Well, that was fun

The auto racing season is underway. The 40^th Advanced Auto Parts Clash (originally the Busch Clash) ran at Daytona this afternoon (congrats Brad Keselowski on the win) and as I type this the semifinal rounds of the NHRA Winternationals are live on the tube flat screen. I have never been a drag racer, but they are fun to watch. As an engineering problem the physics are fascinating. The ultimate goal in drag racing is to reach the finish line immediately after the light turns green on the start line either 1320 or 1000 feet away, driven by the wheels in most classes. The chemical and physical bonds between the tires and the track, the thermodynamics inside the engine as fuel is turned into power, and the mechanical transmission of that power to those bonds at the tires, that to me is fun.

SCCA Solo racing is drag racing with left and right turns, so there is some overlap in application to my kind of auto racing in terms of execution but almost nothing in engineering. Drag racing has no lateral acceleration as long as everything runs right as shown when Brittany Force wrecked in the first round of Top Fuel. The word is there will be a report from the hospital at 0800 Pacific on her condition. I sincerely hope she will be OK. For a sport so embedded with fossil fuel use and abuse, there are a surprising number of bicycles in use in the pits and elsewhere in drag racing, so some of Them are really Us.

Brain shutdown thoughts have been on the fact I haven’t included the mounts for the rear springs and swing arms in my plans for the Sprint-T frame. They have a specific place they have to be because the swing arms have a fixed length and connect to something that has to be in a certain place, and they have to be braced in at least two directions so the rear axle doesn’t move around and steer the car from the back independently of what is input at the front. Which is the reason why I didn’t design in roll steer for the rear suspension, because roll steer becomes rear bump steer when you’re just driving down a bumpy road. The slight performance advantage possible racing is more than offset by the possibility of losing control racing or driving on the street. So, the swing arms are level at normal ride height, preventing roll steer or rear bump steer.

And the cat is trying to sit on the laptop so I guess I’m finished.

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Need input from my readers on my T-bucket

I’m at a dilemma here on the rear suspension design, so I’m asking for your help. I have narrowed down the rear suspension to 3 candidates, 2 of which are interchangeable as the major difference is method of construction, and the third would require cutting most of the back end off the car to go from either of the other two to it or from it to either of the other two.

Anyway here are the choices:

1) Reuse almost everything under the front of the minivan including the subframe. That means the struts, springs, hubs, knuckles, axles and CV joints, A-arms, and the tie rod ends. Advantages are reduced fabrication as almost everything is reused except the upper strut mount to the frame of the minivan. Major disadvantage is no way to adjust ride height except to cut the spring to make it shorter, no way to change the spring rate except to cut the spring to make it stiffer, no way to reduce roll stiffness to improve rear grip, very little way to predict the ride height, and poor camber control with body roll. Also ugly with a capital UGH! The front suspension bits of a Chrysler Town and Country are strong, but they will never win the “Rear Suspension” category of a beauty contest.

2) De Dion beam with fabricated brackets to fit the knuckles attached to a 3″ dia 0.25″ wall aluminum tube, probably a 7075 alloy. This has the main advantage of keeping the wheels pointed in mostly the right direction in all 3 axis all the time unlike option 1. It’s also much better looking than option 1, but that is faint praise from a bad comparison. Another advantage is roll stiffness can be reduced by mounting the coilovers closer to the center of the car. The major disadvantage is I can cut the pieces for the bracketry but not weld them as none of my equipment will work on the thicknesses of aluminum needed for this job and the budget does not run into buying welding equipment that will only be used for one major assembly. Secondary disadvantage is coilover shocks and springs will need to be purchased to keep the frame from dragging the ground, but that is offset with the ability to choose shock and spring rates better suited to the reduced overall weight (compared to the donor vehicle), and the ability to adjust the ride height. This will reuse the knuckle and hub along with the parts attached like brakes etc. but probably not the tie rods. Lateral location will be by a Watt’s Link mounted under the differential and connected to the hubs or the bracketry the hubs are bolted to. Fore and aft location by a parallel 4-link connecting the frame and the end bracket on the de Dion tube.

3) Bird cage style de Dion beam from thin wall small diameter steel tubing in a 3D Warren or Pratt truss that sweeps back from the knuckles to clear the transaxle while leaving room for the axle shafts to come through without hitting the structure when the suspension travels vertically. Advantages include looking cool, something I could fabricate on my own, looking cool, slightly lighter and slightly stronger than the single 3″ aluminum tube, looking cool, all the advantages of the 3″ tube version, and finally looking cool. Disadvantages are much harder to fabricate since it’s basically a space frame for the rear axle and leaves less room for the trunk and gas tank behind the engine and transaxle.

Options 2 and 3 are interchangeable, just unbolt the tube or space frame and bolt in the space frame or tube to replace, so I could make both and see which works better. Probably not going to happen because I don’t have the budget for iterative development.

Right now I’m trying to decide which of the three options I’m going with. #1 is cheapest but has the most negative compromises, #2 and #3 have similar costs but #2 is much quicker to build because there is less actual cutting and welding. So help me make up my mind

I’m fading here…

They’re 100 miles into the World 600 and I’m having problems staying awake. Not because the race is boring, but because this is my third race of the day after the Monaco GP and the Indy 500. After the wet race at Monaco, and the 100th running of the Indy 500 being won by a rookie my adrenal glands have burnt out and I’m about to drop… There is a limit to how much excitement a human being can endure.

PSA, Opus

How many believed Friday’s post? On a Wreck-Free Sunday

OK how many people thought I had really packed it in as a bicycle blogger Friday? I mean with all the stuff about the Sprint-T and the Mini Sprint-T, the NASCAR racing, and the Formula E racing news I post here on Wreck-Free Sunday, I expected to see some comments about changing the direction of the blog.

And, to be honest I have actually considered seriously doing exactly that, cutting back to once a week or so and just posting about car racing so I wouldn’t have to read any more bike wrecks. I mean there are days…

So anyway I got to see the entire Martinsville Sprint Cup race today, they were on the pace laps when I turned the TV on after getting back from morning service. It was a typical Martinsville race in many ways, not so much in many other ways. I mean there was plenty of the “rubbin’ is racin'” action, but not many torn up race cars at the end. To give an example, there were no cars at the end running without front end sheetmetal because the bodywork had been beaten in around the tires keeping them from turning, or torn off in a wreck. In fact the field had the highest percentage of cars running at the end since I can remember, and about half the field was on the lead lap at the end of the race. Congrats to Kyle Busch for winning the weekend with both the Cup and Truck series races falling victim to his driving prowess.

Since I mentioned it at the top of the post, I haven’t done much with the Mini Sprint-T this week, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been thinking about it. I have been thinking about it a lot. Mainly I have been thinking about how to do the front axle and spindles. I think the best way to do it is to represent the spindle from the back by using some square stock glued to a round disk the scale size of the back of the spindle with the length from the disk being scale for the kingpin bosses on the spindle with the gap between the two the same size as the axle tube so the spindle can be glued to the axle with a gap large enough to allow a furniture nail to pass through the piece and allow the wheel to roll (or at least to be turned like it was rolling). So anyway the back of the spindle is 5.5″ so the scale is 0.22″. The upper boss is 2.03″ so scale would be a RCH more than .080″, the lower boss is 1.22″ so scale would be just shy of .05″. The actual thickness of the spindle away from the bosses is .250″ so the .010″ stock would be scale. The .010″ stock is pretty flimsy though so I’m going to run a chunk of .060″ square opposite the spindle bosses to give the furniture nail something to turn in and the whole assembly some structure so it doesn’t break if I drop the model a bit. I mean sure it will break if I drop it from waist height, but it I fumble setting it down a little too hard it should survive without bending or losing the front wheels.

You know the more I think about it the better just writing about building models and car races sounds. I mean I can always go back to writing about bike wrecks later if I feel the need, but not reading about broken bodies and destroyed lives really sounds like a good idea right now. I will have to think about it for a while.

PSA, Opus

New direction for the blog, we are now a car blog!

Yes I know that means I’m going to have to get a driver’s license again if I want to do road tests, but I would need one for the Sprint-T anyway. And I wouldn’t have the stay up til 0500 typing, I could get to bed at a reasonable hour!

Up first, doesn’t everyone need a 700 HP Jeep? Hellcat Jeep Trackhawk One And Done, 2015 Roush F-150, Bye Xterra, Tesla Competition, Top 5 Fast Fails And 745HP Force 1, Hellcat Jeep, Stolen Challenger, Acura Precision Concept, Wrangler Truck, Top 5 Fast Fails

Do you want to retain that 2 by 4bbl look but hate tuning two carbs and trying to match fuel delivery curves via swapping out holes in the fuel system? FiTech Reinvents EFI! How They Do It Better & Cheaper Seriously, this is a game-changer, the benefits of EFI with closed loop mixture control at a total system cost comparable to a carburetor. Since this computer controls spark as well as fuel I would use it on the Sprint-T for maximum fuel economy between race meets and running around getting groceries and going to church.

Stretching the limits on what is “street legal” a team is working on a funny car with treaded tires. Jeff Lutz and Tom Bailey Team Up For Street-Legal Record Probably an April Fools joke, but Scientology started with a bar bet between Heinlein and Hubbard, so maybe not? The illustration with the article shows a standard 500 in³ blown Hemi on a Nostalgia Funny Car chassis. The April Fools theory is supported by this article on current projects from both builders. Jeff Lutz vs. Tom Bailey: Whose New Project is Cooler? I like the Talledega project is “cooler” as I have been a corner burner since before I got my license. I like the engineering challenge of straight line acceleration, but cars that can brake and turn after accelerating are more my cup of java.

And I’m just starting this car blog thing so I don’t have a whole lotta sources yet.

Billed @€0.02, Opus

I’m a little choked up on a Wreck-Free Sunday

OK I just shut the idiot box off after watching the final 3 hours of Mythbusters on the Science Channel. I have to admit to being a little choked up about the end of the series, I was still recovering from the wreck when the show started, trying to force my mangled leg to do what I wanted it to do. I have been watching it pretty religiously ever since (I missed a couple seasons in first run along the way because of D&D, but I caught them in repeats). And now after blowing up one last cement mixer truck it’s all over. I read a rumor that the reason the show was ending was not low ratings, but because Jamie got a super-secret contract with the Navy to do super-secret things. I’m going to count that one as “Plausible” because Mr. Hyneman’s previous life experience before doing the show, combined with all the strange stuff he has done making the show, would make him a superb asset for numerous covert operations. Not Jamie out in the cold doing the covert stuff, he’s way too well-known to do that, but he would make a hell of a “Q”-analog for a US James Bond (who was a commissioned Royal Navy officer, BTW).

I haven’t heard any rumors about Adam, but he’s bound to find something to occupy his time in early retirement. I follow him on Twitter and he doesn’t seemed to have slowed down much since the show ended, he might just keep the Mythbusters stage show going for another 14 years minus The Walrus.

What I have been doing was building those engines I mentioned in an earlier post. Then I shot a comparison between the LS7 and the 383 SBC from several angles. Both engines are the same scale.

You can see that the deep sump on the resin kit’s wet sump pan is going to make fitting it under the hood of the Sprint-T tricky. I’m probably going to modify the kit pan to resemble the dry sump pan on the crate engine for a lower profile and better oil control IRL.

That angle makes the LS look a lot taller than the SBC when it’s not really that much taller. Some yes, but not as much as that angle makes it look.

Without the Front End Accessory Drive (FEAD) the LS7 is only slightly wider than the SBC, but that alternator bracket is hanging way out there past the hood side. Putting the alternator over where the AC is on the Corvette FEAD and tucking the power steering pump up closer to the block would get everything under the hood after completely re-engineering the entire FEAD. I love that acronym, it just blows the spell-checker’s mind.

You can see the LS engine is just a touch wider than the SBC from these pictures, when the stock FEAD is left off both engines. The FEAD I’m building for the SBC will tuck the alternator up against the passenger side of the engine below the head, and also the power steering pump against the driver side of the block. I’m sure I could do the same for the LS7 engine, but that would require changing the water pump to one that rotated in the same direction as the crankshaft.

And I have to get up early tomorrow because I’m out of milk, coffee, and yogurt. That’s three things I can’t function without for very long, so I have to get up early enough to catch the mid-day pass so I can get to the bank for money, then get to the store for supplies. I have enough java to run one reusable filter through the Keurig, and that’s it, then I have to use the artificial creamer. It’s just awful, I tell yas…

PSA, Opus

More stuff about making model cars, and the Feed

OK I don’t know how much you have been paying attention to the Mini Sprint-T build, but the exhaust that came with the engine kit is going away for something more like what the real thing will have. What the 1:1 Sprint-T will have is what used to be known as a Tri-Y header or now as the 4-2-1. The main reason for that is what I’m going to be using the car for and how. The car will be used for SCCA Solo and Goodguys Autocross racing, plus transit between races and general around town grocery-getting (that’s why I’m including a trunk with a locking lid). The “how” is the car will be geared to hit 60 MPH in 1st gear so no shifting during a run in Goodguys and very little in SCCA Solo, just gas, brake, steer (or gasbrakesteergassteergasbrakesteer…). The reason for the Tri-Y over the cheaper and easier to find 4-into-1 is torque curve, specifically the curve below the peak torque. Tri-Y headers use an effect of resonance to get more torque below the peak without hurting power above peak torque. They are also not the best-looking thing to have on an exposed engine, but I can fix that during fabrication.

But to do that I have to make a set of scale headers to fit the car, and to do that I have to decide which cylinders to pair up for most equal flow. On the SBC there are 2 cylinders on each bank that are right after each other in the firing order and would interfere with each other if they were on the same branch of the second Y of the header. So the trick is to set them up with a second cylinder that is as far apart as possible in the firing order so there is no interference (actually there still is unless you have a flat crank or a straight 4 engine). That is easy to determine, just write the firing order vertically twice in a row so that you have a column of 16 numbers. Even numbers are right bank, so you put a tick mark on the right side of the column next to all the even numbers, ditto the left side on the odd numbers. You will easily see the adjacent cylinders because there will be two tick marks in a row on the same side of the column.

Now the almost-tricky part. Since there are 4 cylinders per bank you have to start with one of the adjacent cylinders, and pair it with the non-adjacent cylinders and count how far apart they are in the firing order, then do it again for the other cylinder, then do it again twice more for the other adjacent cylinder. You will find there are two pairs that are 5-3 or 3-5 and two other pairs that are 2-6 or 6-2 and that if you pick the 5-3 pair for one adjacent cylinder then the other adjacent cylinder is 3-5 with the remaining non-adjacent cylinder. You now have which cylinders to pair up when you build the headers.

The tricky part after that is making it look good where the primary tubes join the secondary tubes, and not like a bundle of unhappy snakes. What I’m going to do is put the secondaries side-by-side so that from the side it looks like a short-tube 4-into-1 header.

Now if I had a big budget I would build 3 sets of headers, one using 3-5 5-3 pairs, one using the 2-6 6-2 pairs to see if there is any difference, and a third 4-into-1 with super long primary tubes to see what running the longest primary tubes I have room for will do in comparison. And maybe I would also build a pair that had the adjacent cylinders on the same branch just to see if what everyone says is true about the adjacent cylinders interfering with each other and killing torque. Because if it didn’t make any difference I would run the tubes the way it packaged easiest. Or I could do the same thing with different slip-on collectors for the 3-5 and 6-2 headers and the 4-into-1 and build a separate set for putting the adjacent pairs on the same branch. That would be a lot of header swapping at the dyno, but it would be an interesting experiment.

Up first is a wreck in TX. Bicyclist killed in Crosby, family seeks assistance Nothing about the mode, but with no intersection mentioned nor salmon cycling it seems like hit-from-behind is a good candidate for the wreck. If you have the inclination I suggest going ahead with the goFundMe donation.

Our Daily Ted. Morning Links: LA River bike path closed through Memorial Day, and biking & walking are booming in the US

Still in CA. Operation Firefly shines a light on night-time bicycle safety I am a big fan of lights for riding at night so you can see wheere you’re riding. Also because drivers are generally blind as bats and will run over anything not lit up like Times Square on NYE. And sometimes even if it’s lit like Times Square on NYE.

How in Hades’ name do you run into 4 cyclists waiting at a red light unless you aren’t watching the road in front of you? Two dead, two injured in Northwest cyclist involved collision Oh, he was chemically impaired, that’s how.

So the kid got hit because he wasn’t wearing a helmet, or because the driver was going too fast to stop in a residential area or? 8-year-old boy killed while riding bike in Indian Land The wreck scene was two turns inside the residential area and should have been traffic-calmed with a low speed limit since there were childrren playing in and near the street.

Not that the vote would change things as the petition was disallowed for lacking valid signatures, but the outcome was unexpected. BURLINGTON VOTERS SAY ‘NO’ TO KEEPING FOUR LANES ON NORTH AVENUE, SCHOOL BUDGET PASSES Really, who in their right minds puts a technical infrastructure upgrade to a popular vote?

CT wreck LEO are blaming on a salmon cyclist. Police: Wrong-way cyclist seriously injured in crash OK the narrative sounds really dodgy on this one, he was riding against traffic and then crossed to the opposite side of the road to get hit from behind? Does this sound like the wildest SWSS report since the cyclist hit on the right with the left side of the car after “swerving” from the right shoulder in Texarkana?

Hit-and-run in NYC. Hit-And-Run Driver Knocks Elderly Man Off His Scooter In Brooklyn Not a bike, but there was a bike nearly hit by the driver during his escape. You can see it in the video. Also sending healing to the victim on the mobility scooter.

Some parts of NYC are being dragged into the 21st Century kicking and screaming. The Boulevard of Life, Phase 2: DOT’s Plan for Queens Blvd in Elmhurst And people are fighting this because parking will be lost?!? How many lives is a parking spot worth? How many broken bodies?

Hard to make change in car culture when you still devote massive amounts of space to storing cars. Guest opinion: To make paradise, stop putting up parking lots

Another blow against automobile-centric hegemony by the DIY DOT. ‘Agents of transformation’ help spread traffic cone activism in Portland

They are trying to change things in FL. 3-Mile Bike Ride With Mayor Haynie Seriously, 2 years ago I would have dismissed a story like this as an opium dream, now it’s reality.

The country of Bermuda is too poor to stop killing people. Making roads safer ‘cost prohibitive’

Rider down in Jolly Olde. Father-of-three killed in cycling crash ‘after hitting pothole that had not been repaired despite repeated warnings’ The first report of this pothole was filed in 2009, seven freaking years ago. How many broken bodies can be attributed to this hole? And now a life has been lost.

How is killing someone while driving drunk “careless” and not “dangerous”?!? Van driver jailed for seven years after cyclist killed in multi-vehicle crash How many vehicles did this doufus hit and how many hit the cyclist?

This was a hard video to watch. Not because of the content, but because by the time I pulled this link up my laptop was stopping and eventually crashed while trying to load the video. I heard a lot of bleeping profanity, but the video wouldn’t show. Cyclist crashes avoiding pedestrians who were crossing when they shouldn’t have been

You’re riding your bike wrong, say scientists. How to ride a bike the right way, using science

And it’s almost 0400 and I’m feeling like I was run over. And believe me I know what that feels like, at least 3 times. Time for bed. If I hadn’t been tagging this as I composed it there wouldn’t be any tags.

Billed @$0.02, Opus

More stuff came in after Mrs. the Poet went to memorialize her sister, and the Feed

Maybe I could get a job writing headlines for UK newspapers, whadyathink? Anywho, Mrs. the Poet is now safely ensconced at O’Hare waiting for her connection to La Guardia where her dad and step-uncle will be picking her up for her trip to the boonies of Upstate NY. I expect to hear back from her when she gets to he mom’s house.

But the part for the Mini Sprint-T came in this afternoon and I couldn’t resist slapping the temp adhesive to some of them and mocking them up. The first thing I did was assemble the 700R4 transmission and mount it to the back of the engine, the second thing I did was add the EFI throttle body to the manifold. Then as soon as I could move things around without dislodging them I took a picture in front of the bucket in about the same orientation as the last mockup picture.

Can you see the problem? Look at the location of the transmission tailshaft assembly in relation to the body. Now can you see the problem? The end of the transmission is literally right next to the driver’s hip. Now in my case that’s not a problem because my ass is narrow and deep. I am literally 13″ wide in a 22″ space where the tailshaft is, so I have plenty of room to park my butt. Other people trying to drive my car are not going to be as comfortable. But wait! There’s more!

Can you see the other problem?

See how wide the transmission is all the way back? That’s going to impinge on lateral leg room almost all the way to the seat. I had previously measured the width of the footbox as 7.5″ to 8″ at the bottom with a little bit more room for the left foot as the tumblehome of the body went out as the side of the body went up. Taking the firewall out and sliding the transmission inside the body really shows how little room there is.

As you can clearly see the 700R4 was not designed for a severely dropped T-Bucket. I’m obviously going to have to provide a foot rest for the passenger and do a lot of contouring for the transmission tunnel to get everything and body inside the car. Ain’t engineering with pre-existing components fun? 😛 That thing in front of the engine is a combination of the timing cover, water pump, front engine mount, and alternator and power steering mounts all molded as a single piece. The balancer/crank pulley fits in the half-moon notch at the bottom that matches a hole in the front of the block, the water pump pulley goes on the water pump, and the alternator goes on the passenger side and the power steering pump goes on the driver side both at crank level.

Up first, a kid can’t even play in front of his own home without risking sudden death. 4-year-old boy hit, killed in parking lot in southwest Houston Seriously, are you in that big of a hurry that you run over a kid? The only “good” thing to come from this is “Police said, at this time, they do anticipate the driver will face charges.”

Our Daily Ted. Morning Links: CicLAvia previews, Cycling Without Age comes to El Monte, and ToC teams announced

Still in CA. Bicyclist Killed on Monday Identified as 16-Year-Old Hesperia Teen hit-from-behind by a driver not paying attention, I bet a dozen doughnuts that LEO figures out some way of blaming the cyclist hit from behind instead of the driver that hit him and left the body spread over the hood of the SUV.

Legal infrastructure in CA. How does the three-foot rule apply when there are already bike lanes in place? Move over to pass at least 3 feet away from cyclists. Whodathunkit?

More infrastructure in CA. CELEBRATING PAGE STREET I would be interested in finding out how this works out as far as safety and usability.

More infrastructure from America’s Copenhagen. City reboots plan for SE Ankeny traffic diverter, preps for others This was supposed to be a greenway mainly dedicated to bicycles with cars “allowed”, but they are taking it over.

More infrastructure, of the IT kind. City of Portland’s 823-SAFE hotline now offered online So now you Portlanders have choices on reporting dangerous conditions.

Another link to that cyclist with an ICE-assist bike getting hit from behind in FL. Police ID bicyclist hit, killed on Westside And another media outlet feels the deceased’s criminal record has something to do with the wreck.

CO hit-and-run wreck where the bike was resting neatly against the rider’s backpack on the side of the road. Pedestrian Hospitalized In Mysterious Hit & Run In Fort Collins Can you say “tampering with the evidence”?

Over on Jolly Olde people are losing their minds over a guy bringing a bike on a nearly-empty train. Another ‘selfish cyclist’ on a train row as passenger takes up SIX seats with bike

Screw up installing bike racks so that they can only hold a quarter of the bikes intended? It’s an art. ‘Useless’ bike racks by Tube station were intended as public art, north London council insists No, seriously, it’s art.

Bike mode share in Tokyo is a cultural thing instead of an infrastructure thing. Why Tokyo Is Home to So Many Cyclists But So Few Bike Lanes

And last link is an e-assist bike share system. Crunch Time for Madrid’s BiciMad Electric Bike Hire Scheme Apparently putting nice bikes in bike share leads to disappearing bikes?

Billed @€0.02, Opus

It was a good racing weekend, on a Wreck-Free Sunday

Yes, I spent my off days watching NASCAR’s 3 major touring series on TV from Atlanta. This is where I like to watch cars, running in a controlled environment away from vulnerable users so they can go as fast as physics will allow. Then it becomes fun in both the visceral sense and the more ethereal mental sense. There is a kind of zen thing in making a car go as fast as it can around a turn, I can tell you from experience. That’s why I want to build the Sprint-T in 1:1.

I’m currently listening to a trance version of the Leek Spinning Song, and it’s pretty good. It’s almost like the Leek Spinning song needed an injection of bass and synths to make it good. Bad part is this version is only 3:37 instead of 1:00:00+. I’d would really like to get a couple of good beats going and on endless loop while I do my writing. Seriously I’m typing up a small storm right now. The right sounds and beats are like writing nitro for me, a musical shot of NOS to the keyboard. Now if I could just find the right hour or so YouTube video to play in background…

I’m a couple of days away from being able to get $11 in gift cards from that game I play on my mobile phone, or about 2000 points. When I do that I’ll have enough in my Amazon balance to get the plastic raw stock to make the frames for all 3 variations of the Mini Sprint-T. Yay! Progress! I’ll still need to get the rear axles, wheels and tires, and the vacuformed bodies.

If this seems a tiny bit disjointed I’m actually free-associating as I type with a 2½ hour trance track running. I’m thinking about the 1:1 Sprint-T and the 1:25 Mini Sprint-T and music and the service I was at this evening, and the fact that I’m on the Nominating Committee to pick the next board for the church (so that I don’t end up on that same board), and butterflies, and the aerodynamics of the Sprint-T and how they compare to an actual winged sprint car…

On that last part, one of the things I have been looking at is streamlining the tires, particularly the wakes off the tires. By its nature the Sprint-T will have a small frontal area. The trick is going to be not letting the air get too disturbed by things like exposed frame members and other bits and bobs hanging out in the wind. Some of that is going to be unavoidable because of the fact that the basic bucket was designed in 1922, when aerodynamics of road cars was still considered a black art, and I want the car to remain identifiable as a model T Ford with a ton of modifications. The other part is the aforementioned exposed frame members hanging out in the breeze so as to maximize d⁴ for the whole car, much like the raised rail sprint cars that inspired it.

But again, part of the appeal of the T-Bucket is the absolute minimum car it is, 4 wheels, an engine, enough body to keep a person inside when it’s going down the street, and only as much structure as is needed to keep all the aforementioned bits flying in close formation and pointed in the right direction for (hopefully) maximum performance. That means things like fenders or wheel fairings are not part of the esthetic. The sprint car is similarly an open-wheel race car without anything covering the tires . But part of the appeal of building a hot rod is making something new, even if it is derivative from other kinds of cars . So at least one of the Mini Sprint-Ts will have wheel fairings on at least the front wheels, just to see how it looks. And I might run it and one without through a water tunnel to see how the flow goes compared to fenderless. Because if the fairings don’t clean up the flow off the back of the wheel then they are just dead weight and can go in the trash. The only reason they would be there is to improve highway aerodynamics for gas mileage and maybe for downforce when racing.

And I think I have meandered enough through the labyrinth of my mind. I know where I’m going in there, but sometimes I see a shiny and go off in a different direction than initially planned.

PSA, Opus

Happy Daytona Day, on a Wreck-Free Sunday

Congratulations to Denny Hamlin on his exciting win of the Daytona 500. This was Toyota’s first Daytona 500 win, so double thumbs up for them. This win puts Denny first in line for the 2016 Chase for the Sprint Cup.

The congregation, at least the part of it that meets for morning service, has tasked me with helping the homeless people who used to hang out near our church. Specifically I was tasked with making living on our little plot of land easier for them with a suggested porta-pottie and garbage can for their use. I checked and as a church we don’t have the resources to support that kind of thing. Renting a portable outhouse runs into the $ hundreds every month. We might be able to afford the small charge for an extra garbage can so they don’t wind up leaving piles of trash on the property (like they did the last time we allowed homeless to live on property), but that would be the extent of it. Unless we get a whole lot more money coming in I don’t see anything we could do as a church besides asking GPD to not harass homeless people on property at night. But I will bring the subject up with the Board in 2 weeks. One thing I see as likely would be getting local shelters to send us a couple of people who won’t live in a shelter and letting them stay at night on our property on a regular basis. There would have to be documents made on some kind of waterproof paper that whoever we gave permission to would be able to present to GPD as proof that they were there by permission. I shall have to cogitate upon this further.

Something else I have been cogitating upon was how to build a scale Tri-Y header for the Mini Sprint-T. I had decided to run such a thing on the 1:1 version many months ago because that configuration would move the torque curve higher in the lower end of the RPM range and work better for the racing this car was being built for. If I was trying to make it optimal for SCCA Solo racing, and just barely drivable to get from one race to another between races I would build it with a Powerglide transmission and a semi-manual valve body that would allow manually shifting between low and high gear, and swap out the transfer gears in the QC between a lower gear for racing, and a very tall gear for driving between races. This would take almost 100 pounds out of the car, at the risk of making it really lazy on the street and run as fast as 110 MPH in low gear. I mean with the calculated race gear the car would hit redline at 150+ MPH in top gear but would only go 60 MPH in low. The downside would be cruising above 3000 RPM on the Interstate between races without changing gears in the rear end, just swap out the race tires for the street tires and go. That is clearly not a good option. So the way to make the car race and livable on the street and the highway is to go with the heavier 4 speed slushbox and accept the weight penalty, or accept a car that might as well not have a high gear on the street. But anyway, the Tri-Y header would let the car accelerate harder at speeds below the torque peak, and get better cruise economy, and now I have to figure out how to make them in scale for the Mini Sprint-T.

And it’s getting late and this was entirely too much technobabble about cars in a bike blog.

PSA, Opus