canola jet car crash

chimp koose · August 19, 2009, 02:31:44 AM

A guy I used to help on an alcohol funnycar switched to running a jet car last year. He runs it on canola oil for fuel.He crashed it last wed.,hit the guardwall @239mph.,he is fine ,car is a mess. I called him up the other day to see that he was ok and to offer him any help I could.Today I spent the day building a chassis jig and repairing the rear section of the chassis.Tomorrow we start laying in new tube for the rest of the car.Man I like building race car chassis.

Crosley.In.AZ · August 19, 2009, 08:34:25 AM

hitting a a guard wall at 200+ is not my idea of fun. Good to hear the fellow is OK.

any photos of the car?

enjenjo · August 19, 2009, 09:57:13 AM

Yes, pictures always help.

jaybee · August 19, 2009, 03:55:19 PM

Glad he's OK and the car is repairable. This may be the first really bad crash to smell like french fries!

chimp koose · August 20, 2009, 02:49:54 AM

guys the crash is on youtube.Kevin therres jet car.I dont have pictures and dont know how to post if I did. I built a chassis jig yesterday and finished it today. We were able to salvage the rear of the chassis from the rear spindles back.I have the rear spindles located in holes bored to fit and set into the jig on milled slots to keep the axle square to the jig,set at the height of the spindles to the bottom of the frame so the lower rails sit on the jig. We got the lower frame rails set in place . It is sure nice to start reassembly again.On friday I will be back at the shop bending up a new drivers compartment.The drivers compartment sits to the side of the jet engine. In the crash it broke away from the rest of the car as it should. it got dragged along on the back of the rollcage by the fuel shutoff and chute cables. It is nice to hear that a few of the other jet jockeys from as far as florida are calling to see if Kevin is ok. Some of the local guys are calling to see if they can be of help.

Mac · August 20, 2009, 12:20:58 PM

chimp koose · August 20, 2009, 11:22:08 PM

Thanks mac ,theres another video 'jet car hits wall castrol raceway ' showing the same crash viewed from the timing tower. Care to put a link to that one?By the way ,that is the last jet truck you will ever see crash at an IHRA event. The IHRA tech director was at the event, saw the crash and IHRA are banning truck bodied jet cars . This is the third one to crash this year. There are some weird airflow issues at high speeds due to the truck bed . If you try to make more spoiler for downforce it unloads the rear worse when you shut down at top end.

34ford · August 21, 2009, 08:03:33 AM

Quote from: "chimp koose"Thanks mac ,theres another video 'jet car hits wall castrol raceway ' showing the same crash viewed from the timing tower. Care to put a link to that one?By the way ,that is the last jet truck you will ever see crash at an IHRA event. The IHRA tech director was at the event, saw the crash and IHRA are banning truck bodied jet cars . This is the third one to crash this year. There are some weird airflow issues at high speeds due to the truck bed . If you try to make more spoiler for downforce it unloads the rear worse when you shut down at top end.

here's the 2nd link

wayne petty · August 21, 2009, 01:56:44 PM

Quote from: "chimp koose". This is the third one to crash this year. There are some weird airflow issues at high speeds due to the truck bed . If you try to make more spoiler for downforce it unloads the rear worse when you shut down at top end.

hmm.... time to examine how they build indy car ground effects...

think of multiple NACA ducts upside down... pulls the full belly pan to the track....

i did have a friend who did that with a road race car... there was so much down force if they pushed it really hard... it would either blow out the front tires... or lift the rear tires off the ground.. at high speed... the down force was out in front of the front axle centerline.. i don't know how well this would work with the ground clearance required with drag race tracks..

somebody might have to do some scale model wind tunnel testing.. with compressed air to duplicate the engine thrust... outlets on the bottom of the car.. and on the low pressure areas behind the wheel wells... with Rigid ducts up from the pan..

perhaps changing from a body shell to a clam shell... with the lower half or third of the body and pan as one piece...

drop the chassis into the bottom shell...

the top half can still be tilted up for full access..

i was just thinking of the second video posted... the car seemed to drift to the left... i would also think that a really close look at flow rates from the afterburner nozzles.. and if when shut off does the left side nozzles run out of fuel first... if the right side nozzles had slightly more fuel in the lines or manifold. ... the asymmetric thrust for that split second might be enough to push the car into the left guard rail...

maybe thats backwards...

these are just thoughts from a fertile mind... and we all know what fertilizer is made of...

another idea i have been thinking of for testing... building a hydraulic piston... that fits on the end of coil over shocks... right into the coil spring seat... so you could monitor the pressures on each spring while you drive the track... if the rear pressures drop... you know that the back end of the car is lifting... i have been thinking of this for a bunch of years... during a nascar race where drivers were loosing the back end and spinning ... the tv hosts were talking about that nascar had measured the down force at under 100 pounds on the rear tires at 180mph.

i even came up with a thought for funny car racing.. of a hollow rear air dam... with openings at the back of the tip... where there is really low pressure... the base open with a few holes through the body shell.. it would work great.. getting all the air out from under the back of the body... but when there was a motor explosion and fireball... it might look spectacular.. like flaming turkey or peacock tail feathers..

chimp koose · August 22, 2009, 02:26:59 AM

Wayne when you see the car drift it is because there is no downforce at high speed. The driver would have almost no steering control at the end of the run. More spoiler only made it worse. There is no suspension on the car. It is hard to manage the air around the car as it has a huge hole running through the middle for the jet engine that sucks up all the air around.I think it pulled to the left because that is the side the driver is on.with no downforce I think the car pulls to the heavy side.The fuel tank is on the other side and emptys I think about 30 gallons of fuel in a run. You wouldnt want to put a belly pan under the fuel tank side for fear of a fuel leak filling the inside of the car with fuel.The corvette body is going back on the car. There were never any handling problems when that body was used.We got a lot done in the last couple of days.The right side of the chassis is tacked in and the left side is almost ready to tack up.The tubing bender we were using bends mild steel nicely but is crushing the chromemoly tube so we had to stop using it . I am taking the tubes to be bent to the drag strip with me tomorrow,a local F/C racer has a proper bender and will bend up what we need.

wayne petty · August 22, 2009, 04:24:55 AM

Quotesee the car drift it is because there is no downforce at high speed. The driver would have almost no steering control at the end of the run. More spoiler only made it worse.

so the jet intake is pulling in so much air.. the air pressure above the body is so much lower than the little bit of air trapped below the body and that is lifting the front of the car..

since there is lift at the front end... any spoiler out back will lever the front up even farther..

the pick up body styles with their short roof lines are causing lift in the back of the car also... with the shape of the cab roof.. like a wing.. convex on the top concave on the bottom...

oh.. one thing.. i see that your bender was crushing the chrome moly...

have you made some long slip on removable caps... and packed it tightly with sand?

one shop that did bending.. had a mild steel end caps... that had a slot along one side... but not all the way... and something that looked like a steering tie rod end clamp... pinched the tube cap over the ends of the tube without distorting it... putting one end on tight.. filling the tube with sand.. jamming on the other end... snugging up the pinch bolt and driving it farther on with a mallet.. and a final tightening before bending it.. sure worked slick... but i have lost touch with him..

i hope i did not offend you ... i sometimes speak and type out of turn... but when i see a possible problem.. i spit it right out..

i did finally have a chance to review the videos frame by frame.. full screen.. i see that i was wrong about the thrust drift.. or lining up slightly crooked..

perhaps with the next redesign of the cars..//truck bodies.. more forward opening inlet verses top inlet...

chimp koose · August 23, 2009, 02:17:56 AM

Wayne, we tried the sand thing after the first bend crushed. Welded one end shut ,packed it full of sand,packed the sand ,welded the other end shut. bent the tube ,crushed the pipe. The bending die has long flat sides before the radius that do not allow the tube to distort at all so the inside then has to give and crushes. If the die were to end at the end of the radius it probably wouldnt crush.I saw on a tv show once how they make trombones. they take the tubes and fill them with water,freeze them and bend them when they are full of ice. I dropped the tubes off with another racer who has the right bender ,they will be done monday.

wayne petty · August 25, 2009, 01:45:43 AM

well i tried...

how about more jet trucks... some with the jet pointing the wrong way...

on purpose

http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2009/08/jet-engines-on-trucks-for-fun-and.html

then there is always this... just for fun...

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/193275/jet_powered_bug/

http://www.ronpatrickstuff.com/

chimp koose · August 25, 2009, 11:07:18 PM

wayne they have a jet powered track dryer at castrol raceway just south of Edmonton. Works good when they get it to run.

wayne petty · August 25, 2009, 11:17:16 PM

i wondered... if anybody had ever thought up a suction device for pulling the water out of weepers.. some kind of siphon effect off the nozzle perhaps... so FOD is not pulled in...

or even a hose with bleed air to blow into the cracks...

it could probably be easier to do that with a gas powered leaf blower... or a small rotary screw compressor on a different trailer...

i always thought that Caltrans should have a few jets on trucks... for clearing the low fogs on highway 5 . to run escorts of cars... sort of like they do behind the snow plows...

i seem to recall that at one time.. some CHP cars were equipped with some kind of radar /video unit that could see through the FOG...
just random thoughts...