A Sea Fury Fan's Lament

[Sparrow]

Re: A Sea Fury Fan's Lament

When was the last time you talked to Jeff?

[Wild Bill Kelso]

Re: A Sea Fury Fan's Lament

Been awhile now. Back when we were trying to figure out all the changes the Bud program had changed.

[MIKE NIXON]

Re: A Sea Fury Fan's Lament

Just some observations from the mountain.
You'al are comparing apples to oranges and lemons.
The Griffons in the boats had about a million gallons of water to cool the engine, carried enough nitrous to to put ten crews to sleep for days and ran at sea level for the most part.
I can get the Griffon to run a bit better but the laws of physics can't be ignored. PM has come a long way but it still has one extra prop hub, 2 extra blades, the drag of the scoop, the extra liquid load in pounds and blower gears that arn't optimal for the density altitude we will see at reno next week. However it does have more reliability at rated power than the Merlin at warp 8. If I wanted to beat Strega I would not start with a Griffon. Been there, done that. This is not the '70's.
Comparing strega in '06 to now we have 25 MPH over the best previous laps. (and a bit more) Tiger pulled out because the oil pressure was headed to Bakersfield!
Will Strega with Matt be faster?
Will 5 be faster with Steveo?
The two of them are going to put it all on the line so the speeds are going to be off the charts as long as they hold together. What was the theme song of the Alamo?
Who will win the race for third? Maybe 2nd, but there are 4 very fast racers there.
With all of these planes the drag increases like a rocket as we go faster. The increase in HP to go 5% faster at 490 is about 20%. When you add in the increased weight for fuel, ADI and spray-bar for the HP increase you end up with maybe 2% net increase in speed with a big decrease in life of the engine.
However as was said before, it a long way to Sunday evening.
Place your bets but remember the house always wins in the end.
MN

[Mluvara]

Re: A Sea Fury Fan's Lament

2-3-2 went head to head with Strega that year, which apparently everyone on this forum forgot about. Strega pulled up on the last lap. That's why Dread came second.

And 2-3-2's average speed was 481.619 MPH while, according to former crew telemetry expert Luvara, not being pushed...not bad for an "asterisk".

How about y'all let me be a fan of my favorite racer, the racer that I am most likely to do my homework on.

I wouldn't say that it wasn't being "pushed". I would say that it had more left. I think it was ~3500HP during most of the race and the engine would probably run 3800-3900HP wide open, depending on the day. What that remaining 300-400HP would do is hard to tell. I think it's capable of 490 or so laps.

Attached are speeds from that day to go 481 average on the course. ~495mph TAS.

Strega had a different engine program that year too, so it's difficult to compare to today's motors.

There are going to be a LOT of fast airplanes this year in the Gold. If they all make it to Sunday, it will be one heck of a race!



Michael

[Sparrow]

Re: A Sea Fury Fan's Lament

I think my whole point about mentioning the boat racers and the Griffon's was the fact that the learning curve to really hot rod the Griffon is pretty steep as well. The point is there one hot-rod Griffon running and very few people with actual hands on knowledge and experience to keep the thing alive. Jeff Neff was a good place to start since he was the engine guy/crew chief of the Bud boat and was familiar with the custom blower drive bits. At one point I believe he probably built that engine, albeit for boat use at the time.

Sparrow

[Thom Richard]

Re: A Sea Fury Fan's Lament

If I wanted to beat Strega I would not start with a Griffon. Been there, done that. This is not the '70's.
MN

Mike,

So that begs the question, what would you start with? On the radial side, I would lean towards a sleeve valve engine (not that a suitable one exists). On the V side, I would consider a Chrysler V-16 setup. Not the actual engine, just basic layout optimized for what we do. Shorter stroke, etc.

Let's brainstorm!

Thom

[LoveOldPlanes]

Re: A Sea Fury Fan's Lament

Mike,

So that begs the question, what would you start with? On the radial side, I would lean towards a sleeve valve engine (not that a suitable one exists). On the V side, I would consider a Chrysler V-16 setup. Not the actual engine, just basic layout optimized for what we do. Shorter stroke, etc.

Let's brainstorm!

Thom

Oh-oh...sounds like time to pick up the tools, clean the hanger and get ready for the next phase of the project.....

[LoveOldPlanes]

Re: A Sea Fury Fan's Lament

I think my whole point about mentioning the boat racers and the Griffon's was the fact that the learning curve to really hot rod the Griffon is pretty steep as well. The point is there one hot-rod Griffon running and very few people with actual hands on knowledge and experience to keep the thing alive. Jeff Neff was a good place to start since he was the engine guy/crew chief of the Bud boat and was familiar with the custom blower drive bits. At one point I believe he probably built that engine, albeit for boat use at the time.

Sparrow

To acknowledge and not argue your point about the boat guys...but that was a very long time ago, with a need for an engine with parameters outside of an aircraft engine. In addition, technology had moved on, as has understanding and design. An engine is still just an engine, and many things hold true for hot rodding anything with a piston in it. Perhaps you should have bounced over to the PM Facebook page to see the blower bit they made to replace the Budweiser one. It looks like Thom is taking his build up a notch, not just doing a rebuild of a clapped out Bud engine, but a new hot rodding of a Griffon engine. I look forward to seeing what The Team manages to pull together for this year. I think we should all give this New Generation of the Griffon Powered Mustang Believers the benefit of the doubt anyway. I like the idea of "What CAN you do?" Instead of "That's never going to work.".

[Bob]

Re: A Sea Fury Fan's Lament

Mike,

So that begs the question, what would you start with? On the radial side, I would lean towards a sleeve valve engine (not that a suitable one exists). On the V side, I would consider a Chrysler V-16 setup. Not the actual engine, just basic layout optimized for what we do. Shorter stroke, etc.

Let's brainstorm!

Thom

I have always dreamed of a large displacement blown, direct injected 2 stroke diesel. Hardly any moving parts, all the enganeering data you could ever need for a VERY high performance high torque lightweight motor.... Flame away

[Hans Oberev]

Re: A Sea Fury Fan's Lament

one of the best threads ever! lot of heavy weights participating. someone hit the nail on the head when they said a hot lap is more about doing things to make the engine not have to work so hard. Tiger has figured it out. The Lewis camp is pretty quiet as is the Voodoo crew. Hoping PM lives up to the hype. Love the comments about the crack pipe! How do we get the inside joke about Lola? Congrats Wayne, your website went platinum with this thread and the best part is nobody lost their posting privileges! Going to be a barn burner!

[Big_Jim]

Re: A Sea Fury Fan's Lament

How do we get the inside joke about Lola?

"Lola Holiday" was plastering several of the air racing pages on FaceBook with 50th Anniversary t-shirt designs. AND EVERY POSTING WAS DONE IN FULL-CAP LETTERS. And as quickly as she appeared and spammed everyone...she disappeared.

But just like the song, we all think "Lola" was a man.

[Sky Critter]

Re: A Sea Fury Fan's Lament

... oh well, at least I got my shirt.

[Sparrow]

Re: A Sea Fury Fan's Lament

To acknowledge and not argue your point about the boat guys...but that was a very long time ago, with a need for an engine with parameters outside of an aircraft engine. In addition, technology had moved on, as has understanding and design. An engine is still just an engine, and many things hold true for hot rodding anything with a piston in it. Perhaps you should have bounced over to the PM Facebook page to see the blower bit they made to replace the Budweiser one. It looks like Thom is taking his build up a notch, not just doing a rebuild of a clapped out Bud engine, but a new hot rodding of a Griffon engine. I look forward to seeing what The Team manages to pull together for this year. I think we should all give this New Generation of the Griffon Powered Mustang Believers the benefit of the doubt anyway. I like the idea of "What CAN you do?" Instead of "That's never going to work.".

That may be true, it was a very long time ago, however the improvements and modifications that were done during that era made the engines overall more reliable and able to deliver more power. Where do you think the Allison rod set up for the Merlin came from? We continued the improvement of that set up at Dwight's with the final incarnation of it pretty much as you see now. A lot of the "modern" technology you speak of has been tried and not worked out so well, that's not to say there haven't been a lot of improvements to existing stuff to make it better as well as more reliable. As far as the engine goes, it did indeed start out as a "clapped out Bud" engine. That's not what they have now, I am very keen to see if all of their "New" parts work out. Somewhere along this topic Michael said they were going to run rated power, we both know that in order to play with all the big dog's it's gonna take a bit more 2800/80". So when you start running in those upper high power ranges the reliability and advancements done during the boat era become relevant. My statement was to simply point out that what once used to be a very broad knowledge base of information and skills has diminished greatly, as it has with all of these old aircraft engines. For the record, I have never said "that isn't going to work," I wish them nothing but the best and hope everything works for them. After what they accomplished last year, I hope they keep the program running forward with great success. That was best I had ever seen that airplane do, here to hoping they keep it going!

Sparrow

[Big_Jim]

Re: A Sea Fury Fan's Lament

This is just for perspective-sake and not to throw things out either way...but when Budweiser was running the two-stage motors with the Bendix PR-100 I think I remember Jeff telling me that they ran 140 inches of MP and 4200-4500 rpm. It was in a medium where the boat was constantly in and out of the water, so it was loading and unloading the prop (and the gearbox and motor itself) continuously for the 10 minutes that it was out during the score-up, start, and race itself. Those are forces that the motor would never be exposed to in an aviation application.

And it's also important to remember that the Bud crew had 10-12 Griffons at their disposal at any given time, would have at least 5 of them in the truck at each race, would swap out the motors after virtually every heat, and then between races on the schedule would break them down and rebuild them.

That's what cubic dollars will do for you. The time that I spent working for the Bud team kind of spoiled me with the "why have one when you can have ten?" mentality....but it's not the reality that any of the air racing teams can enjoy.

I think Don Whittington bought 3 of the ex-Bud motors when he built the Griffon racer. If I recall, three was the magic number that the Red Baron team had at their disposal over the years too, and one of those was ruined at the 3km.

My understanding is that the current motor in PM is not one of the ex-Bud motors, that instead the remaining 'complete' Bud motor was broken down and used as a starting point template for how to make the new modifications in this fresh engine. Thom may or may not be able to clarify that.

Regardless, I look forward to what the end result will produce.

[Smee Again]

Re: A Sea Fury Fan's Lament

To acknowledge and not argue your point about the boat guys...but that was a very long time ago, with a need for an engine with parameters outside of an aircraft engine. In addition, technology had moved on, as has understanding and design. An engine is still just an engine, and many things hold true for hot rodding anything with a piston in it. Perhaps you should have bounced over to the PM Facebook page to see the blower bit they made to replace the Budweiser one. It looks like Thom is taking his build up a notch, not just doing a rebuild of a clapped out Bud engine, but a new hot rodding of a Griffon engine. I look forward to seeing what The Team manages to pull together for this year. I think we should all give this New Generation of the Griffon Powered Mustang Believers the benefit of the doubt anyway. I like the idea of "What CAN you do?" Instead of "That's never going to work.".

While I understand what you're saying, keep in mind that although this is technically an "airplane" application, this particular engine and prop combination were never meant to work together in any form. The contra props were built specifically for use on the -57/58 Griffons in a bomber/transport application. But because the PM team is merrying the -74 blower section to the -58 top end and nosecase (my understanding), this engine/propeller/nosecase combination is being asked to perform FAR above and beyond the parameters for which they were designed, making the boat race analogy very relevant, IMHO. Truth is, it's no different than the Merlins in that regard, just that we know for a fact they CAN survive at power settings required to run 500+. So before we can throw out statements about PM leading a pack of perfectly healthy racers this year, they will have to prove the Griffon can as well.

Like Sparrow said, I wish these folks the very best as well. They are attempting to take a Griffon-powered Mustang program to places no one ever has (already have!), and they are to be commended for that. Again, the very best of luck and fortunes to Thom, Mike and all the PM crew. Show me...

SA