Bonneville Update - 8/14/02

[DBesic@domain.elided]

After spending the night in Impound, Bonnie was replenished with ice and 
pushed to the Start Line of the Long Course at 6:45 a.m.  While we were 
getting Craig strapped in for his record run, backing up the previous day's 
qualifying run of 203.35 mph, a photographer from European Car Magazine 
stopped by us in the Staging Lane and snapped a bunch of pictures.  When he 
found out we had exceeded 200 mph on three consecutive runs and were backing 
up a qualifying run, he was VERY interested. (More on this later.)

Craig's record run was 202.88 mph, which yielded a New Bonneville Land Speed 
Record in B/GFMS of 203.108 MPH!!!!!  Craig had just beaten Mike's record of 
the previous day and set a new LSR.  Woo Hoo!!

As soon as the crew was finished with the "high-fives", the ice chest was 
restocked with 25 lbs of ice and the 118 octane fuel was topped off.  Bill 
Lightfoot made his licensing run on the Short Course to earn his "C" license 
with a conservative run of 152 mph.  Bill is a very colorful fellow with 
years of SCCA and vintage racing experience and never fails to do something 
interesting at the ends of his runs to catch the attention of the SCTA 
officials.  He is a high-level manager with General Dynamics who has managed 
to bend the ear of Bob Lutz, (yes, THE Bob Lutz of General Motors) in the 
hopes of generating some sponsorship money for the Alfa Bonneville project.  
Since I am not at liberty to divulge his rather candid response or his 
attitude towards Fiat's management, I will simply say, we ain't getting any 
dough, although he did seem very interested in what we were doing.

Although we managed to race a turbocharged four-cylinder 2.0 litre Alfa 
Spider in excess of 200 mph on four runs, set a new LSR record, and then beat 
that record the very next day, the team has struggled with many obstacles.  
Air density, which can range from 5400 ft to 7600 ft elevation (on the same 
day!) has proven maddening.  At thinner air, we have less wind resistence but 
the turbo has to work harder to make boost.  When the temperature is cooler 
and air is denser, we can make more boost but we have more drag on the car.  
Wind direction and speed changes constantly.  On most days, we are running 
with a 3-7 mph cross wind, but at times we might have a headwind or a 
tailwind, which has a huge impact on top speed.  We've had to overcome 
computer glitches in order to acquire data from the various runs for Jim 
Steck and Eric Storhok to analyze and utilize to tweak the Electromotive 
system for maximum performance.  We've also had to deal with the human 
factor, both with the drivers and the crew.  Mike missed third and shifted to 
fifth on his first 200 mph run, which easily killed 3 mph of top speed).  
We've also had differing opinions within the crew itself which has caused 
some tension and bruised egos.  In the end though, the team worked together 
to make the fastest four-cylinder Alfa in the world FASTER.  Although I poked 
some fun at the engineers, I have to say we wouldn't be where we are today 
without their invaluable experience and expertise.  (One of these days, I 
might even begin to understand just what the hell they do with those data 
graphs and charts.)

After Bill Lightfoot's licensing run, the crew disassembled the turbo system. 
 The team owner decided to run against the G/BGMS record (2.0 litre blown gas 
modified sports) which currently stands at 211 mph.  Since we needed to make 
up at least 9 mph, Jim Steck felt that in order for us take the record, we 
needed more boost from the turbo.  The thin air at Bonneville was just 
killing us.  Even though the turbo was putting out 24 psi of boost on Steck's 
dyno in Ohio, the boost gauge on the Flat regularly maxed out at 22-23 lbs. 
Late Wednesday afternoon, Steck and the crew swapped out the smaller exhaust 
turbine housing from the blown 1470 in an effort to generate more boost.  The 
smaller exhaust nozzle would spin the turbine blades faster and hopefully 
give us around 27 psi of boost.  The downside of the equation was more 
backpressure and a LOT more heat under the hood.  Since more boost means more 
horsepower, we had no choice but to give it a try, if we hoped to take the 
record.  In order to reduce drag on the car, the chin spoiler was removed and 
the rear strakes were trimmed a full inch.  The car would be slightly less 
stable, but arguably faster.  (Coincidentally, while Bonnie was in the pits 
receiving her turbo swap, the race courses had been shut down due to a 20 mph 
cross wind, with gusts up to 25, so we lost virtually no race time.)  The 
turbo swap was finished around 8:00 p.m. and the team headed back to the 
hotel completely exhausted.

Darren (fingers firmly crossed) Besic
Bonneville LSR Team
--
to be removed from alfa, see /bin/digest-subs.cgi
or email "unsubscribe alfa" to majordomo@domain.elided