George, If the water ballast containers are full, right to the very
top, this
allows no movement of the water . We utilized two large rectangular custom
fitted tanks in the back seat area of our altered with no problem whatsoever
( spell that ALL welding on the tanks MUST be leak proof ). We also made up
the largest steel boxes we could fit immediately in front of the rear tires,
and
poured them full of lead ( the best bet for ballast pound for space ). These
were mounted very securely directly to the frame rails . Mounting ballast in
FRONT of the rear axle has the added advantage of actually adding some
weight to the front end, instead of having a lever effect ( fulcrum is the
rear axle centerpoint ) of taking weight OFF the front, which ballast
mounted in BACK
would do . We still had traction problems and could have used considerably
more ballast, or narrower rear tires, to increase the down force on the rear
tire " patch " on the salt . This is NOT like racing on asphalt, folks
...... it' s
a different ball game ! Speaking of water, our home made tranny cooler,
packed full to the brim with ice cubes before every run, converted that heat
from the automatic tranny, almost completely to water on each run .
My take on ballast ( speaking only regarding the salt surface at
Bonneville and the long distance available to accelerate ) is
BRING PLENTY ! You can always remove some, and you might just find
out that this is one place where " TOO MUCH IS JUST ENOUGH " if
you are making some horsepower . The shorter courses, and different
surfaces, found at Muroc, Maxton, and El Mirage, would require a different
setup on the ballast on some cars, just as gearing and tires would be an
item for consideration .
Best part of using the water ballast was we didn' t have to lug that
weight all the way back to the San Francisco Bay Area .......
Bruce
Black Radon Engineering 939 B / BFALT
PS : Even with the lead boxes sitting on a floor jack, Doug and I had one
awful hassle wrestling that dead weight up into the tight space it fit into
!!!
|