Belly Tank: First run at PENDINE VHRA. Ep83, YES!

Plenty of drama and success, completed first run at Pendine Sands.

Plan was to do a slow first shakedown run then go faster (with a GoPro fitted) later on. It didn't turn out that way but I don't care, I completed a run.

Hired a (huge) car trailer. Got it stuck on my S shaped downhill drive which delayed me getting to Pendine by 3 hours. Wales is hilly. I discovered a way to move a trailer sideways with a car on it 1cm at a time using a jack - something for another video maybe. Very slow method though.

Radiator boiled over at 103° Celsius during my slow return to the pits so I need to redesign my cooling system. The bulkhead/bodywork did its job, none of the boiling water landed on me, which was nice.

(Update 2 days later: A top hose blew off the head on one side explaining the volcano of water and steam. Have had engine running since and all seems OK)

Best comment of the day was from the marshal who towed me the last 100 yards back. When I apologised for needing a tow, he said not to worry at all, I had built a car that looks like a missile, completed a run on Pendine Sands for the first time and that was a big success in his book. I agreed with him !

Data recording of engine temperature showed 2 main things:
i) When you run and then park the car, the engine just sits at the final temperature it reached for several hours. If you run it 2h later for example, do NOT expect it to have passively cooled down significantly. There is not much passive airflow unlike in a car with an open front end.
ii) Due to (i) above and me having driven from trailer to the pits, waited in a queue with engine running and so on, by the time I started my run I was already probably in the high 90's.

Discussions in this video with two other belly tank owners who have different cooling systems, one using a large water tank, the other a radiator and additional pumps, both of which work OK. Lots of helpful advice.

I will probably go for the large tank of water method, maybe with a water intercooler between the engine circuit containing normal corrosion inhibitors and the large water tank simply containing tap water.
This means you can empty tap water onto the beach between runs if you want to and top the tank up with cooler water, without upsetting anyone.
A total water volume around 13 - 15 gallons is apparently good enough for 2 runs and slow returns without any need for water replacement. That is a very useful piece of information acquired by trial and error from those who have gone before.

The steering yoke looks cool but trying to turn it handing over from one hand to the other, while keeping your right knee out of the way of it, and also out of the way of the gear-shift, also using your right hand to operate the brake means 3 hands would be better. A small round wheel would actually make more sense. Maybe I will have both, with quick releases and just keep the yoke for the children who all want to have a play with it.
When running down the course, using the yoke is really easy, but the wide turn at the end, while trying to slow down at same time, or indeed being towed by a pickup truck means you can nearly run out of hands.

My dampers are not very good. 85 years old ! Had to slow down as front end was bouncing up and down on the spring too much, with no real damping. May have to use short conventional ones.

You need to be ready to be shaken about as the sand gets rougher during the day, and of course everything gets covered in salty sand, mainly on the slow return nearer the sea.

Question: Did Malcolm Campbell drive through the edge of the sea to cool his tyres before making his return run in 1927, as is claimed, or did his car just have a really poor turning circle ?
   • Malcolm Campbell races at Pendine San...  

https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/...

No way I could have pulled the trailer back up slope to my house with the car on it so I was emailing various storage places at 5am on the Sunday morning, managed to find one that had one container left. The owner apologised that it was not as clean inside as the others, he was meaning to refurbish it, for me this is better as he doesn't mind me working on it there. Sounds like a plan......

Successful weekend, learned a huge amount.


The temperature datalogger:
It uses an Arduino which is a small cheap hobby computer the size of a credit card. Often used by schools to teach basic programming and control of simple robots for example. My temperature datalogger (an ideal school project, useful for lots of things) is loosely based on these DIY examples you can find on the web. About $30 in parts:

https://www.instructables.com/Tempera...

https://projecthub.arduino.cc/the_ele...

https://maker.pro/arduino/projects/ma...



Music:
YouTube Audio Library
Greaser - TrackTribe
Happy Birthday Bossanova - E's Jammy Jams