Projects Berkeley tune up In AK

Okay, so a bit more than 'a few minutes'.

I got the injector ***embly off yesterday and I had to see how it looked with all 4 new stacks in it.



Shiney X4.

Of course the 'high fiber' gasket was somewhat of a surprise.



All kidding aside, I supose I should credit whomever with insulating the injector ***ebly from heat transfer, as it is thicker than normal gasket material.

 

Very cool!

Reminds me of a Modified Sports cl*** car that ran at B'ville in the early 90s:


Click thumbnails to enlarge

 

Could be, the PO said he'd been running it for 28 years (IIRC).

That sure looks like the push bar on the back of the car. But we don't have a parachute on ours (yet).

Do you remember where that one was heaquartered?

Edit:

Oh yeah, it would have likely been motorcycle powered at that point, if it's the same car.

I don't recognise what appears to be the cl*** designation (AS-1) on the front fender in the pic of it on the trailer though.

 

ne**ussian ... although I agree that it really looks like "AS-1" in the third photo, it's actually "MS-I" [for Modified Sports - engine cl*** I (46 thru 61 cubic inches ... or 0.76 to 1.00 liters)].

The 43rd Annual Bonneville Speed Week (1991) Official Program lists entry #580 as:

"Rocinante"
Car: 1956 Berkeley
Engine: 1000cc Kawasaki
Owner: Charles Hornbrook, Ozark, MO
Crew: Hornbrook, Englert, Pike, White, Hornbrook & Hornbrook

... and the 44th Annual Bonneville Speed Week (1992) Official Program lists entry #580 as:

"Hornbrook Rocinante"
Car: 1956 Berkeley
Engine: 996cc Kawasaki Ninja
Owner/Driver: Charles Hornbrook
Alternate Driver: Marc Hornbrook
Crew: Hornbrook, Englert, Pike, White, Hornbrook & Hornbrook

 

This thread gives me the horn...

 

Here's a pick of that same '56 Berkeley at the 53rd Annual Bonneville Speed Week (2001):



Entry #1580 ran in G/GMS cl*** with a prototype 2.0L Citroen engine ...

 

Somewhat related ...

Here's a video from the ****pit of a highly modified '59 Berkeley Roadster making a 240+ mph
p*** on the salt in 2005:

<EMBED src=http://www.youtube.com/v/krHXTTMn-Nk&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0 width=640 height=505 type=application/x-shockwave-flash allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always"></EMBED>


... and here it is at Speed Week 2008 ... where it set a new AA/BMS record of 298.983 mph:







"Bonner's Bad Berkeley" is a 1959 Berkeley sports car powered by a supercharged 540ci Donovan, and that puts it in the
AA/Blown Gas Modified Sports cl***. Owned and driven by (Univ of AZ) Professor Bonner Denton, it set a new record
of 298.983 mph ... besting his own 2002 record of 254.136. Bonner's fastest one-way run clocked 310.398 mph.

 

Okay Erik - 310.398 is your number to beat. No sweat, with you and Sid engineering and all of us cheering you on...
Keep us updated, okay?
Scotty

 

Trying this again, anybody notice the HAMB go down yesterday; or is it just my crummy ISP? Again!

Yeah...310+ is all?

Maybe if I had some of the rockets off the sled the Mythbusters were using recently.

Although, they were solid fuel, so no shuttin' 'em off once they're lit.


I have the injector ***embly partially torn down, and I'm going to have to pull the stubs out of the head plate to see if I can turn them over as the nozzles p*** though the mount stubs, couldn't see that with it ***embled.

Not complaining, it's as it should be (mount end of the tube p***ing to the register step in the castings).

I'll post pics once I get them uploaded.


Yes, Charles Hornbrook is the guy Dad bought the car from. I don't advertise that as I have seen way too many threads (here and elsewhere) that people identify whom it was they got their current project from and it gets wierd.

It turns into some people trying to nit pic every sylable that whomever is working on it currently says, like they are putting the PO down or something. I have the utmost respect for Charlie, he did an amazing amount with what he was able to come up with. By no means a '1-800' racer.

'Citroen Prototype' is the story Pops got when he bought it. It's an XU10 bottom end with an XU9 top end on it.

If you want to know more, about the engine, there's an ongoing thread about it on Aussifrogs .

I post that link as the engine really is OT for here, I posted orriginally as I needed (and recieved) help figuring out what it was.

Thank you again.

I went there as that was the place the info on the engine was available (they were sharing it freely, I have to expect other people know too but I didn't find them or they weren't sharing ).

I mentioned at the start of this post that this was the second try. Fortunately for me I copied it before I tried to post.

I have pictures uploading, if this post works, I'll post a few pics momentarily.

 

Sweet, success usually is.

So pictures I promise and here they are.

First is the intake adapter or 'stub plate' (I hesitate to call it a 'manifold'). This is before I pulled the stubs out.



The plate is kind of dirty here and you can see the epoxy at the joint between the stubs and the plate. I was somewhat dispariging about said epoxy, till I tried to remove the stubs. Took me a torch and a chain wrench. Gooood epoxy.

I have yet to take a pictures of the individual stubs or the plate now that I have cleaned it up some ( I Alodined it last night, not the most even coat, but I'm planning on painting this so no biggie).

Here's the throttle ***embly, from the end that goes over the stubs.



I was trying to get the camera to use the flash, so you could more easily see the o rings there to seal the throttle housings to the stubs, but no dice (I should have turned the overhead light off, but didn't think of that at the time). I tried lightening it up with the photobuckt tools, but I kept screwing it up.

If you look to either side of the reciever bore you can see the o rings (sort of). The stubs do fit all the way to the steped shoulder of the bore and if you have good eyes or maybe a better hand with photo editing software than I am demonstrating today, you can see the ports the injector nozzles come through that match the eliptical holes in the stubs.

 

Okay, as I promised earlier today, better pictures (note to self: if trying to take a flash photo of a recessed feature, turn off the overhead light ).

So here is a better shot of one of the throttle castings complete with the o ring and the nozzle bore.



I tried taking a pic of the adapter stubs where they go into the throttle housings, to show the surface finish, yeah, that didn't work. Pics came out but surface finish? No dice (shoulda known).

The stubs are turned down to fit these throttle housings, but they were left as machined. I'm not worried about the quality of seal (in this case) I am more concerned about needing to work on this in the car and having to reef too hard to move it and breaking something.

So I took some sandpaper and knocked the tops off of the finish, didn't take long, but it goes together easier now.

I also have a picture of the intake plate now that it's been Aodined. Not 'world cl***' or perfect, but epoxy and paint should stick nicely.



You'll likely notice I didn't remove all the marks, they don't bother me as the gasket surface is away from the camera, and you'll likely never see them on the car (and we have what 112 days left? And more stuff left to do than I care to think of at the moment).

Kepping on keeping on.

 

More.

Here's the plate and stubs with the nozzle bores visible and a fresh coat of Alodine on all.



I decided to put the ***embly back together with epoxy (between the stubs and the plate).

So in this photo the epoxy is curing.



That's a sheet of wax paper to keep the epoxy from bonding the stub plate to the head.

If you look close you can see the reflection of the inside of the stub through the nozzle bore of the 2nd throttle boddy from the left.

FWIW on this (OT for this board) engine that's cylinder #3 (yes I know).

 

I have a pic I can't get to upload, of 1 of the stubs epoxied into the plate. Why 1? because the other 3 didn't stick.

1 out of 4 is terrible.

So I went back with JB weld. It's too runny to do on the engine so I had to ***emble it with the stubs vertical.

I had it on a piece of waxed paper and puckeyed the ID of the bores in the plate and the OD of the stubs then pushed the stubs through the JB with the TBs on (for alignment).



I peeled the waxed paper in the pic off immediately before puting it on a waxed paper covered box in front of the heater. That way I didn't have as big of an epoxy 'donut' to remove from inside the stub.

It appears to be holding.

I removed the excess off the gasket surface with a flat file and the minor donuts with a half round.

Work progresses.

 

More pictueres, not a whole lot of progress today, but here's a shot of the top of the injector ***embly with the support straps on and new hardware (o rings and screws).

 

Erik - Glad you're posting the progress on here. One thing I hate about this project - it isn't mine! I love this car...

 

Yeah, we have a lot of interest all over. I have to remember that alot of the detail work doesn't necessarily show.

I had hoped to get the top of the body back on to take some measuremanets today. Didn't happen, sure is a drag to have to work and occasionally sleep, takes entirely too much time away from the important things in life.


The brown truck came today with some of the stuff we ordered. 4 new tires, current seatbelts, roll cage padding, some of the fire retardant underwear to make our -5 suits legal (below 175 ).

Seems Pops has no sense of humor about the tires having weather checking, in the tread.

It would probably make it all right, but who wants to tempt a 'maybe' when the record we're after is 164+ ?

 

A little more progress today, got the compression test done.

Not stellar perhaps but better than I expected, as we say in the aviation industry 'serviceable'.

I have all the old fuel lines out of the car now so I can replace the hose sections and re rout the plumbing as neccesary (due to putting the injector ***embly right way up).

More ta-morra.

 

More progress, the pump is cleaned up, inlet and outlet fitting O-rings are new, swapped the byp*** fitting side for side (this pump has 3 outlets, 1 plugged, 1 to the metering valve, 1 to the byp***) and should be able to eliminate 2 ea 90* turns from that line.


The fuel screen (filter) ***embly is clean and has new o-rings (the long blue one Hilborn sells) and I'm fabbing new supply and return lines for it (some are done, some are not).

 

Decided on a bit of a break and helped the local car club at a show. Not much accomplished today, but I'm not done yet.

I did however get the oil changed in the engine and a fresh filter on. Plan is currently to get the engine warm and change the oil again (maybe twice) as it was fairly dirty and heavily diluted (the oil smells like the fuel in the cell, and @ 40wt & cold pours like 5W30 hot ).

Dissected the oil filter, no drama there.

 

The schedule this week just went nuts (about 9 hours ago ) , I'm gonna try and get as much done as I can and post as I go.


I got most of the plumbing done for the Hilborn. I haven't put the end fittings on the two return hoses, as they don't fit through the shield tube I have with the ends on, I still have to bend the tubes to fit that since of the driver's compartment.

The tubes are required in the vicinity of the plane of rotation of the flywheel, or anywhere else the lines are likely to come to harm from abrasion or puncture (ie shrapnel damage).

I was doing most of this when I was tired so I forgot to get pics, I'll remedy that as soon as I can.

 

Attended a wedding today (not mine) so I didn't personally accomplish anything on the car but I helped with a few small items.


Dad got the driveshaft back in today with fresh grease and the trans is ****oned back up with a fresh filter, 3 pints of Mobil 1 ATF and all the rust off the pan.


We are working on getting the new seat belts adjusted at the anchor ends to where we are both in the range of adjustment on the 'in service' adjusters (part of what I helped with, yes it's not much).

 

I got the rest of the shield tubes bent up and the ends relieved (I try to put a bell on each end so if the hose works relative to the tube, the end of the tube won't dig into the hose).

Should have them secured tomorrow. Pics then , hopefully.

 

After foraging for parts all day Saturday (got another 7 1/4 W/ a 3.23 in it , 3.55 currently in the car) and yard work for Mom most of Sunday I finally got the shield tubes secured (almost) today. Naturally I went back and didn't like one of the tubes so I fabbed a new one, and then had exactly enough screws -1 (1/4 20 ****on heads, so the heads won't gouge you if you rub up against them Ill get another plus a few spares today).

I have 3 more hose clamps to put on and the fuel plumbing will be finished (one of these days I have got to get more pictures ).

I installed the studs I got to mount the injector ***embly to the head, the ones along the top are too short. I'll get some longer ones today. I already have some snazzy nuts for them, they are the ones that have the captured washers on the nuts already (keeps me form dropping just the one ).

I realised that I haven't been regularly posting Pop's progress, I didn't mean to make this sound like a 1 man 'team'.

He so far has gotten the new SFI 45.1 roll bar padding installed, the new seat belts are in with the new anchor for the non 'Y' type shoulder belts (only a few minor adjustments left, on what we have). We are waiting on a 2 point sub belt as we got to looking at the rule book and we think that when I'm in the car it looks more like the picture that says we have to have a 6 point belt, so as soon as that gets here we can do final adjustment on all that.

He has the driveshaft back in, with fresh grease in the U joints.

He also has the new fuel cell cap ***embly installed (it had the 'aircraft' style flush cap, too big a PITB to work with, replaced it with a 'D' ring or 'bail' style cap, much better ).

I did help, I cleaned out the roll over vent valve, and found a shiny new ball bearing that fit the valve to replace the rusty and heavily pitted old one, I tried it with the old check ball and it didn't seal with just a tables**** or so of fluid at the bench (just the top of the valve upside down, no head pressure and it didn't slow it down very much) it works good now . I reinstalled that too.

So we have progress, just not as much as we would like (go figure ).

So as soon as the new nozzle hoses get here we can fire it back up to do the oil change. We have 10W40 and a fresh filter on it now we plan to flush it with that, maybe twice, then put the race oil in, leaning towards 40Wt Mobil 1 race oil.

 

More progress, if only small.


The feed line to the pump and the byp*** return are finished and leak checked (ran the pump with a drill and a felt polishing bob).

No leaks in either and the new quick change pill holder seems to work.

The Metering Valve return hose is completed, but until I get the nozzle hoses back I can't leak check it, or the feed line from the pump shutoff to the metering valve.

Really looking forward to that, especially since we will be able to run it immediately after the leak check. Nothing like re-firing the engine to help maintain the motivational quotient.

Bought some gasket material today, heavy cardstock like stuff used to make flange gaskets for pipelines (those that still have flanges). It's 1/16" thick (just over 1.5 mm) and 'non compresable' (per it's manufacturer) as well as being a royal pain to carve to size.


Oh well, I wanted something durable and thick enough to help keep the heat transfer to the injector ***embly down.


I have pics in the camera, I'll have to see about getting them uploaded today.

 

There should be a feature on the camera where you can set the flash to always go off, my says "FORCED FLASH". I normally leave it on this feature as even in sunlight the flash can sometimes fill in the shadows depending on the distance. I learned this neat trick from Don Dillard, DRD57.

You've been pretty good at taking photos and showing us the progress. How some photos of trying on the fire retardant *******?? I know you tried them on.

 

Actually not yet, they just arrived from back order land yesterday, I ran out of time to try them on.

They're frillyer than the old Simpson safety undies I had, I don't remember a picture of Marge on the seat like the new ones either.

 

Pictures are up.

First I have pictures of the shield tubes I've been blathering on about.
By the engine (didn't realise it, but you can just see the one for the feed line as well).





Here's how I got 'around' the shifter.




And back at the cell,...





The red 'bands' on the tank ends of the shield tubes are pieces of heat shrink tubing. I expect the longer unsupported hose runs to move somewhat more relative to the shield tubes so I added the heat shrink in addition to belling the ends of the tube (the front ends of the tube are belled as well, but the shorter run, from a solid mount to a solid mount shouldn't 'work' relative to each other much, if at all). I'm still debating whether or not to heat shrink some heater hose to the cell end of the shield tubes to add a little more support.


I see that's not the best picture as at the odd angle I apparently chose to take the shot the hose routing looks, well, odd.

The byp*** return (with the quick change pill holder) is lower in the tank than the metering valve return, as Hilborn told me to run the two separate if I could, and keep each as close to level with their respective discharge points (ie byp*** return at the same height as the byp*** outlet port on the pump, same for the metering valve).

Some of Pop's work, first is the new, 'easier to use' fuel cell cap.




Please ignore the hose and plug on the purple fitting, that's the tank vent roll over check valve. We have yet to decide on how we are going to route the hose for that, and are using the old vent hose and guide rod (the hose stuck striaght up throught the upper body half) as a cap to keep trash out of the cell.

Now the new shoulder belt anchor.





My apologies for the skewed angle on that last one (I was a bit tired when I took all of these) the mount is level in the car.

I tried to get a decent picture of the padding, but none of the shots came out. Hard to shoot black padding on black cage tubes and get enough contrast so you can see both, without washing the picture out.
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Roughed in a gasket, figured out to give up on gasket punches and razor blades the new material is just too tough for them. My pocket knife does a fair job as I can put some body weight behind it.


Pics soon.

 

Roughed in gaket pic.



I'll have to clean the nozzles agian, oh well.

 

I got impatient for the nozzle hoses to show up so I fabbed some hard lines from brake tubing and hydraulic fittings.

Fugly but it shouldn't leak.

I'll replace them when the hoses get here.

Hope to run it tomorrow.