Australian Belly Tank

[Reverend Hedgash]

Yes! We received our starter motor (courtesy ebay) and attached it.

Dr. Go ripped the battery out of the panel van and in a second she was wired.

A touch of the contacts and the motor turned.

IT"S ALIVE!!!

Well almost. It would help if we had a fuel tank etc. but it sounded like a real car, not some thing built in a garden shed by two salt encrusted dreamers.

Now this is not so hard you may say, its a common engine from thousands of Aussie cars... but this has been after all the work shortening the gearbox (see earlier email) and recently the trials of having to add all the rarer and more expensive manual items for what sells mostly as an automatic engine. (Flywheel, designing and getting built our own adaptor due to differing bolt pattern {grrr}, needing to get a different starter motor, making sure we get the correct spacer for said starter motor, blah blah blah blah.

We feel this is a milestone as I am sure all home builders have been through before will understand. We were so happy we had to have a trophy cup of tea.

Further developments since our last update is the construction of our scattershield is done in 8mm steel and the chopping of the bottom of the tank.

(thanks evLee for your email, apologies for not replying earlier but I was waiting until we had furthered our action regarding aero issues as posted earlier.)

The base of the car is a flat bottom only until the one third point where it rises on the same angle as the engine (which is on an angle to keep it in the tank shell). The car narrows quite quickly here so any venturi effects are limited anyway unless we build a base plate extending beyond the cars parameters (which GM Ecolakester was playing with).

We thought about this a couple of years back which you can see on the render attached, but have not explored further as we are aiming to build a car that has minimal aero concepts as a base car so we can there have a datum to compare the addition of aero ideas to.

Shall take and post more photos shortly.

Reverend H+

[Sumner]

Hey congratulations guys .  I'll bet you are happy indeed.  Nice rendering Rev.. Do you have any other angles of the car?

What is your final decision on the chute?

Will there be a push bar or will you tow the car to the line?

Anyway it is going to be a beautiful car     .

c ya, Sum

[Drewfus]

Well done guys, great to read about your success. Just out of curiosity, how much longer was the standard g'box?

On a different note, have you considered using the GM blower intake (ideally with the Eaton M90   ) as the air inlet enters from the rear of the manifold.....

Cheers,

Drewfus

[Dr Goggles]

Oi!
Ta Sum , we won't be pushing it for a while , one day it might go V8 sans gearbox......it'll need some pushing then.Good to hear from you Drewfus , sorry I didn't get back to you about the B'ville shots ,they are of course great ....it took me about three months just to look at 'em all..The manifold is reversed as you see it there as the throttle body wouldn't fit inside the skin in it's usual orientation....we've got an M90 from a Pontiac ( that's , like , a potato isn't it?) and we had a Holden version paid for off E-Bay .....got dudded , badly . Sadly we won't be getting blown for a while yet........

The gearbox is about 200mm(eight inches ) shorter than it was which allowed us to use a tailshaft rather than a boat-drive...there is of course no stress relieving narrow waist on the output shaft anymore so it will be interesting to see what carks it first there .

...onward salt lake soldiers...........

[Drewfus]

Oi!
Good to hear from you Drewfus , sorry I didn't get back to you about the B'ville shots ,they are of course great ....it took me about three months just to look at 'em all.

You're lucky I didn't send you all the 'others' then from the rest of my trip...

...onward salt lake soldiers...........

Keep at it, you're doing great...

Cheers,

Drewfus

P.S. My salt coop idea has just recieved a 'lift' as I've gained sponsorship from an engine builder for 1x550hp SBC....can you say YEE HAAA!!!

[Stovebolt]

You're lucky I didn't send you all the 'others' then from the rest of my trip...


P.S. My salt coop idea has just recieved a 'lift' as I've gained sponsorship from an engine builder for 1x550hp SBC....can you say YEE HAAA!!!

Aren't I waiting on some more of those shots?  Between the three of you I should have seen some more!!!!!

550 BHP SBC - well you are a turncoat aren't you Good luck to you Andrew

[Dr Goggles]

Will there be a push bar or will you tow the car to the line?
c ya, Sum

.....at the moment we're still allowed to drive it ( to and from the track)and initially It shouldn't be a problem apart from the limited vision and 30 deg' castor  but I thinks we'll need a dolly because the turning circle will be somewhat ..large

...I have something " on my plate" at the moment which is eating into "tank-time".,...but we'll get there

[Sumner]

Will there be a push bar or will you tow the car to the line?
c ya, Sum

.....at the moment we're still allowed to drive it ( to and from the track)and initially It shouldn't be a problem apart from the limited vision and 30 deg' castor  but I thinks we'll need a dolly because the turning circle will be somewhat ..large

How are you cooling the motor?  I would think "not driving" it to the starting line would be good.  Also at the end of the run "not driving" it back to the pits might be good or even required depending on the cooling, state of tune, etc..

...I have something " on my plate" at the moment which is eating into "tank-time".,...but we'll get there

Hope it doesn't take too long to finish "the meal" so you can get back to work and we get some more pictures

c ya, Sum

[Dr Goggles]

[quote="SumnerHow are you cooling the motor?  I would think "not driving" it to the starting line would be good.  
c ya, Sum[/quote]

good point Sum'but until we start pushing the "boundaries" with it I'm confidant that it won't be a problem............in an effort to get everything shaken-down and settled before we work out how to maximise the volume of cooling tanks we might use a radiator and thermo fan lying above the gearbox with an extra holding tank ...once we've got a better idea of exactly how much room we've got and where it is we'll be putting our water tanks in but as it is there certainly isn't room for one tank of the volume we'll need....yes , I know we'll need through flow ( I've got the Rev' on my back here) and that's bad but it won't be for long.....Most of our problems are due to our stubborn insistance to keep the tank in it's original dimensions...and funnily enough when they built it they probably weren't thinking about putting a V6, a 6 foot fella and various other large heavy items in it    

Ain't I clean, bad machine
Super cool, super mean
Dealin' good, for The Man.
Superfly, here I stand.
Secret stash, heavy bread,
Baddest bitches in the bed,
I'm your pusherman

........that's verse 2 Curtis Mayfield "Pusherman" ...just for the record

[Dr Goggles]

.......yesterday , in search of a bit of inspiration we put the wheels and body on , bolted in the drive train, hoisted the car off the build jig ( which then got chopped up 'cause there ain't a whole lotta room in the shed) and put it on the ground........and Lo' and behold it looks just like the renders and strangely once it sat on the ground it looked smaller AND LOWER ..in fact I reckon it'd fit between Kent Riches' Squirrell's bag and the ground it's that low ...........

I'll get the Rev' to post some of the shots we took.....it's gonna be a long time before we get the bodywork all schmick but it was just the shot in the arm that I needed because I was getting a bit #$%*&+$%#$@ with it all and to leap ahead a bit and see it like that was great

Never thought it was going to be easy but when I looked at it last night sitting there it really made sense to me the tone of voice that other builders used when we asked them questions about the whole game of building one....that is to say none were discouraging but there was a certain weariness....after three years .......I think I get it.You have to be a little bit mad and very very very determined ......we aren't finished yet but there is no evidence of light at the start of the tunnel and I'm fairly sure we'll see some ahead of us sometime soon ..........see , a little bit mad.

[JackD]

Now is the time to stop feeding your driver because they tend to grow over time.

[Dr Goggles]

Now is the time to stop feeding your driver because they tend to grow over time.

If it wasn't for his missus ( or me when we're working on the tank) the Rev' wouldn't eat at all and um , well you've all seen my frame ....I've put on three pounds in the last twenty five years...Even if we did balloon the only thing we're not short on is willing drivers.....I've got eight male nephews alone , they're expendable and one of them is an inch above dwarfism .

Yesterday we put in the fuel tank.As with so many things on this build it was a found object , I kid you not , Graeme our engine man was moving a cupboard at work and when he looked inside there was a tank out of one of those Suzuki Across 250's....the wheel arch in it and the long thin shape of it are just perfect .we took the original filler cap off the tank(it looks just like one of those stickers that ya see on tuner car fuel flaps) and are about to fit that to the upper cowl .....didn't want to waste anything!!!!

We are as I like to say " running out of excuses" to finish this thing......

[Reverend Hedgash]

Yep, the little petrol tank is in the big petrol tank, like a mother and child.

Only the canopy, exhaust system, fire system, cooling system and a car load of body work to go...

oh yeah, and the trailer, mobile workshop, paintjob #1, parachute, penetration lining, etc. etc.

Better stop thinking about what is not done and focus on the next ONE thing!!!

Attached is a render of our current design but still not happy with canopy details. This is a millimeter perfect computer model of our car that we have been building with the vehicle as a test bed of ideas as we have gone.

Not only has it made it easier because of the weird parabolic shape of the tank and us not having all the pieces until recently, it also aided us mentally to keep going because we had a clear image of what we are aiming for.

The photos show that we are on the right track.

Bless.

Rev. H+

[Sumner]

Wow guys great work     That is going to be one of the most beautiful lakesters ever made .  Hey it was hard for me to sit on those pictures you sent a while back, but somehow I did it .

For the driver to get in and out does the body right in front of the cage lift up with the canopy?

Put some more pictures up when you get a chance,

Sum

[Dr Goggles]

....Oh my Sum thanks!.....the front will flip up in order to get out .The Conundrist is right though! if the driver has a pot gut they won't be able to bend far enough forward to get in or out....as it is a helmet will fit through the top of the cage but in order for it to be legal ( in case you're wondering) the top of the cage will be capped because as it is the helmet protrudes above the bottom line of the hoops when either the Rev or I are in it .The Grump is a bit shorter but heavier than either of us ...so it tends to fit about 80-85 kgs of human(175-185 pounds) whatever shape they come in.....

It was a revelation when we started the design as to how beautiful the original tank looked with just wheels drawn alongside....the Rev' has done a fantastic job ( don't tell him though) and there are hundreds of renders with the slightest variations that change the look totally.....when we started we figured that if it was ugly no-one would give a fig what we did ....now we have to make it fast.............um , anyone here know anything about that?