Picture a Firebird with FOUR big nitrous bottles under the large rear glass.
The car was powered by a D engine built by John Lingenfelter if I remember
correctly. It ran on gas, twin intercoolers were cooled by the nitrous but
according to John there was none of the nitrous that made it into the
induction system. It still was placed in a fuel class because of the
nitrous.
On the fast run, South to North and late in the evening the parachute
failed. Gary turned off to the right and was ready to spend the night in
his driving suit in the car because he was sure they wouldn't find him until
morning. There was some discussion of requiring a flare of some kind as a
safety requirement after that incident.
Lingenfelter later put the car on it's rear bumper at around 250. That was
a private November record attempt. Messed up the front suspension when it
came down. I think that was 1989.
The EV1 doesn't come with tires that will pass inspection for high speed
runs. GM has recalled all of the cars and pulled the "engines" and a few
have made it into the hands of Universities as research vehicles. BYU has
one and the last I heard they were going to try to make it into a drag
racing car. Front wheel drive, slick body, they thought a roll cage would
go in without too much trouble. It'll be interesting to see what Tom
Erekson and his students are able to do with the car.
Wes
on 3/15/03 1:26 PM, Bill Pokey Bennett at bennevl@bellsouth.net wrote:
> I just ran across a new full size wind tunnel opening up in North Carolina.
> It is co-owned by Gary Eaker. Listed were two notes of interest:
>
> -- Co-designer, builder, and driver of 1988 Pontiac Trans-Am land speed
> record holder at 293 mph. (Bonneville - 1989)
> -- Co-aerodynamicist of GM's EV1 electric vehicle, world's lowest aero drag
> production car (Cd = 0.19), holder of electric car speed record @ 183 mph in
> 1994
>
> Anyone have any info on these?
>
> They have a website check it out. Hey they do have pricing for non
> professional racers.
>
>
> http://www.aerodynwindtunnel.com/index.html
>
> Bill
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