pulls cables running through a piece of bundy tube. Hey T-man keep enough room for another 5lbs, the expected minimum is 15lb in a 5lb bag now.......
Goggles, I just found room for 13 more pounds! Dont ask me how I did it because there was beer involved!?!?! I think it involves bacon fat and a shoehorn!
The Jalopy Journal
