Chris White

Interesting Monday - Pano is doing an article on one of our listers cars that I did the engine / engine management work and it was close enough that I made the trip down for the day. I drove the Audi S4 'chase' car for the motion shots and took my Cayenne out on the Bonnevile Salt Flats as a support vehicle. It turns out that this week is "Speed Week" out on the Salt Flats....you just never know what is going to drive by!!!

The first couple of pics are of a hot rod that drove by - I saw it later and the engine is a Ford Flathead with Megasquirt engine management and coil per cylinder ignition and a pretty slick intake manifold. The picture of the car cracked me up because the driver was smoking a cigarette while driving across the Salt Flats on a 95 degree day...probably had a jug of race gas in the back seat!

Next: interesting stock looking old Ford

Next: yes, the salt sticks to everything! including a hot rodded Edsel!

Last: a sneak peek of the listers car. I'll hold off on any other info since the article has not been completed (typically that will take a while). I shot a bunch of test pics a couple of weeks ago, I think it took that long to get the salt off the car!

Epic2112

The salt looks like snow. Is that a NY plate on the 951? Quite a schlep to Bonneville.

Chris White

Nope, not NY plate.
I have been doing some consulting work up in Idaho - so its only 3 hrs to the Salt Flats.

Ronin-951

Thanks Chris. A Mechanic friend of mine does a lot of those Flathead's for these Folks, but he runs a ford 427 side oiler in his '32 HiBoy on the Salt. No one 'win's' anything out there except Character, mostly it's a year of building, innovating and experimenting followed by a day of disaster, ... and this is year after year after year. A hardcore group of backyard genius'es who give the shirt off their backs to the competition in the pursuit of speed, American Hero's all.

Thom

Darwin's been trying high speed runs?

Chris White

Yeah, I got to admit that after watching these guys (hundreds of them!) I started to think about what it would take to set a 951 up for a speed run....there are literally thousands of classes to run in - some guys will set their cars up to run 3 or 4 different classes with just minor changes in between.

I don't think it would take much to get a 3 liter turbo with some tall rear tires (better rake and gearing) to go over 200!

mudbuddha

Yup, that looks like Darwin's 3.1L car. He mentioned this in a recent post as he is close by. Pretty cool looking pix of the 951- how did it do?

Ronin-951

Year's of being a Fly on the Wall show's the problem everyone has is traction, not Horsepower. Most of these guys are adding weight wherever they can, 6000 lbs is about normal if the goal is over 200, and they still end up spinning the tires on the top end. Man, we talk about hitting our Heads against a Wall, this must be where the phrase originated.

mudbuddha

The high speed cars that I often see running the salt flat have skinny tires on them probably for this reason- like snow, you don't want build up of salt on the contact patches.

jg951

Beautiful picture of the 951, paint look flawless. I can see traction will be a PITA.

951 to the salt flats Bucket List. CHECKED

Congrats!

Chris White

Studded snows?

Ronin-951

It's a matter of Air Resistance, a 'squared' function. Try to fix that and your in the Streamliner classes with the REALLY crazy guy's.

Josh B

That is probably one of one silver rose turbos with 18" Rufs on it in that style Really happy for some 951 coverage in the Pano...

Darwantae951

Was a pretty cool experience!

mudbuddha

I believe they are 17s. Still cool looking though...The 951s looks better with classic 5 spoke wheels imo.

So what it's like driving on the flats...is it like driving on snow with better traction and without the ice? If one need to use some sort of studded tires, wouldn't that create a lot of friction as in high rolling resistant?