free HP

[supertiga]

a few weeks ago i had manta radiator out for repair and was looking at the huge fan blades.
they have to be over kill and huge hp drain.
well-I thiought-pull the fan and cut the blades down smaller.
i marked one blade from the root of trailing edge to the 1/2 cord point at the tip and drew a straight line between these point(marked on radiator side of fan)
then went to the band saw and cut the traling edge off.then i used the cut off peice to mark the other blades and cut them off to.
i did not try to reshape the airfoil and did not balance it(this could be done on lawn mower blade balancer)just made them all identicle
bolted fan back on (and installed radiator and shroud)
went for test drive
noticable improvement!
this has not been summer time tested!

it was enough that it made me go buy eletric fan(14inch hayden pusher)
even better!
now it looks like i will need bigger alternater to pull the fan/head lights/air conditiner/stereo all at same time!

dont park your car 12inches deep in concrete wall!(words of wisdom to my son last night)

David

[jeff denton]

That's a bummer your race car got into the wall. It happens to all of us, it does seem pretty common during those practice laps and even more during qualifying. It's really hard to know when your tires are up to temp and you can go for it. We only get two laps to qualify, the first one we can't cross the start line at full speed so it isn't gonna be good anyway, we spend the first half lap violently working the steering wheel back and forth to make some heat, then go for it. Our qualifying times are never anywhere near as fast as actual race laps...
Dirty side down, huh? That's a good one. My crew wrote "Pointy End Forward" real big with a Sharpie on the dash of my car, I seemed to need this reminder at first when we were working on getting the new car to work...
Electric fans YES by all means!! Our little four bangers need all the power we can build, no use wasting any on a fan! I want an electric water pump too but have been warned it won't be legal... I use no alternator. A size 31 truck battery strategically located behind the driver has plenty of capacity to run the car for hours, I have found I don't even need to run the cooling fans when racing, just during caution laps and cooldown time. My radiator is Honda Accord, complete with the Honda fans. It works very well, took some modifying to get it in, and my cooling system resembles that of a big truck with remote expansion/surge tank which keeps the radiator full.
I'm glad you jumped in to the Header Thread, you seem to have a lot of experience here, I'll be following that one closely.

[supertiga]

top secret!
hide an eletric motor inside the alternater housing!
then make a crank pully with a bearing in it!(so crank pully freewheels on crank)

just another crazy idea from Dr. Von Opel(thats me on tequila)

the header thing---i just copy what the others do(if they are winners)and if it dont work i try somthin else!
and read alot!it also helps to have a dad who is an engineer and does alot of water/gas/sewer systems and loves racecars/airplanes ect and has designed and built parts for racecars and airplanes.

David

[baz]

would an old VW dynostart work for that
starter motor when the ign swithch is in start dyno when ign is in run
but could be dyno when set to (switch label) "caution laps" then motor to run pump when switch set to "race" ,just a switch to cut the power when on hot laps to save brake horse power and get back the dyno when its on a caution cough cough honest

[jeff denton]

All right, that does it. We got to get together in Margaritaville.
What a wild idea!
baz, my old John Deere riding mower has such a starter/generator. I've always thought that was pretty trick.
For a long long time drag racers have spun their stock water pumps with a belt driven by an electric motor. A competitor in our compact class who comes over from Spokane annually for the Compact Fifty runs the same setup, he swears it works just fine. It is legal at his track, when I asked our tech man if I could copy that, he said "sure, if it's stock..." I think that meant no.
I once wondered if an alternator of sorts would be necessary, all the other cars run them, I don't know why, I have proven it isn't needed, to myself anyway. If I needed one my plan would have been to mount it forward of the center of the crank pulley and drive it from a shaft off the pulley, like how a cement mixer drives its huge hydraulic pump. No belt robbing power. However, I figured a microswitch on the throttle, hooked to a relay, would power up the alternator field only at less than full throttle. I don't know what we were drinking that day... moot point, I don't need an alternator.
I like how you think, David.
baz, your plan is cool but you left out how to drive the dyno. An electro-magnetic clutch on the crank pulley (like on an air conditioning compressor) might be trick, huh?
I'd like to throw away the engine oil pump, too. Who needs it, robbing all that power to pump oil. An electric powered hydraulic pump should be able to do that, heck might as well get carried away and do a dry sump system at that point. Then there's no need for a distributor, what with crank triggers and coil-on-plug technology. How much power are we gaining now?
Boy would the tech man freak.

[supertiga]

on the formula and sports racing cars we use no alternater or genarator.
the battery is about 8x6x3inch(18amp hr?)sealed battery.
the main thing that needs power is the ignition
with a solid wireing syst it will start the car(if you spin or something fun like that)
normaly we star the car with an umbilicle from a marine battery(on a cart or wagon) and run off it until the 1 min warning to clear false grid of people not mounted in cars--we then turn the master(kill) switch on to go to onboard power and disconect the umbilical.

might hide a eletric oil pump in pan?can you run an accusump?one big enough to last race before refilling/pressureing

if you are running to high an oil press you are wasting hp.
the magic number for 2.0 pinto is no less than 60psi hot/max rpm
the pinto cam lobes are oiled by spray bar and needs this to survive.
the opel should only need about 45psi hot/maxrpm.
i have run my opel at 45psi--10psi idle for about 15years with no sign of wear.
remember--pressure is not important as long as flow to all parts is achieved.
you only need one molecule thickness to the oils molecular chain to prevent metal to metal contact.
to much oil pressure will erode the bearings kinda like a steam cleaner.

cool Baz!
whats the amp draw at say 5hp(should be enough for water pump)
heck--while were at it how about a variable speed pump controled by the engine temp?


dont run a thermostat--when its closed the load on pump is higher(more hp drain)usualy the modern one tend to open/cool/close.in the old days the seemed to stabilize at proper temp/flow.
run a blanking plate/orafice plate in place of thermostat(thats what we run on the race cars.)



the way i think--circles/spasms/false starts/short circuts/farts/other abnormal methods.scary but fun!

off to work on opel--think i blew oring on weber soft mount or picked up some trash in a jet.

if we keep the dirty side down and the pointy end foward will we git where were going?

David

[baz]

jeff the above mentioned crank pully with a free running bearing works for me (do they look at the engine when its running ?) if not the electro mag clutch works for me to
as to oil pump could you hide an electric pump any where ? big oil cooler and mounting

[namba209]

Dave, and Jeff, that's called a constant loss ignition, used to run that on my racing bikes all the time. Just had to be sure the battery was fully charged before race nite/day, depending on the type of race, TT, motocross, or cross country. Running with batteries only in the motorhome, for lites, water pump and heating, I'm sure a fully charged, regular battery should do just fine for the day's fun and games.

[jeff denton]

The new rage in the drag racing game is a 14 volt battery. It has seven cells, see? So when you start putting a load on it you're at least at a higher voltage to begin with. Kind of a neat idea.
I just put a two amp trickle on my race car battery on Friday night, unhook it Saturday morning, go to the track and run it. Before the main event I'll charge it for about an hour at ten amps, then it's showtime. From there it will be fired up five or six times before the green flag drops.
I've checked it after the main a few times, it hasn't been below eleven volts yet and the car still cranks right over and fires up. Of course, a size 31 truck battery is a pretty rugged unit. Probably even overkill, everybody else uses a car battery, quite often a junk one, it's pretty common to see competitors rob the battery out of the tow pickup before a race...
This is just one more area where I don't want to have problems. My car is carefully wired, things tidy and tied right, good toggle switches (the best, in fact, they are the sealed weatherproof 25 amp ones for mixer truck remote controls, $30 ea.) It sucks to have problems at the track, makes ya look stupid. No icky rigging allowed on my car!