Hunting for microknots

[CubersWrist]

time for a chemical intercooler and all of its benefits.

Already there. We pull out the passenger seat in Reno and in goes the ADI tank.

[CubersWrist]

No pictures yet, but Race 30 is away getting completely resurfaced (think what we did to the belly....but everywhere). This will be the smoothest its been since the belly mod. Which then begs the question of what will the finished product look like. The answer is...different, but I can tell you that at least one part of the plane will be STIHL orange.

Main thing I care about is it will be painted rather than a vinyl wrap. This is great because the wrap would get beat up and leave big holes that like to create lots of drag. An example of this was demonstrated in 2017. On Saturday (or maybe it was Friday...either way) we ran less manifold pressure while maintaining the same speed on the course. The only thing we changed was we filled in all those gouges with Bondo and sanded them smooth. Additional perk is all the sponsor decals will be painted under the clearcoat so lots of drag savings there too.

This also opens up new opportunities to experiment with different waxes and application methods. Because the wrap doesn't like wax, we've been limited to cleaning with water or very weak cleaning solutions, so we're looking to get some more speed there as well.

Like the last 3 years we will be getting a new propeller from McCauley. During the design and analysis of the propeller they discovered one week's worth of racing will put the propeller into its fatigue life. Think of taking a wire and bending it back and forth. Repeat this enough times and the wire will eventually snap with no warning. Obviously this would be bad on an airplane going 410mph so we're getting a new one.

I think that's all for now.

Gotta beat Jeff!

[Desertdawg]

Orange is good

Your vinyl wrap vs paint comparison makes sense.

Then clear coating the paint and experimenting with waxes will let you chase more micro knots. :-)

Can't wait to see her.

Thanks for the update.

[CubersWrist]

Paint teaser!

[Reever]

This thread is one of the most informative and educational. Thank you for the updates.

[Desertdawg]

Paint teaser!

Can't wait to see her. I'll be by with some Section 3 decals :-)

[Fence Sence]

Must be getting close to September. The smell of fresh paint. Ahhhhh.

[CubersWrist]

This thread is one of the most informative and educational. Thank you for the updates.

I’m glad to hear it. I’ve learned a lot over the last couple years and trying to pass that along.

Again if you have questions about any of the speed mods(sport, unlimited, whatever) or how they work feel free to ask.

We got a lot of work to do once the painting is done. The plenum is going to be improved to fit around the new intake tube, going to keep tweaking the exhaust augmenters (which I don’t think I’ve posted about before?), and spray bars have always been a bit of a mess (nozzles and tubes going everywhere) so trying to make that cleaner too.

[GRNDP51]

I’m glad to hear it. I’ve learned a lot over the last couple years and trying to pass that along.

Again if you have questions about any of the speed mods(sport, unlimited, whatever) or how they work feel free to ask.

We got a lot of work to do once the painting is done. The plenum is going to be improved to fit around the new intake tube, going to keep tweaking the exhaust augmenters (which I don’t think I’ve posted about before?), and spray bars have always been a bit of a mess (nozzles and tubes going everywhere) so trying to make that cleaner too.

What’s the idea for the plenum? Grove’s looks pretty nice

[CubersWrist]

What’s the idea for the plenum? Grove’s looks pretty nice

He has a Lycoming which has less “stuff” on the top of the engine. I think this helps a lot with getting air to the cylinders and for getting the plenum to fit cleanly. The Lycoming also has some convenient flanges to be used in mounting the plenum. We narrowed the plenum last year when we changed the intake tube. We had all this empty space inside the plenum where the intake tubes usd to be and it was causing a lot of turbulence and messing with the cylinder temps. So we had to scratch the brackets we were using to mount the plenum. What we had worked it just wasn’t ideal given the time crunch.

As for this year we still have a time crunch but it’s more refinement rather than making something new, so hopefully it won’t be so much work. As for the specifics of what we will change, we’re focusing on making the transitions between the inlets and diffuser sections smoother (rule of thumb for diffusers is a 7deg expanding cone, much more than that and you risk air separation and turbulence inside the plenum which does bad things for cooling)