Ray,
Those are absolutely awesome pictures!! The detail pics of the Burkland car are certainly of great interest also. When you say "single disc brake" does this mean that the large disc and double calipers is the only brake that the car has? as it certainly appears so. I have looked at the Burkland car several times but never had the opportunity to look at the details that you show in the pictures. There certainly does not appear to be any brakes on the rear drive gear system and I would suppose that if the front and rear are mechanically connected then only one brake assembly would be needed. And I guess that it is really only for stopping from 100 mph down. I suppose I could believe that there could be some drive train dynamics that may contribute to "hopping" that the car is doing but there are so many things that can be involved it would be just conjecture on my part. Tom and his dad are Dodge good engineers and their car is certainly a tribute to their efforts, I can only wish them more success in the future.
Again, a big thanks for the awesome pictures!!
Rex
I'm glad you enjoyed the photos. I was fortunate enough to be there for last year's Streamliner Shootout and follow the Burkland's and the other teams in their FIA/FIM record attempts and I agree with you about the engineering expertise that both Tom and Gene have shown. Their record for the flying mile is a testament to that as are all the other high speed passes they've made.
Luke's Daddy posted about the brake on the output shaft of the transmission. I didn't know about this, but it kinda makes me feel a little better for some reason. The other side of the front suspension has no brake rotor:
A quick note on this. I asked Tom about what appeared to be burned spots on the rotor on the left front of the liner. He told me that it wasn't nearly as bad as it looked and was more of an accretion of pad material on the rotor rather than hot spots that might have resulted in warping the rotor. I don't know enough about it to comment any further.
There are quite a few photos from the Shootout here:
http://chevyasylum.com/bsf2008/shootout/Welcome.htmlRe: your statement about brakes being good from under 100 mph: That's pretty much what Tom Burkland told me. To take this a little further, the reason this whole little "incident" happened is (in my opinion) because of the FIA rules stating that only one hour is allowed for a turnaround and that the hour begins when the lights are tripped at the end of the measured segment (Mile, Kilometer...whatever) and the lights beginning the return run must be tripped before 60 minutes elapse. Having said that, the Burklands decided to save some time in that hour by leaving the braking (chute, air brake panels and friction brakes) until "the last minute." That way they'd have more time to get the liner prepped for the return run.
There were a couple of things that I don't believe they expected to happen: First, I really think they expected BOTH chutes to open. That would have helped a lot, but as shown in my photo, only one opened up completely. I don't know if the 2nd one got fouled in the lines or what, but there was only one chute open as Tom approached the pit/turnaround area.
Second, I don't think they expected to have trouble shutting the motors down. As the liner was approaching the pit area, I could hear pretty dramatic downshifting, apparently in an effort to use compression braking to slow the liner. I suppose it helped, but it was still goin pretty fast as it entered the pit/starting/turnaround area. I've read estimates ranging from over 100 mph to around 75 MPH as entry speed. I don't know, because I was kinda riveted in place with my eye looking thru the lens of my camera. I DO know that I got somewhat splattered with salt that was being dug up as the liner went past my location (fairly closely...I spose I wasn't smart enough to move back a bit):
The liner finally came to a stop at what seemed to me to be just short of "running out of room""
In the photo above, he's almost stopped but you can see the semi in the background. That's on I-80. It seemed to me to be a little closer than I would have liked...I don't know about anyone else. And then there was that little issue with the motors continuing to run. Apparently killing the ignition didn't do the trick and the fuel pump shutoff failed. At least that's the story I got. It sat idling (dieseling on alcohol?) for 3 minutes according to the time stamps on my photos. Tom tried to cover the air intakes as did some other people by leaning across them and using their bodies to seal them off but it didn't work. Finally a CO2 fire bottle was found and shot into the main intake:
That killed the motors. As I understand it, there were some problems with the cylinder heads afterward. I don't know if the cold CO2 damaged them or not, but I was told that some repair work was necessary before making their next (and successful) record attempt. Needless to say, they didn't make the 1-hour turnaround deadline on that run.
I'll take a minute to get on a soapbox here. It's my opinion that the 1 hour turnaround limit was the underlying cause of three different incidents at that meet. Poteet/Main's fire that completely burned up the engine compartment of the Speed Demon stemmed from an EGT sensor that blew out of an exhaust header tube and burned through an oil line; The Mormon Missile's fire caused by propylene glycol coolant igniting (which was only part of a series of issues that resulted in a very serious fire) and the Burklands' close call with I-80 in an attempt to make the most of the time allotted. If the FIA's turnaround time was the same as the FIM's (2 hours) both the Speed Demon and the Missile could have been fired up and checked for problems before the return run was attempted. There wasn't enough time to do this in the 1 hour allotment. And I doubt that the late braking would have been attempted if an additional hour had been available to the Burkland team. Maybe, maybe not....hard to say, but I know that the short time frame was the reason for the attempts to minimize slow-down time.
It's my belief that the 1-hour time limit is unrealistic, dangerous and should be changed to bring it into "equality" with the FIM time period. I don't know how I can take it any further than stating my opinion here, but I really think that change should be made.
YMMV,
RtR
