Paul
ARDUN Doug got it right. This is a long story and from a technical
perspective quite interesting.
Rich Venza (Rod'n Race Fiberglass) got Don interested in Bonneville and Don
financed the building of Swamp Rat 33 in Lincoln, Nebraska. I did the
general design and Jim Shuman (restorer of all Speedway Motor's engines in
the Speedway museum) built the car. I had a blown ARDUN, a blown flathead,
and an unblown flathead I had built and run in various cars at Bonneville.
The engines all ran on gasoline, even in the fuel classes. We first ran in
1988. The unblown flathead ran 199 mph out the back door, and the blown
flathead ran 220 on the down leg of Don's record run. The blown ARDUN took
longer to figure out, and it ran about like the blown flathead. We also
managed to get Don Kehr into the 200 MPH club after years of trying. By
1990 (look it up in the record book) my son Tim set the blown ARDUN fuel and
gas records (both on gas) with a top run of 232. I improved the ARDUN so
much over that winter that I spun out in 1991trying for the 200MPH club and
crashed the car.(I broke a finger). E.J. Kawaslki rebuilt the car and drove
it once at Muroc and once at Bonneville. The car is now with Big Daddy.
The interesting technical story is what frontal area will do for you. Jack
Costella really got it right and took away our flathead record. But, for a
few years I owned the world's fastest flathead (single engine car) and the
world's fastest ARDUN (it still is), all because of the smallest frontal
area we could build around the profile of the blown ARDUN. For comparison:
the unblown flathead ran 131 in my street roadster, 167 in Nate Sabel's
lakester, 181 in Tommy Thompson's Original Goldenrod streamliner (full width
car) and the 199 in the narrow Swamp Rat. The blown flathead ran 143 in my
street roadster (current record), 196 in the Goldenrod and the 220 in the
Swamp Rat. The Blown ARDUN has been 166 in my roadster (without fenders)
155 (with fenders) and the 232 in the Swamp Rat. The unblown ARDUN ran 192
one way in the Goldenrod, and as ARDUN Doug mentioned, swapped records with
him at a one-way of 155. Note also what lack of traction does to you. The
155 both blown and unblown in the roadster is because the blown motor was
spinning the tires so much that 155 was as fast as I could go, not to
mention how it was a handful to drive with all that fishtailing. Same thing
happened to me in the Swamp Rat but when a round thing gets sideways at 200
the wind picks up about 5 feet into the air. That's what a rudder is for
and I wish we had one then.
I hope this encourages somebody to build a new streamliner. There is only
one place to run one: Bonneville. But what a ride!
Dave Thomssen
The Hayseed
Lincoln NE
PS I've been a lurker lately because of virus trouble and the death of my
dad (the original Hayseed).
///
/// land-speed@autox.team.net mailing list
///
|