DragStuff

pro70z28 wrote:

John_Heard wrote:Any reason not to go with the gear drive? Besides $$$ ? Seems like that is the hot ticket now.

I just like that blower belt whine I guess. But, I won't be buying the procharger for a while yet. (maybe next year) so I have time to change my mind.

H.P. will be in the 1,500 range. If I keep the weight around 3,000 Lbs. that should be about all it will handle with a mild steel chassis.

It'll be cool to watch this killer ride develop

pro70z28 wrote:Thanks for the info. John. I'll have to look into that. I'll have to research what the initial $$$ difference is. If it's not a huge difference it sounds like it might be made up in less maintenance $$$. That would keep the Pro Charger head lower too. I'm not sure what my hood clearance is going to be that far forward, Although I do have the engine pretty low in the rails. After the firewall is built the next project will be mounting the front end (1 piece fiberglass). Then I'll be able to measure all that out.

3,300 Bucks for the gear drive alone. So id say its a big price difference.

Thanks wikd69.

F3NOVA wrote:

pro70z28 wrote:Thanks for the info. John. I'll have to look into that. I'll have to research what the initial $$$ difference is. If it's not a huge difference it sounds like it might be made up in less maintenance $$$. That would keep the Pro Charger head lower too. I'm not sure what my hood clearance is going to be that far forward, Although I do have the engine pretty low in the rails. After the firewall is built the next project will be mounting the front end (1 piece fiberglass). Then I'll be able to measure all that out.

3,300 Bucks for the gear drive alone. So id say its a big price difference.

ouch.

Whats the advantage of gear drive vs belt drive ? I would suspect that one provides a lower profile than the other, but beyond that I can't imagine a benefit one way or another. HP (or weight) savings with the gear drive ?

And F3NOVA, does your nick imply you're running an F3 ProCharger ?

If there are only gears in the front mount setup, there should be less drag so it may free up some HP.

How do you change the under drive/overdrive % with a gear drive?

pro70z28 wrote:How do you change the under drive/overdrive % with a gear drive?

Not breaking belts is the big advantage, that seems to happen quite a bit with the higher hp setups.

John_Heard wrote:Not breaking belts is the big advantage, that seems to happen quite a bit with the higher hp setups.

John's right. Those belts don't like any "chatter" from ignition stutter or peddling the throttle.

Pro70z28......awesome work

Thanks Mike. I'll have to ponder this, to see if I should go gear drive for reliability.

I've been runnin' the lathe off & on the last few days & got the V-Band clamp flanges done.



Assembled and ready to TIG together



one more check to make sure everything fits like it should.

pro70z28 wrote: Assembled and ready to TIG together



one more check to make sure everything fits like it should.

I have a question, after having looked at this...

I'm assuming you're using solid motor mounts, but even with that, are you allowing for enough flex in that air piping when under hard torque and WOT ? If that rubber piece near the carb is the only place you'll have give, that might be problematic down the road. I'm betting you've aready considered this, but I wanted to ask.

There's is some give in the boot on the carb. There will be a boot on the ProCharger. I called Steve Morris just to see what he thought before I decided to go this route. He says bands are the way to go with a tube chassis, solid body & Motor/Mid plates. I've seen a couple with nothing but V-Bands and wondered the same thing. There's a slight amount of give in the v-band connection also with the 1/8'' o-rings, not much but some.

pro70z28 wrote:There's is some give in the boot on the carb. There will be a boot on the ProCharger. I called Steve Morris just to see what he thought before I decided to go this route. He says bands are the way to go with a tube chassis, solid body & Motor/Mid plates. I've seen a couple with nothing but V-Bands and wondered the same thing. There's a slight amount of give in the v-band connection also with the 1/8'' o-rings, not much but some.

I've always been guilty of over-engineering things and finding out that I should have stopped building long before I did. It's sort of like the basic rule of sales (that I never really did learn): "When you get to 'YES', STOP SELLING !".

Not saying thats what you’re doing, but I occasionally have to stop and do a reality check on what I’m doing with my stuff these days. For me, it's really easy to over do it...

Way back in 1979 I was partners with a friend, owning/running a 72 Datsun 510 doing hill-climbs, autocross and SCCA / Conference stuff (not much actually, but at the time I thought it was real big time). I fancied myself a hard-core race builder and attacked the suspension on that little 510, thinking I was gonna vastly improve it, make it corner like a slot car. In truth, it was fine just as it was and didn't need to be improved. Anyway, long story short, I fabbed new suspension parts along with a stout new sway bar for the back and immediately discovered the damn thing would lift the inside tire on every corner. On the one hand, I was ultimately successful in that I took all the sway out of the chassis. On the other hand, I destroyed *any* degree of handling that ride might have had. So, I ended up removing my 'improvements' and it immediately improved in performance.

I ended up bailing on road racing before long (I went back to school) but my buddy stayed in it, over the years racing Formula Vee, various Camaros and then did a long run in Formula Fords, running western conference series stuff.

pro70z28 wrote:[.

I have a friend with a twin turbo car done the same way. No problems yet.