At 10:23 AM 4/18/98 EDT, you wrote:
>Actually, the salt lake is part of my devious plan to retake the LSR. As I fly
>down the course, the body wil rust and flake off thus decreasing the weight.
>Since Newton's time f=ma I'll therefore have more acceleration through the
>traps. I do not know how I'll manage te return trip tho. And I havent figured
>out how to overcome the drag left by all of the small rust holes...Great fun,
>this!
>
DR,
On a slightly more serious note I relate my experience with high
speed stability of my Tiger.
The few time I "tested" my Tiger with the 351C motor I found
that the Tiger has a tendency to lift the front end between 130 to 140
mph. The steering gets very light and feels very unstable. In an attempt
to solve this problem, I fabricated an air dam from 1/4" thick polypropoline
sheet. The dam was bolted with numerious 10-32 bolts to the body
lip behind the front bumper and also wrapped around to the edge of
the front wheel wells . The dam extended down to within 3" of
the ground. Two cutouts were made to allow air to get to the stock
oil cooler. The cutouts were an upside down "U" shape and the
the uncut plastic was folded back toward the radiator and oil cooler.
I re-enforced the dam on the inside with a strip of 1/8" X 1" aluminum
that was installed horzontially 3" up from the bottom lip of the dam.
the strip was bent to match the contures where the dam went around the
front corners of the Tiger. An MGB side molding was bent to fit and
used on the outside of the dam directly opposite the inner aluminum
re-enforcement. Trim bolts were used to hold the MGB molding,
plastic dam and aluminum re-enforcement together. Three additional
re-enforcements were added between the aluminum re-enforcement and
the front cross member.
Now on a "test" run the Tiger was stable as a rock. The air dam
also had a dramatic impact on cooling, even for in-town driving. A good
15 degree drop was observed. I assume that a partial vacumn was
created under the Tiger and this allowed more air to flow through
the radiator as now it was easier for the air to exit the engine compartment.
The air dam looked good and worked good; but it was difficult
to get my floor jack under the front cross member due the the air dam.
Also had to remember to park away from the curb.
After about 4-5 years the plastic cracked at the mounting points
and I finally took it off. I am too old to "test" anyway.
By the way, I had to buy a $17 spray can of plastic prep before
I was able to get paint to stick to the plastic.
Jim Barrett TigerII 351C and others
|