"06" Lake Gairdner traction

[edweldon]

.....Just in the last year their have been some well documented efforts that went home with their tail between their legs and choking on a foot.
 That made them walk a little funny.
It was particularly hard on the engineers.

Usually is humbling for the engineers.  But I think at least some of them are learning.  I had a nice chat in impound with the young GM engineer supporting the Socal lakester (attachment)at SW last year.  Nice guy, had his head on pretty straight.  Wish now I'd gotten his pic and made a better note of his name.  I think they applied a conservative approach to this particular project.  Take a new strong engine technology; pick a class with a soft record (read "little serious competition"); wrap a proven not too radical car design around it; and then ratchet the record up just fast enough to keep the crew and supporters happy.  Looks like there's some good management at work here.  I wonder if it will continue given the rocky road facing our auto manufacturers.
Ed Weldon
The test floor tests the engineers as well as the machinery........

[jimmy six]

One thing they are learning is it take 2 ways for a record over 200. They qualify way over it but seem to have a problem coming back fast....this year will probably do it.

[joea]

Denis Manning made a device to try
to quantify corfficient of friction and
tested it on El Mirage....Bonneville.....asphalt
.......Black Rock........AND GAIRDNER..........

he has the numbers for you and told me them............

I did not write them down because......it is what it
is when you get there.....and you deal with it the
best you can.......

it didnt help him go faster there...........

Gairdner was bette than all the venues he tested............

Joe

[edweldon]

.....it is what it
is when you get there.....and you deal with it the
best you can......

The best I could hope for is a little help in making adjustments before the run.  (see my recently posted speed-gear ratio Excel spreadsheet.)  
I know there are a lot of you old hands out there who have enough experience to make good "seat of the pants" calls. I'm a late starter...I hope I live that long.  
Til then all I've got to go by is the wisdom of my friends and a little bit of engineering.
Ed Weldon

[JackD]

There is a very simple strain gage you can make yourself with housebound stuff.
A digital bathroom scale with the appropriate linkage can be used to determine a lot of things without going 200mph, once a year to find out.
Start out with a L shaped fixture that will load the scale when you pull on the 90 deg arm with a ski rope for example. That will teach you how it works and now you have to adapt the concept for whatever you want to measure. More important than absolutes is improvements.
If you are 25% slow , your going to need more work.
Data accusation (spelled the way I want it) is important and can be really easy, using it is usually the hard part.

[edweldon]

Jack D  wrote?."A digital bathroom scale with the appropriate linkage?..Start out with a L shaped fixture that will load the scale when you pull on the 90 deg arm with a ski rope "

Good idea, Jack.  And a stretchy rope.  I see a simple flat 3/4" plywood box with the scale inside, the linkage and cable attachment on one end and a window on top so a  volunteer (who provides both the weight and data acquisition device) can stand or sit on top and read the scale.  
A trailer winch or even a lever working around a stake in the salt would give an steady pull. I'm not sure pulling with a car is a good plan.  Best a 2 person job.
I'd prefer an old fashioned analog scale.  The digital scale may not catch the lower moving reading which is the one you want rather than the higher breakaway static number.
Ed Weldon

[JackD]

Wow, you are getting fancy.
What's an analog ?

[edweldon]

JackD asks---What's an analog ?

Silicon Valley word meaning "alligator".......or....

The picture that the tanker truck paints on the Salt on Speed Week Saturday morning .........or.......

The special log books used by electric streamliners......or......

The part of an old engineer that he loses before his memory...... or.....

My wife's old bathroom scale (that doesn't eat batteries) I use for weighing parts in the shop.......or.......

That chain of JackD's that I'm having fun pulling.........
Ed Weldon

[JackD]

I thought an ALLIGATOR was the thing that lived in the ditch around Moroso's track in Florida.
On a press day before an event we had there, somebody fed him a whole case of frozen hot dogs from the snack bar and the next week at the car races he wouldn't go away.
A week later his GF called me to ask if I knew anything about it. Hell, that was more than a week. What was I going to remember ?
Moral to the story "It is easier to catch an ALLIGATOR with hot dogs than chains but don't run out. Fly out on a Sunday night and you can deny the whole thing. I know I did. "

[Rex Schimmer]

Edweldon, I was never to impressed with the So Cal tank, push rod suspension, ground effects tunnels, etc, looked more like it should have been at Laguna Seca than Bonneville, but of course they hit the real "hi tech" addition when they stabilized the tail fin with twisted safety wire.  I probably talked to the same guy that you talked to last year and he was telling me that he was the "aero" engineer for the car and how low the Cd was and how there was no drag from the ground effects etc, but when I asked him why the new "tank" with all of its hi tech stuff, turboed motor, wind tunnel testing still has not gone as fast as the original, his answer, and I'm not BS-ing, was "well they had a V8 and we just have a four cylinder." Honest to God that's what he said! He quit talking to  me and I needed to go some where for a big laugh.

Rex

[JackD]

I think I would have been inclined to leave my lunch on his shoe.

[edweldon]

....."well they had a V8 and we just have a four cylinder." Honest to God that's what he said! He quit talking to  me and I needed to go some where for a big laugh.... Rex

I think what you got was a canned answer crafted by some GM spinmiester.  I'll bet that kid had a whole briefing book of that stuff to memorize.
I think the twisted safety wire says it all about the GM management attitude toward engineering.
But they're our GM.  Why the H did they let themselves get into the mess they're in?
Ed

[dwarner]

OK, I'm going to need some ed-cation(my spelling, Jack).

You've got your trick, plywood friction gauge all set and quantified. You are going up and down the return road, can't get closer to the track than a couple hundred or so feet, taking readings and putting them in your laptop spreadsheet. The actual track surface has had dozens of runs on it over the last few days so it has no relationship to the return road. In the meantime your buddy is advancing your roadster thru the lines to the starting area.

In a couple of hours you have the info you need and hustle back to your car which is now three back and needs a driver suited up and ready to go.
Scott has been dumping some of his low power bikes out of the trailer and quailfying for a couple of dozen records. Now, here is the trick part. We know Scott has his finger on the cof of the surface today so while pulling on our firesuit we sneek a glance to see what he has in mind. There sits a 4 turbo, multi cylinder, many streamlined, fuel bike ready to go.

Oh my God!!! my data is wrong!!! You jump out of the car, wave a couple of people around while making whatever adjustments you think will be to your advantage. In the mean time the temp has fallen, the clouds and wind have come up and what data you have in your spreadsheet is junk.

Please tell how the cof reading from several miles away and hours ago will help during your 2.5 to 3 min of run time.

As always, in wonderment of overthinking this thing,

DW

[JackD]

Read it again.
I never said I used plywood a laptop or applied it to the track. The only constant about the surface will be change. All the testing and evaluation I do is in my time at my location. You can listen to the CB and find out the tack conditions with the speeds and counting the spins. Scott is pulling your leg because the speed secret he is hiding is the watching of others. "Never make the same mistake the first time." The successful bikers are very selective where they drive for good reason. At El Mirage for example, you just kinda drive in the shiny spots. At Bonneville it is not much different. In any case, you don't want to run in the fluff or one of Al's tire ruts.
If you can't figure any of that out, more rules may be your only outlet from what I have seen.

*****FANFY DANCY:  A DANCE FOR THE ADMIRING FANS, ONLY TAUGHT AT THE HIGHEST PR AND ENGINEERING LEVELS IN LIEU OF ACHIEVEMENT.

[edweldon]

This is fun.  
Dan, I can see your chain hanging out??..  
Jack?..I've never met you..I don't think?Why am I trying so hard to insult you?

Engineers are a strange breed. Detail oriented.  Always wanting to know how this or why that.  Constantly frustrated by their inability to control the world around them.  Fascinated by new discoveries.  Too often more interested in the process than the end result.  A certain immunity to them is necessary for the survival of our species.

I've had a fling with data recorders.  Not fun.  Can be more damn trouble than they are worth.  
Last minute gear change??Salt, sticky oil and perspiration.    Not fun.
The 2 mile marker goes by at somewhere on the north side of 150.  Fun
You see one of your best friends get handed a red hat.  Fun
The best computer we have is still the one between our ears.  That?s the one to focus on.
Ed