AERODYNAMICS 101:

Aerodymanics 101 would teach each of us within the first hour that the 510 is NOT the car to start with when building a land-speed car. It's about as smooth as a brick. In my defense, the USS Wankel never started out to be more than an autocross/hillclimb car. In it's first 10 years it got pretty well set up as an autocrosser. Big engine, big tires, big brakes, big sway bars and lots of adjustability in the suspension.

BASIC SAFETY RULES:

Hillclimb preparation and my first trip to a land-speed event happened within a month of each other in 1995. The safety requirements for SCCA SOLO I and the Southern California & East Coast Timing Associations (SCTA/ECTA) rules compliment each other nicely. Where one allows less, the other requires more. Lots of common sense in the rulebooks, but kinda chilling when you consider that many of the rules were made as a result of a drivers death. Little things like removing the internal door lock mechanism takes on new importance when you're plumbing in a halon fire system with nozzles directed at the driver and fuel tank. By following both the ECTA rulebook and the SCCA GCR I ended up with a car that'd pass tech at either organizations meets, allowing for future participation in any sort of event.

THE MONSTER MILE, MAXTON, NC. A SAFE PLACE TO GO FAST.

ECTA events take place on a concrete WWII glider airfield. The course is 150 feet wide and you have 1.0 mile before the timing trap, with nearly a mile of shutdown area. The entire course is observed by safety personnel in the timing tower and shut-down area and we can get the fire engine and ambulance from their staging area at the timing tower to any place on the course is a very short time. Since the runoff area on either side if the course is grass we've never had more than a few battered body panels and bent suspension pieces after high speed "offs".

DRIVERS PERSONAL SAFETY GEAR, GETTING STARTED.

At ECTA events, entries running UNDER 125 MPH require little more than factory seat belts, leather shoes, long sleeve shirt, jeans and an SA rated full face helmet and neck collar. (Although a full fire suit is recommended) There's a 5 MPH cushion, but go faster than 130 MPH and officials will simply ask you to stop running at that event and encourage you to return to later events with the required safety gear. ECTA offers two classes for street cars. Gas Real Street (Single Carbureted, unblown cars) & Super Street (Multi carb, Injected or Turbo) for street legal cars. (Insured, Tagged, etc.) SCTA has 130 and 150 MPH Clubs for street cars. Their safety equipment requirements may vary. For cars over 125 MPH the following drivers safety gear is required;

-SA rated full face helmet no more than 5 years old.
-Firesuit SFI 3.2A/1 under 150MPH, SFI 3.2A/5 under 175, SFI 3.2A/15 blown cars under 200 MPH.
-Gloves, boots, headsock or helmet skirt, and neck collar all meeting SFI requirements based on the drivers suit.

All this gear gets replaced every 5 years or whenever it's damaged.

CHASSIS & UNDERHOOD:

Above 125 MPH the rules get more specific. Roll bars/cages with large surface mounting plates (1/8" thick NHRA/ECTA, 3/16 SCCA, 1/4" SCTA) sandwiched through the floor are required, with full cages being required in faster cars, and all cars with t-tops or sunroofs. (125-150 4 point bar, 150-175 6 point bar, 175+ full cage) Mild steel tubing is recommended for it's toughness, and since weight isn't a big factor I added plenty of cross bracing. (Even on this diet of steel I kept winning autocrosses in the car, so the weight gain wasn't all bad.) I used 1 3/4" .132" thickness tube in my cage. (Exceeding the max required... but it's ME inside this thing!) Dual throttle return springs, a drive shaft hoop, and a 360 degree flywheel scatter shield made of 1/4" steel plate are required. Fuel lines that pass across the area of the flywheel must be either rerouted outside a frame rail (which I did, under the right front fender) or run through a steel pipe. Obviously, suapension pieces must use locking hardware, or be self locking. I haven't had a tech inspector question the rear trailing arms on the 510, but cars with 4 link suspension like my RX7 project must have some sort of retainers (cables or straps) to keep the links from hitting the ground if their front attachment breaks.

THE DRIVERS COMPARTMENT:

There are lots of little things inside the car to consider, like no sharp edges, seat back bracing, (to prevent the seat collapsing rearward) and a helmet strap to keep the bar from decapitating the driver are required. SFI 16-1 five point harness (no more than 5 years old) with reinforced attachments, and arm restraints (window net or standard arm restraints) become required. The drivers door and steering lock must be disabled, holes in firewall that could pass flame have to be sealed up, and battery mounting has to be checked. A sealed, acid spill-proof box is required if the battery is inside the drivers compartment as mine is. Switches must be labeled, and fuel/electrical shutoffs are required, with an external kill switch accessable and clearly labeled for safety personnel, should you be unable to shut things off yourself. You've also gotto be able to get out of the car quickly with all your geat on. In my case, this required a quick release steering wheel hub, which is welded and secured with rolled pins to the steering shaft. (Horn button is now a micro switch on top of the column cover, and a painted Pringles potato chip lid taped onto the cover with electrical tape gives the perfect finished look to the column when the wheel is off.) Hood pins, (I used overkill 1/2" stainless pins and kept the factory latch functional) SFI roll cage padding, and driver controlled fire system. Five pounds is the minimum system for driver protection. (I carry 15 Lbs, 10 divided between me and the fuel cell, and a seperate 5 Lb system for the engine.) A fresh air breathing system fed from a forward facing duct is also required. (so you can breath after the fire system takes all the oxygen out of the car!) I've been using the cowl vent for this with a hose to my helmet, but I have concerns about flames being blown into the cowl during an engine fire, so I'll probably change this.

WHEELS & TIRES:

Wheels were the biggest problem for me. Alloy wheels are acceptable below 150 MPH, but I didn't have any the right size. Factory wheels aren't allowed at speeds above 150 MPH, and I couldn't find any 15x4" wheels without having them custom made anyway. The solution here was the old 240SX 15x6 steel wheels and 15x4" space saver spare wheels. (You laugh, but lots of cars have run these to well over 200 MPH.) Below 150 MPH they are fine as they are, above 150 all I have to do is fully weld the attachment of the rim and center section. Cheap, easy, safe, and between the street tires, autocross tires, and all the LSR wheels I've now got so many wheels and tires mounted that I need to build a new garage. I have run street tires at a couple events, and they're required in the Real Street class, but pushing 4 fully treaded 205/50 Yokohama's at speed is like having 4 big wind mills attached to your wheels. HR speed rated tires are good to 175 MPH, and SR to 150 MPH so no special tires are really required. I'm using narrow slicks from a Formula Vee, and they've turned out to be the slickest way to go. With 21x5.0 front on 4" rims and 22.5x5.5 rear on 6" 240SX rims and 50 PSI all around there's very little rolling resistance, no wind mill effect from tread, and just enough traction to get things rolling. A light launch is required, but I still make some tire smoke through the first 1/4 mile.

STABILITY AT SPEED-CASTER:

Since caster becomes incredibly important as speed increases, and with no easy way to adjust more into the 510 I use ride height to keep things stable. I learned real quick that a 1" increase in rear tire size was about all I could make without having to raise the front of the car to regain the correct caster angle. Sudden instability (2" change in rear tire height) at speeds over 100 MPH is pretty terrifying, and next season I plan to run the 21x5.0 tires on 4" rims at all four corners. This gives me a slight gear change that I need, even more positive caster, and a couple spares. I did have a flat at an event last season, but the only sign of it, as the tire slowly lost air over several runs was decreasing speeds on each time slip. I was able to drive it onto the trailer and let it go flat there.

WHAT'S IT ALL COST, AND HOW MUCH TRACK TIME DO I GET?

Autocross inexpensive it ain't, but once I made it to my first event as a spectator ($5.00 for a pit pass) I knew that land-speed racing was something that I'd be able to enjoy for a long time. (ECTA has a $50.00 annual membership and $100 pre-entry fee for each event, $120 at the gate.) Here was a sport where I could participate in lots of classes depending on how the car was set up, instead of being lumped into E/Mod as I'd been for years at autocross events. I also had an opportunity to make a lot more than 4 or 5 runs, as I did at autocrosses. If you can stand the heat you can pretty much run laps. I've made 30 runs in a day, and didn't quit til I ran out of tires. There's none of drag racings quick reaction times required, no smooth steering, throttle or brake inputs required as in autocrossing, just straight line, flat-out, pedal to the metal speed. I got so excited on an unofficial (1/8th mile rolling start) pass last year that I snapped the throttle cable at the 1/2 mile I was pushing so hard. With only a mile of concrete to accelerate on at Maxton there's gotto be more speed available with longer distances, and I know just where to find it. The 510 will probably never make the trek to Bonneville, and I couldn't bare to expose it to the salt, but my new RX7 (Cd .310) will probably get there some day.

WHERE CAN I FIND OUT MORE?

If you ever have an opportunity to attend a land-speed event I'm sure you'll find it worth the trip. The friendliest bunch of racers I've ever met are land-speed racers. Hot Rod magazine has started to notice us (again), with a feature story a couple months back and a nice letter about the ECTA in the February 2001 "Reaction Time" section.

For details about event schedules, pictures and lots of other neat stuff check out www.landracing.com