The Power Tool Drag Races. May 7th 2006
Ace Auto Dismantlers
aka (ACE International Speedway)
2255 Mc Kinnion San Francisco, California.
It all started one November night in 2004. On the way home from a long day at work. I got into a Bad wreck in my 1985 Toyota pickup truck. Well I had to buy another basket case truck and then do an engine swap between the two vehicles. This left me with a dead Toyota 22R engine to get rid of.
Before I junked the engine I pulled the flywheel of of it and the clutch pressure plate as well.
Ya never know when you might need a good flywheel.
This was the beginning of the Matt Dawg Express....
In December of 2004 I dug out the Rescue saw engine we had used at the last power tool drag race the previous June. I mocked up the flywheel mounts with some blocks of wood and a 1" steel shaft and set the engine in front of it and though to myself... I wonder what this would do if I spun it real fast?
I got kinda excited and called My Buddy Matt Maxham from Team Plumb Crazy. I told him what I was thinking about and he said, What?
I rephrased my idea and said I want to build an Dinosaur Juice powered Inertia launched Power Tool dragster to race against our pals from Inertia Labs.
Matt and I had both fought against their robots in the past and know they are the ones to try and beat in any technical sport.
Matt said, "Beat Inertia Labs"? "YA OK" "Lets get them"..... "GRRR"... "What do ya need"?
Well I need to make a hub for this flywheel and about 40 ft of 1 inch square thin wall Steel tubing. Matt said "no problem" He found some 4 inch diameter round aluminum stock and had a hub machined out of it.
The game was on....
The next weekend I scored some parts I bought a trashed
electric scooter. The front handle became the steering wheel and the steering
bearing mount the scooters brake handle and cable was used as the throttle
cable for the engine.
I also bought a 3 foot piece of 1 inch keyed Steel shaft.
During the rest of that day and through the entire next long day I built
the frame for the flywheel the rear axle and the engine mount.
I was pretty happy when that part of the project was welded together and bolted down. It was pretty rough but it was strong and quite heavy.
During the next week, Matt came by with 40 ft of square tubing and a nice piece of 1 by 2 inch steel tubing that became the front axle.
I called him early on Saturday and his wife Wendy answered the phone she said he was still sleeping. I told her to wake him up I need to measure his Butt...
Wendy Laughed and said "All right??", (I'll tell him??).... Awhile later Matt came over and I actually did measure his Butt width, his Arm reach and his Leg length (bent). Once I had these measurements written down I went to work cutting and welding
During the rest of that day I built the front frame and
welded on the front axle and the steering shaft.
then I ordered some more parts.
I needed the front spindles and wheel hubs. I also bought
a inclinometer to set the 8 degrees of positive caster angle I chose for
the front end. This angle keeps the machine going straight and returns
the steering to center after a turn. I made a trammel bar and set the (toe
in) at zero degrees with about the same amount of camber. This machine
is made to go straight not around corners.
The next Saturday I mounted the spindles, crudely connected the steering with all thread and welded bolts and nuts and washers and mounted a hydraulic brake system salvaged from the clutch system of My poor wrecked Toyota truck... I also welded on a steel folding chair that I cut the legs off for a seat and a back rest...
I called Matt and said Ok she's ready for a first test. Matt took one look at the steering and said "You have got to be kidding". Then he tried the brake and said "Does this work"? I said "Well sorta". I told him I had ordered the ball pivots for the steering but I hadn't got them yet and yes the brakes needed work.
I said "Hey what do you want for 3 and a half days of building"? "At least the wheels turn and you have some brakes".
We wisely decided to remove the flywheel for the first
tests.
I used an 8 to one total gear reduction since I had the
sprockets lying around any ways.
Since the frame was only 12 inches wide Matt had very
little room to keep his feet from dragging the ground. We rolled it down
the drive way and Matt tested the Steering and Brakes.
Well we started up the engine and warmed it up a bit and
then Matt took off down the street with a noticeable engine bog.
When the engine caught up halfway down the block he hit
around 25 MPH.
I was thinking Dang Matt don't wind it up much we don't
even know if it's going to stop.
Well finally he slowed down and tried turning around a a very slow speed. This machine is not much on turning at slow speeds since it has a solid rear axle the tires have to skid when turning.
Then he came back down the block and I saw a nut fall
off of the makeshift steering linkage.
I yelled, "Matt Stop"!
So he hit the marginal brakes and slowed to a stop just about the time the steering rod fell out on the right wheel. Well that was fun at least it runs a little and I know it's geared to high and the brakes don't work.
At this point I decided to think of My friend Matt as
not the Pilot of this thing but possibly the Victim of it. Well we went
back into the garage and decided to do the first spin up test of the flywheel
with the machine on blocks.
We fired it up and ran the engine up to about 5000 RPM's
the flywheel was turning about 2200 RPM's and the machine started walking
off of its blocks and I cut the engine kill switch.
The flywheel kept spinning for about 3 minutes.
The half power test impressed Matt and he said Ok I will
make a cable and convert the brakes to a mechanical system and once the
steering parts come in I'll make some new rods for it with some Steel tubing
and a hydraulic press.
I said "OK have fun".
So we loaded it into this truck and he took The machine
home.
I asked him to see if he could find some expanded Steel
to make a floor pan out of as well so he would have a place to rest his
feet...
By the next weekend Matt had made and attached all of the new parts. The brakes finally worked good the steering was solid there was new foot rests and we found a parking lot to test it at.
We quickly made a launch rod with a round pipe some angle iron and long bar to pry the tires off the ground with. Then Matt Wendy and I went to the secrete testing grounds set up the machine.
I said," Ok I'll take the first run to make sure it's safe". Matt said "No Way, I'm driving it first".
That didn't set too well with me since the last machine my Dad and I built the (Triple Threat Trike) was crashed By My Dad in front of his house a couple of months after the last Power Tool Drag Race and it hurt him pretty bad. It cost about $45,000 to get My Dad fixed. (My Mom and I had a session with a social worker at the hospital). We had to exsplane why we let a 69 year old guy drive such a contraption in the first place.. I also got to explane this to the paramedics, the fire department, the police and the doctor at the hospital.
Eh, Kids what can ya do.....
Anyways...
I finally said OK Matt you drive it. But we will only spin up the flywheel about half speed for safety and then I will drop you to the ground if everything works then the next test we will spin it faster.
He agreed and he spun it up I dropped him and the machine hit around 20 mph. We did another drop test at about 3/4 speed and he hit about 25 mph. Well Ok lets go for it this time.
I told Matt I'll drop you when I hear the engine peak
out.
Well he spun up for several seconds. I dropped him and
he left two nice rubber patches on the ground as he launched down the parking
lot.
At that point I noticed that the engine was loosing it's pitch when the machine traveled about 25 ft and then it would climb slowly back up to speed.
Ah dang, I thought, it's still geared too high. But I wanted to ride it. So I had Matt drop me and I was impressed by how smooth the launch is.
Then we had Wendy try it out. We all tested it at least a couple of times that day. Until the 40 lb. flywheel started to walk on it's shaft side to side when Wendy was riding it, (which was really scary).
So we took the new toy home for some refinements.
Well I got out the calculator and did a little math and changed the engine to flywheel ratio to 2 to 1 to speed it up a bit. Then I changed the flywheel to axle ratio to 4.8 to 1. This produced final drive ratio of 9.6 to one.
We also added spacers to the flywheel drive shaft to prevent the walking problem and added shaft collars to the brake drum and drive sprockets. This solved all of the parts walking problems.
We actually set up a timing system and tested the machine several more times our best time for 75 feet was with Matt driving he tripped the clocks at 2.53 seconds. I said that's good enough.
This was in February of 2005. And then we waited until June and of course the event didn't happen then we hoped for October 2005 when I painted the machine since it was very rusty and the event never happened.
So I put it in storage until we got the word that OMG!! we will be racing finally SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY MAY 7TH 2006!!!!!
So we cleaned it up mounted New rear tires since the old ones were rotten from sitting so long and did a 6 minute burn out to break in the new tires in Matt's back yard with the machine strapped to the back of my New/Old Toyota truck.
Matt assembled a better launcher using a hand truck and
some bolts to prevent side to side walk when spinning up the flywheel and
a nice hunk of plywood to protect me from the chains spinning at 9000 RPM's
too darn close to and directly in line with MY Manhood.
Matt on a good day weighs in at about 145 lbs. The machines
is probably around 200 lbs (I've never weighed it actually). That's a pretty
good Mass to get moving down the track for 75 ft at 34 mph or so and then
get stopped in about 25 feet. I've been worried about the stopping part
ever since we built it.
I asked Matt what he thinks his face looks like when he's coming towards a Steel crane at 34 MPH or so with little stopping distance.....
Wendy got this Cool little bear at the Maker faire from
Brian
Nave another Combat Robot builder who also thinks highly of her and
Matt. The unique thing about this bear is if you point his head towards
the north and stick your finger into his south end the bear makes vulgar
vocal comments about being touched in a sensitive place. http://www.twistedtoy.com
Photo courtesy of Scott Beale (Laughing Squid)
My Dad, Matt and I warming up the engine and checking
the drive train before the first race in the funny car class. My Dad is
holding a muffler on the exhaust pipe to reduce the noise.
Photo courtesy of Scott Beale (Laughing Squid)
Spooling up the engine to 9000 rpm's at the starting line the flywheel is turning 4500 Rpms people plug their ears and cover their faces in fear as the Matt Dawg Express prepares to launch.
Of course I just get to hold it off the ground and hope for the best and a quick reaction time on my part.
Matt has no idea when I'm going to let him go.....
I'm actually listening for the engine scream to peak out and I then nod my head to the flag girl. when she drops the flag I drop Matt and think out loud..
Go get them Matt....
Our first race was against Stilborn A wickedly fast bicycle with a large Stil chain saw engine equipped with a nitrous oxide injection system. They also lift the rear wheel off the ground for an inertia launch approach to insanity.
Photo courtesy of Scott Beale (Laughing Squid)
I dropped Matt and he blew by the flag girl and left two nice burn marks from the rear tires 40 feet down the concrete and oil coated surface.
Photo courtesy of Scott Beale (Laughing Squid)
The first run of the day was 2.6 seconds at 33 mph. Matt had to swerve the machine sideways to stop in time before hitting the nasty bits at the end of the speedway.
Matt won that race and every race he ran until the final round against Thor. We had a few problems getting the engine to run because it was hot. Matt must have pulled that engine over 20 times.
We lost with a 2.80 seconds to a 2.79 second run by Thor. That's a pretty darn close race.
It made for an exciting final round in the Funny Car class.
A lot more pictures
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