Pond Racer ?

[Race5]

Re: Pond Racer ?

My memory may be flawed about whether the Camaro was based on LS or not. Nonetheless... it was an automotive V8 small enough to shoehorn into a 60's vintage car. My real point is.. I think the power is available (and the numbers there to verify) in modern turbo'd V8's to move a slick airframe to competitive speeds.

The Camaro you are referring to is Tom Bailey's "Sick 2.0". It runs a Brodix based 615 cubic inch engine. It has dual fuel systems and runs Methanol at the track, and pump gas on the street. In street trim the turbo waste gates are wide open and they over fuel the engine slightly just to make sure it lives. It is still a maintenance nightmare requiring constant work during the street drives. Especially to the valve train.

[knot4u]

Re: Pond Racer ?

Can't remember the guy's name but he has a Steve Morris LS powered Camaro that was dyno'd at 3500hp. The man drives his Camaro to racing events towing a trailer of parts.

Yeah, I get it... he doesn't make 3500 driving cross country, but the engine lasts long enough to win some drag races and drive back home. Leads me to believe Steve is getting some longevity out of his phenomenal engines.

NASCAR racers are making 900hp for 500 miles.. normally aspirated engines of 360 CI. Some quick, simple math says a blower certainly could up those numbers quite a bit, at least long enough for 8 laps.

On another aviation forum a member posted a link to a couple of junkyard LS engines that were boosted to around 1500hp and ran to destruction. Also can't remember how long they lasted but the point of his post was the engines hung around as long as needed for those eight laps.

So, don't you think a sport class airframe can hold enough fluids for at least 1500hp for those eight laps? And an unlimited airframe big enough to cool 3000 hp for a race?

Maybe, just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it's not possible. A large number of very smart, talented and ambitious people have put a ton of work into that question. If you have an idea and a dream chase it and find out.

[Pete]

Re: Pond Racer ?

I can think of only two that don't. Rare Bear and Galloping Ghost, although technically even GG flew up from Minden so that qualifies as flying to the event. Did others fly in and out on their race engines? Sometimes, but not always. My point was, an engine that lives for literally 4 seconds is of no use as an air racing engine.

Will

Rare Bear used to fly to Reno and other races from Van Nuys...

[TarDevil]

Re: Pond Racer ?

The Camaro you are referring to is Tom Bailey's "Sick 2.0".... It is still a maintenance nightmare requiring constant work during the street drives. Especially to the valve train.

Yeah, thanks. No doubt it's a full time job to keep alive. Kinda goes with the HP.
To add even more headaches, imagine a PSRU that holds up to that power. Like Knot4u says, it isn't impossible, and may be the salvation of air racing.

[knot4u]

Re: Pond Racer ?

Rare Bear used to fly to Reno and other races from Van Nuys...

Across the desert and over the mountains, waiting to hear it had landed safely was always a little nervewracking, luckily it didn't take very long.

[RAD2LTR]

Re: Pond Racer ?

Rare Bear used to fly to Reno and other races from Van Nuys...

Yes it did, but not with the boil off system. Aside from Rare Bear when it was based at Stead, all the other Unlimiteds flew in. Miss America and Precious Metal flew all the way across the country. Heck, Dusty flies his Yak from Kansas. There are, or were a few serious unlimited teams that flew a long way every year to race. In a roundabout way, flying across the country on the race engine is a good idea, it give the engine time to break in. Heck, Miss A last year proved that flying across the country on the race engine could be done. They ran hard for more races than anyone else. (Not that more races was a good thing ,but still.) They raced hard, and went home with a healthy engine (as far as I know.)

Will

[Big_Jim]

Re: Pond Racer ?

Rare Bear used to fly to Reno and other races from Van Nuys...

Not just that....but germane to the topic of this thread, in 1991 when Pond and Rutan were having their public 'debut' at Mojave the weekend before Reno '91, they invited Lyle to stop by and participate. So on the trip from VNY to Reno he went up to the party, made some high manifold pressure passes down the ramp to announce his presence with authority at Mojave, and just to put the exclamation point on things, proceeded to set a point-to-point speed record from Mojave to Reno after the passes.

That was what he thought of the Pond Racer 'hype'.

[knot4u]

Re: Pond Racer ?

Not just that....but germane to the topic of this thread, in 1991 when Pond and Rutan were having their public 'debut' at Mojave the weekend before Reno '91, they invited Lyle to stop by and participate. So on the trip from VNY to Reno he went up to the party, made some high manifold pressure passes down the ramp to announce his presence with authority at Mojave, and just to put the exclamation point on things, proceeded to set a point-to-point speed record from Mojave to Reno after the passes.

That was what he thought of the Pond Racer 'hype'.

I heard some stories about those passes, from what I heard they were "impressive". When you consider what shape that airplane was in at that time who'd blame Lyle for showing off a little. Lyle used to set records for city to city pairs every chance he got, I think he has more records in the airliners he flew than he does in the Bearcat.