I viewed a post reffering to a possible wing mod on the Bear. The answer is yes there is a design given to Lyle by one of the head designers at Northrope to change the leading edge by the installation of a cuff. One of the Bears current team members confirmed this fact to me on the phone the other night. The new design would allow the Bear to have a higher critical mach number on the wing allowing safer operation at the higher speeds. Currently if the Bear goes any faster then you have already seen it has a tendency to get rather out of shape. The center of pressure shifts on the wing and the plane becomes uncontrolable. The installation of the new cuff would raise the critical mach number enough to allow the Bear to safely attain a higher speed. There is also talk about putting a scoop like Mike Browns racer to increase the manifold pressure on the Bear. Currently the Bear suffers from poor ram because of the ducting from the leading edges. Mike Browns plane produces greater ram therefore higher manifold pressure. Word is 85 inches have been seen on the course by Mike Brown. This is about 10 or so inches more then the Bear can produce on a good day. If Mr. Shelton chooses to install the cuff and go to an overhead scoop you would see higher speeds next year for sure.
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I would like to see it happen, but i have one question, how would the cuff effect aspect ratio? The Bear's aspect ratio is already very low (approx. 5, if i remember right) if you add another 6-12 inches in chord to the wing it will decrease around .1 wouldn't it? Yes, you will definetly get higher straightline speed, but when it comes to turning the bear already comes wide and if you increase speeds by just 5 mph how would this effect its turn rate? what about 10-15-20 mph?
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Horsepower down
Looking at the speeds taking in the new course considerations and watching the Bear firsthand over the years. I doubt seriously the horsepower was down all that much. Is there room for improvement? You bet it needs more ram. Your leaving a lot on the table with having the boost down. If the Bear wasen't making horsepower it had to be cylinders. I thought the cylinders were throughly inspected and checked before they were installed. How come there's still guide problems as indicated by Lyle on Saturday? He mentioned in his occassional updates on the web sight that extra care was being taken to inspect and assemble the cylinders.I know ACT did not install the cylinders according to one of the crew. Who did? Why weren't they checked then at assembly? Another question I have is if the horsepower was down so much how come no nitros? If no nitros what bottles were on Ice in the hanger? Was that the Bear brew everyone was talking about for sale? Could the cylinder problem be from running the nitros during Fridays heat race? A lot of questions need answering. John Penny also indicated that he had never flown a faster race on Friday in his life. What's that all about if the horsepower was down? Was he being sucked behind Dago in its jet stream? Dago went by the Bear after the parade lap like F16 goes by a J3 cub. Skip had told his crew that he was going to let the Bear lead on the parade lap and pass somewhere before the completion of the second or official lap. When he did what he said I almost fell out of my chair in the pits. The team also indicated that after testing during rookie school the lost horsepower was finally back. Did someone steal it again? Sounds like maybe a little too big on the nitros jets on Friday. That will do it everytime. Maybe the horsepower down might be an ADI and induction issue. It seems that ACT always seems to get the rapp when the Bear dosen't win. Was there something wrong with the power section? Who's really to blame? It seems that the horsepower down claim has been made ever since the last Phonix race although still winning that race. It just seems strange that the missing horsepower can't be found. We need to send out a search party and quick. Next year will be here all too soon. My solution is bigger nitros jets, overhead scoop, wing cuff and hold on in the turns.
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NITROUS, not nitros. As far as bottles on ice....it must not have been nitrous as the common practice with nitrous is to heat the bottles slightly to increase bottle pressure. Although in an unlimited, I doubt anything needs to be heated, things get plenty hot as they are.
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Speed Demon your absolutely right. I have never heard of heating the Nitrous for more pressure. We always loaded as cold as we could and let the temp come up in the loaded bottles in the plane. We had a pressure pop off so when the pressure exceeded the bottle rating it would pop off. I can remember in 1972 the plane smoking on the ramp before the Gold race. Everyone thought it was on fire.
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I think heating the nitrous is done AFTER it is loaded as cold as possible to raise the bottle pressure. That's why NOS and other auto nitrous manufacturers sell bottle heaters.
I would like some info on the Bear's system. It must be using the nitrous for an intercooler effect, since in order to make serious horsepower with nitrous you need to add a bunch more fuel and retard the spark quite a bit, not to mention that in order to feed a 3350 for 8 minutes your'd need a bottle the size of the Goodyear blimp.
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These message exchanges sure would be more fun and valid if you guys would sign your messages!
You who are not signing messages need to be aware... Many times, I can tell that the same person is writing one or more messages.....
If you don't sign your messages, the impression can be given that a "debate" or exchange is going on between more than one person... When, in fact, one person is both or more of the parties within an exchange of messages.....
I've asked before, I'll ask again.. don't just say stuff from a dark corner, at the very least, geez... grab a nickname and stay with it willya?
I don't think this is too much to ask!
Wayne SagarWayne Sagar
"Pusher of Electrons"
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not to mention that in order to feed a 3350 for 8 minutes your'd need a bottle the size of the Goodyear blimp.
-Steve L.
PS- it still strikes me as funny that everytime the subject of the Bear's use of nitrous comes up people start talking about it as if it were the same kind of system the lowered-rice-burner-with-blue-headlights crowd uses. I don't know anything specific about it other than what I've read from John Slack's posts, but common sense and basic understanding of engines should tell you that you might not only use different hardware, but apply nitrous with a different fundamental philosophy when you're trying to incrementally increase the power of a 3350 cubic inch engine for 5-10 minutes than when you're trying to make a 110 cubic inch hamster engine produce triple its normal power for a 15-second run down the dragstrip.
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