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Post by racket on Mar 14, 2011 15:57:55 GMT -5
Hi Anders Congratulations on getting home in one piece ;-) More info please on what went on , times , speeds , mishaps ...............what was all that welding for etc etc etc ..... Cheers John
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Post by Johansson on Mar 15, 2011 8:25:13 GMT -5
Thanks! Tonight we will get together and sort all pics and video footage out so later this week I will write up a summary of the weekend with pics. I have some time to catch up with my family now so you will have to excuse me if it takes a couple of days to write the race report.
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Post by Johansson on Mar 18, 2011 2:09:44 GMT -5
I haven´t got hold of the pics yet, but here is a summary of the weekend. On thursday we spent all night working on Bosses Lamborghini to find an electrical problem, it turned out that during the final assembly of the dashboard a cable connection that we made when he visited us had come loose inside a taped up cable splice (damn english, this didn´t come out right...) but after 5 hours of afterburner work and fault finding we had the engine running hard. On friday Olov ran the kick but had to abort the run since the bolted flange on the afterburner had started to leak and the entire heat shield was glowing, he held on as long as he could and ended up with a burnt left leg. I was declared the driver for the next run, so after we had welded the flange and filled her up with diesel we headed out again. This time the engine ran really hard at 2.4bar P2, 2L/min water injection and afterburning, but a stupid mistake made the engine flame out after 1000m. We forgot to open the air inlet to the fuel tank that we have to close to fill it... Oh well, at least we got two test runs so we were confident that saturday would be the day for speed and glory. After some thinking we decided to stiffen up the runners a bit since yesterdays runs were a bit unstable. Since we couldn´t risk burning the electronic boxes on the kick we had to add the runner bars with the foot plates taken off the kick, this proved to be a bit problematic and combined with the warped afterburner flange it made the kick steer right. When it was time to race the time had slipped away so it was now or never, we decided to play safe with a 2.1bar P2, no water and moderate afterburner speed to assure that no flameouts or other problems would occur. This was probably a wise decision since the kick instantly steered towards the right side of the track, I had to throw my left leg out and press the heel into the track and keep it there for the entire 2000m run to keep it going straight. Despite this we noted a top speed on the GPS at 122km/h which would have given us a second place in our class if I could have kept going that fast during the entire race, deep tracks from the cars made the kick slow down several times and the kick didn´t pick up any speed at all between the 1000m and 2000m mark. Oh well, we were very happy that we finally made it all the way! Loud cheering and jumping in the headquarters and a shower and a well deserved drink (more than one in fact) at the pub was all the prize we needed. I´ll fill you in with pics later, here is a video of saturdays racing.
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Post by Johansson on Mar 18, 2011 2:11:31 GMT -5
You can see a little incident during starting in the video posted above, now my chicken-hearted friends know why it is called a Run Away... ;D
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Post by racket on Mar 18, 2011 3:21:12 GMT -5
Hi Anders
LOL, "run away" it was, and they did , why is it that friends have a hightened sense of self preservation when around our creations ;-)
A good time was had by all , I hope Olov's leg is OK , burns are nasty , with all that snow around , at least you had something cold to put on it .
Cheers John
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Post by Johansson on Mar 18, 2011 11:33:13 GMT -5
The funniest part was that the two running guys were Olov and Pål, thought they would be used to strange gas turbine behavour by now... ;D
He went to see the doctor today and his leg doesen´t look very nice at the moment, he has promised to send a pic the next time he change the bandage.
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Post by ernie wrenn on Mar 18, 2011 15:20:02 GMT -5
It appears that the sled was ready to go race and the driver was asleep... Watching the veido everybody is having fun freezing!!! What is really wrong with the picture is the guy in the paraglider. The wind chill had to be below -0. Hope his legs heals properly... We have great burn hospital in Augusta Ga USA.. good reason for a visit. Ernie
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Post by racket on Mar 18, 2011 16:42:59 GMT -5
Hi Anders
LOL ....Olov will have scars to show his grandkids one day when telling them tales about his youthful adventures riding a fire belching beast , heh heh ....................almost of Nordic folklaw proportions ;-))
Cheers John
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Post by Johansson on Mar 21, 2011 4:21:21 GMT -5
It appears that the sled was ready to go race and the driver was asleep... Watching the veido everybody is having fun freezing!!! What is really wrong with the picture is the guy in the paraglider. The wind chill had to be below -0. Hope his legs heals properly... We have great burn hospital in Augusta Ga USA.. good reason for a visit. Ernie Wind chill is not really a problem, I remember when I was younger (sounds a bit daft coming from a 29year old...) and top tested a friends 160hp snowmobile in -30C in a t-shirt and a pair of jeans. My ears made a cracking noice when I rubbed them afterwards... ;D Chicks dig scars and they make a great diary in case the memory lets him down one day, so once the worst stinging has gone away he will be proud of his meaty looking leg.
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Post by Johansson on Dec 3, 2011 12:36:28 GMT -5
Been a while since we did anything to the kick, but now it is time to pull out our thumbs if we want to have it ready for this winters Speed Weekend! We wrote the PWM numbers down so Olov can syncronize the gas producer throttle, water/methanol injection and afterburner and put all three on the same throttle potentiometer. Last year we had one throttle for each function and it was very difficult to adjust the power setting up and down, especially while driving... Cheers!
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Post by racket on Dec 3, 2011 16:32:07 GMT -5
Hi Anders
Nice to see you guys firing up the kick for another years adventures :-)
Hope it all goes well on the ice .
Cheers John
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Post by Johansson on Dec 21, 2011 16:50:49 GMT -5
Here´s the 2011 race movie, only 9 months late...
Unfortunately in Swedish but most of the talking is drunk rambling anyway so you won´t miss anything important. ;D
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Post by Johansson on Jan 12, 2012 16:05:19 GMT -5
I have done an afterburner overhaul this week. The stepped flange on the AB has been changed to 5mm stainless instead of mild steel, a new stainless spark plug nut have been made and welded to it and a new and better thermocouple is fitted. And yes, there is supposed to be an angle "error" to the afterburner since the turbo is fitted slightly tilted backwards in the kick frame. Cheers!
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Post by racket on Jan 12, 2012 19:30:38 GMT -5
Hi Anders
Thats one huge afterburner , heh heh , the angle gives it a certain "character " ;-)
Cheers John
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Post by Johansson on Jan 13, 2012 1:32:35 GMT -5
Yeah, we need it to be this long so the jet exhaust is behind the drivers legs and not between them... Regarding the thickness we figured better safe than sorry, looks nice too.
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