You know how it is- a unanimous decision is reached among everyone after the banquet that the only people doing it right are the echoechoecho Tercel guys, and we should all build simple cars and just develop them... but then you have an 18hr drive home and your mind starts wandering. This is the thread to post the heroically dumb garbage you came up with while delirious and pulling a trailer.
On the way home, Andy and I brainstormed a number of builds, but the worst were definitely the following:
-Team of vehicles with common theme. Costumes. Literally cut the cars up and form Voltron in the concours.
-Take advantage of the "fuel is free" rule by:
- making your fuel the kinetic energy you add to a giant berkeleying flywheel which drives the car. Terrifying.
- making your fuel the potential energy you add to a whole bunch of garage door springs which drive the car. Possibly even worse.
- making your fuel solid rocket boosters. This is semi-viable, but enough large scale model rocket engines to run a 12sec 1/4 mile time in a light car were, via some quick calculations, determined to be a budget exempt ~$8k per run.
What have you got?
I posted this 3 seconds after you, so I deleted my post. Terrible minds think alike. I don’t know how you keep going on so little sleep, for some reason I turned the GPS on at first to get me to work this morning.
pimpm3
SuperDork
10/15/18 9:28 a.m.
Your third "fuel is free" suggestion is truly terrifying! I feel that if the magazine balked at cyclecarts they probably would have a problem with rocket powered challenge cars.
I'm sure there's at least one or two people here who work in the aero manufacturing biz and has access to at least one scrap rocket that can strap it to a gokart car.
And I, for one, would love to see that happen. They can even call the car Acme or Wiley.
I wasn’t at the Challenge so feel free to boot me out of this thread after I suggest something!
Imagine a Challenge where all the entrants had to start with one common car, say an 8th generation Corolla. I personally would love to see what you guys (and girls) could do, not so much with the Corolla but with the very same platform.
We were discussing rockets at afloridaman's house. The number of us who have independently come up with that is a bit terrifying.
FuzzWuzzy said:
I'm sure there's at least one or two people here who work in the aero manufacturing biz and has access to at least one scrap rocket that can strap it to a gokart car.
And I, for one, would love to see that happen. They can even call the car Acme or Wiley.
Pulse jets are cheap...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEHw9lInIfg
In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :
I’m going to be really disappointed if you don’t show up next year as Voltron, FYI.
I did want to put an SR71 engine in a limo. Not sure i'll find one in budget however...
Well, I spent about 3 hours following the same path as a guy who was towing some sort of really bad home made sand rail frame on a flatbed.
THAT gave me plenty of bad ideas.
Can we make a car by building a TUBE FRAME between two motorcycles in parallel?
How about just using a motorcycle from the steering head back (take off the front wheel), and bolting/welding it to the back of your challenge car like an outboard motor on a boat? It would be a 5th wheel, but every car would be improved by 100 extra HP, right?
SVreX
MegaDork
10/15/18 10:02 a.m.
I had to pretty much chain down a previous team mate to get him to stop considering peroxide rockets.
I worked at the time for the craziest man I’ve ever met- owner of a chemical plant who routinely took on weird custom chemical jobs with the potential to level 10 city blocks. He burned the plant down 3 times.
When I asked him what he would take to do peroxide rockets, he was genuinely scared, and said no way.
In reply to Robbie :
What about cutting off the back of a car, mounting a pair of motorcycles and steering them like a pair of outboards?
FuzzWuzzy said:
I'm sure there's at least one or two people here who work in the aero manufacturing biz and has access to at least one scrap rocket that can strap it to a gokart car.
And I, for one, would love to see that happen. They can even call the car Acme or Wiley.
I could likely come up with a JATO. Someone else should probably run the burn time calculation.
Paul, weren't the turbonics a hydo peroxide rocket. there ARE some still around.
Hehe I also thought about rockets when some people were discussing the "fuel is free" rule, and then put it out of my mind as a silly idea, until now...
How about a car powered by a pneumatic motor charged with solid-rocket-powered turbochargers? Like a rocket turbopump, but compressing air for the pneumatic engine instead of moving fuel. Or do something similar to boost an engine without using any of its own energy, like that APU-boosted hillclimb car. In fact I'm sure there would've been an APU-boosted car already if not for the near-impossibility of getting a working aircraft APU on a Challenge budget.
Back to the expense of solid rocket boosters, couldn't a cheaper one be made with a hybrid rocket like tire rubber+N2O? That's what Virgin's spaceplanes run on. Nitrous costs are exempt, right?
Spec Maserati BiTurbo class
hobiercr said:
Spec Maserati BiTurbo class
Hits way too close to home and seems all but inevitable at some point. Makes me shudder since I'd basically have to bring one.
Still dunno if that makes the idea "better" or "worse".
Ian F
MegaDork
10/15/18 12:02 p.m.
A stupid part of me (the part with more time and space) still ponders finding a SBC/auto and cutting up my Jetta wagon parts car until it's RWD.
ebonyandivory said:
FuzzWuzzy said:
I'm sure there's at least one or two people here who work in the aero manufacturing biz and has access to at least one scrap rocket that can strap it to a gokart car.
And I, for one, would love to see that happen. They can even call the car Acme or Wiley.
Pulse jets are cheap...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEHw9lInIfg
You would use all your budget on fuel.
Isn't the answer always Miata?
dunruhroy said:
ebonyandivory said:
FuzzWuzzy said:
I'm sure there's at least one or two people here who work in the aero manufacturing biz and has access to at least one scrap rocket that can strap it to a gokart car.
And I, for one, would love to see that happen. They can even call the car Acme or Wiley.
Pulse jets are cheap...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEHw9lInIfg
You would use all your budget on fuel.
And the noise would make you wish for the chopped FC with last year's exhaust instead...
