Salt Winder

Here's an interesting thing from a few weeks back. A guy my dad knows is building a land speed racer.



We went out to visit him with a few guys from my dad's car club.



To start with, he had to build a custom garage to accommodate it's length. Basically it's two car lengths long by two wide. Great garage, he's got pretty much a full machine shop set up around the perimeter!!!



The car is a classic streamliner, with two small block chevy engines. No transmissions, because they were the weak link in the system. Instead he's got a slipper clutch pack that grabs more as the RPM and speed increase.



The engines are World products with raised decks, and he's got them out to 427" producing around 700 horsepower each. He was spending so much money at the dyno shop that he ended up just buying the place. Cheaper and easier that way!!!



The engines are mounted crosswise to the body. A problem with mounting them conventionally is when you nail the throttle, the rotational torque has a tendency to flip the thing over on it's side, as well as when you let off the throttle.



I learned quite a bit on this jaunt. He'll be going out to the Bonneville salt flats this fall for it's next run.