Maritime Drag Racing has us all talking

[Bgunner]

@Maritime Drag Racing posted in What did you do to your Ranger today's thread that garnered a lot of attention and has has many of us thinking and posting. I am making this thread to continue the conversation without plugging up this thread.

Here is his post that has us all gossiping over:

Been told many times I should lower the Ranger but to me that's a hard NO - Why should I pay $844.50 CDN for DJM I-beams + $83.59 for the rear axle flip kit + $194.49 for new CalTrac flip plates(Total $1,122.58) and have it do NOTHING for my ET? That kind of $$ would buy a bunch more horsepower....

View attachment 119509

Here is the jest of the conversation so far:

Those people are probably thinking there might be some aerodynamic benefit to lowering. On a 1/8– or 1/4–mile track with the race over in seconds, that's unlikely.

I would tend to think that traction devices and horsepower improvements are the best bang for your buck.

There's not supposed to be any hard cornering in drag racing. So low CG is probably optional.

Yeah, I mean, I lowered my green Ranger, but it‘s a street toy, not a drag truck. Drag strip requires getting as much power as possible and transferring it as effectively as possible to the ground. Height matters little for that. Ripping around bends on the street, the lower you can get your COG and the stiffer you can get and wider, the better.

I must agree with your view on it at this point and the speeds you are achieving. Lowering would only help keep it more stable on the big end once you start hitting 160-180 mph. Lowering comes in when the air flow under the vehicle is enough to lift it up off of the ground surface making it squirrely at high speeds. Lowering does nothing for 60' and 330' speeds.

@Maritime Drag Racing

I don’t know anything about this stuff, but what I’m reading is that downforce is much more important than aerodynamic drag going through the wind. Generate the most horsepower, and push it to the ground as hard as possible.

Then, the theoretical side of my engineering brain knows that wind resistance becomes a real factor above 50 or 55 miles an hour and goes up exponentially, not linearly. With that in mind, and the speed you’re reaching, considering you’re trying to gain tenths or even hundredths of a second, looking into aerodynamics may make some sense for those extreme limits.

When I jumble that up in my common sense (which has been occasionally faulty in the past) and my shade tree fabrication and mechanical abilities (which have been occasionally faulty in the past), and my tendency to pinch pennies (which has occasionally led to faulty results in the past), what about this?

Could you put wings or ailerons on that truck to push it down in the wind? Wings on top, or wings on the bottom, or even stubby wings out the side? I know that sounds ridiculous, and I’m not exactly sure how to do it, But in my limited exposure to Indy cars, there are 100 places on the body that are curved or shaped to push it down.

Something underneath or along the open sides between the tires to pull it down?

My other thought regarding airflow. Is the tailgate on the truck and is it solid? I vaguely remember that the tailgate acts like a parachute when the wind comes over the cab. If it’s there, could you perforate it or could you louver it so it passes air?

And I’m not proposing doing major modifications to your truck on the chance it works out. If you can figure out what combination of these things might help, you could pick up a scrapyard tailgate and try, And maybe temporarily clamp on some fiberglass or aluminum sheet metal wingy contraptions to see if it works.

My two cents, hope it helps.

Don’t laugh at me, I’m at the age where I drive like a little old lady. If I don’t want to be bothered by other drivers at any given point, I just have to drive one of my town cars with a rain hat on, and everybody stays a mile away from me.

The tailgate does to a point. With enough speed, the air flow trapped by the tailgate causes an air bubble in the bed that acts like a fairing smoothing the flow so that the air only "sees" the height of the tailgate as far as drag effect goes.

Removing the tailgate eliminates that bubble and you get drag from the full height of the cab. So, he needs to keep the tailgate.

As far as the rest, if he has the factory rake, lifting from air going under the truck may not be an issue of concern. Adding wings for down force or valences under the truck may cause too much negatives due to drag, effecting performance as a result. Anything you stick into the air stream is going to cause drag and slow the vehicle down. So the benefits have to out weigh the negatives, as long as it is safe. Maritime Racing would know better on that than I and may have already looked in to it.

All understood. Like I said, when I started this, I don’t know much about it. I understand a lot of the engineering concepts, but there is also a common thing in engineering, that one test is worth 1 million assumptions. That’s what happened to the Challenger: if the foam comes off, it’s just foam, it won’t hurt anything.

I’m not being defensive here, as always I just try to be helpful. I do understand that these kinds of races are one by hundredths or thousandths of a second, so i’m just trying to provide some things that might be worth looking at.

I know @Maritime Drag Racing and all kinds of people have “done this” for years, but then there’s that one little thing you didn’t think of or look at that throws you to that next hundredth of a second, and you come with the blue ribbon.

I can think of a myriad things in life, serious stuff at work, that we had totally under control, and then somebody came up and said did you ever think of doing this? And history was made

At this point lets look at it in the money vs. time slip point of view.

Yes lowering a vehicle is worth it on the time slip, in general, BUT is it worth the same amount on the time slip vs. lets say a power adder? Which one can improve the time slip more for the same amount of money? This is racing, go as fast as you can, cheap as you can, at least for those on an out of pocket expense race team.

Until traction becomes an issue it is better to add horse power and torque till you can no longer put that power to the ground. This is when suspension and lowering come into play. Then you are right back at it again, more power till you can no longer get it to the ground... damn vicious circle it is but fun to play it.

Aero dynamics come in at the big end for the most part. This is where adding a bed cover and front and rear downforce wings come in. At speed these force the vehicle downward adding traction but at the cost of aero dynamics and drag. This to can help but also hurt. This is where more horse power needs to added to compensate for the loss of speed due to drag. Again a circle.

Afterthought, again on aerodynamics, it might be worth trying the ribbon and wind trick. Get a five dollar roll of bright ribbon, a little duct tape, and do a pattern all over the truck with 6 inch ribbons. Then run it up to 60 or 70 miles an hour and get a video of it from the side.

If memory serves me correctly, ribbons running backward are good, ribbons running upward indicate an area where the truck is being lifted. Any ribbons pointing downward, etc. Limp ribbons aren’t problems, ribbons that are whipping are intense effects, etc.

I’m not trying to force my opinion on anybody, I don’t have an opinion because I don’t know much about this stuff. I come back to again, some inexpensive things that might be done.

I understand what @sgtsandman was saying about a pressure dome in the bed. could that be perfected? If you could measure the high and low spots of that? Would a few perforations high in the tailgate or low in the tailgate affect that? You could see what the effects are with just a sheet of plywood, put it in, drill a bunch of holes in it, and then selectively cover them with duct tape and see which outlets make a difference in the wind coming over the truck. Or maybe cover them from the outside with just masking tape, and see which holes blow out, blow the tape off. What about things like putting a little rounded filler between the cab and the bed? What about putting a bigger rounded panel in the front of the bed or in the back of the bed (to eliminate gaps and or square edges, perpendicular to the travel). You might be able to get away with some cardboard and duct tape and the ribbon test would just cost you a few gallons of gas.

All the ship builders in the world thought a pointed bow was the most streamlined. Then they did the underwater version of a ribbon test. Now all the ships have a hard on in the front that pushes through better.

Again, from the depths of my ignorance, just trying to tickle something that might make a difference, Or some things that might be cheap to try. It takes a lot of time and effort to save a half a second.

@Rick W They used to sell nets to replace tailgates that netted a couple MPG's but nothing that was that large so it went to the wayside. You can still get them but the savings were marginal at best in an on road application.

If you could get your hands on one of those large Movie fans you may be able to to do your suggestion with ribbons instead of driving a drag truck down the freeway. Just a thought that came to me while reading your post. These large fans can move air upwards of 100mph if not more though I have not looked into them recently so I'm just going off of memory (it's failed me recently so this may be the case here). This should be enough for your trick to work.

I know many drag trucks use an aluminum cover over the beds. This creates the air bubble that @sgtsandman was talking about right behind the cab minimizing the size of it and also minimizing the drag. They also use a large wing off the rear of the tailgate used for downforce that the air that is coming off the bubble hits and creates the down force. you still have drag right off of the rear of the truck but there is little you can do minimize this but I'm sure this is also figured into the rear wing geometry.

I have noticed the bulbus protrusion on the front of ships. Air flow is measured just like a liquid. So maybe a scale model of a truck could be inserted into a water tank to get an idea of the effect that the air would have on the wings. It would also show places where the air is unstable flowing over it. This would be cheaper than a Air Tunnel rental for sure.

Can Maritimes truck be made more aero dynamic with little to no cost?

I think your idea of the ribbons is the best option for a cheap way to play with the aero dynamics to see what could be done cheaply but the rules for the races he enters must be followed for those ideas to be worth anything.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

So, those nets claimed to save mpg, but they really didn’t.

The best fuel economy I got was with a soft tonneau cover. I also noticed that at highway speeds the cover got pushed down hard at the tailgate and sucked up behind the cab. For aerodynamics I would think something going from the top of the cab to the top of the tailgate and enclose the sides from the cab back would create a wedge profile that would replace that air bubble that pickups get. Maybe make it of canvas and let it dip a little in front of the tailgate for some downforce? Just spitballing here…

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Tailgate effectiveness depends greatly on the depth and length of the bed AND the length and size of the cab.

Shortbed crewcabs with a deep bed have more of a bubble in the bed than a longbed standard cab that has a shallow bed.

 

[Rick W]

@Maritime Drag Racing posted in What did you do to your Ranger today's thread that garnered a lot of attention and has has many of us thinking and posting. I am making this thread to continue the conversation without plugging up this thread.

Here is his post that has us all gossiping over:



Here is the jest of the conversation so far:










@Rick W They used to sell nets to replace tailgates that netted a couple MPG's but nothing that was that large so it went to the wayside. You can still get them but the savings were marginal at best in an on road application.

If you could get your hands on one of those large Movie fans you may be able to to do your suggestion with ribbons instead of driving a drag truck down the freeway. Just a thought that came to me while reading your post. These large fans can move air upwards of 100mph if not more though I have not looked into them recently so I'm just going off of memory (it's failed me recently so this may be the case here). This should be enough for your trick to work.

I know many drag trucks use an aluminum cover over the beds. This creates the air bubble that @sgtsandman was talking about right behind the cab minimizing the size of it and also minimizing the drag. They also use a large wing off the rear of the tailgate used for downforce that the air that is coming off the bubble hits and creates the down force. you still have drag right off of the rear of the truck but there is little you can do minimize this but I'm sure this is also figured into the rear wing geometry.

I have noticed the bulbus protrusion on the front of ships. Air flow is measured just like a liquid. So maybe a scale model of a truck could be inserted into a water tank to get an idea of the effect that the air would have on the wings. It would also show places where the air is unstable flowing over it. This would be cheaper than a Air Tunnel rental for sure.

Can Maritimes truck be made more aero dynamic with little to no cost?

I think your idea of the ribbons is the best option for a cheap way to play with the aero dynamics to see what could be done cheaply but the rules for the races he enters must be followed for those ideas to be worth anything.

In a way, all of you are making my point for me. Keep in mind, whenever you help me with my point, I have no idea what I’m talking about.

I don’t know if you know, but more movies are made in Georgia now than any other location because of the tax breaks we put in in the early 2000s. One of those giant movie fans might be around here, but if they don’t have any where @Maritime Drag Racing is located, it’s my understanding 316 of the $19 Walmart fans will do the same thing…

Seriously, I also thought of the cover that went from the top of the cab to the tailgate. If it is pushed up or down in the front or the back, that would be an indication to me that modifications in those areas could help air slip by, without pushing up on the truck, and maybe enhancing the push down on the truck, cheaply, so additional horsepower $$$ would be effective in cutting the elapsed time.

Nobody said the words “wind tunnel“ yet. But that’s the concept with the driving down the runway video or 100 mph fan. Again, I don’t know what I’m talking about, but I do know that the air effects becomes significant above 55 mph. I have two of the 80s vintage square body town cars, and the 90s vintage, through aerodynamics over the rounded off body, got those tiny bits of improvement to meet the government regs. All my thought goes into the higher speeds at the end of the run.

If you think of the evolution of the X 15, and our fighter jets and space craft, it was a step wise process as speeds increased. The ribbon test may show one result at 50 mph, a different result at 100 mph (because the flow over the truck is affected by the resistance of the nose and windshield), and may be different than the affects at 125 or 150 miles an hour.

The vented tailgate may not show an increase in mileage per gallon, and I come back to saving hundredths or thousandths of seconds. On this contraption, a slight gain in speed and time, for the cost of an extra half gallon of fuel…

The “wind tunnel“ test, whether on an airstrip or with 100 mile an hour fan, if you temporarily put a piece of plywood from the top of the truck to the tailgate, and/or you selectively open and close holes in the tailgate vents, might teach you something.

It may teach you that Rick is talking out of his ass! It’s happened before, but when Edison had 250 failures at making a lightbulb, and someone said what did you learn, he said I learned 250 ways not to make a lightbulb. And from the process, you can all read what I’m saying tonight.

A tangent thought. It’s my understanding when we went from B-47 jets to B-52 jets, one of the features was to make the rivets like a flathead screw flush with the wing surface, instead of a Pan-head screw with a raised head, and that made a significant improvement in range and speed. On the B2 bomber, and F-22 fighter jets, I vaguely remember reading that a hairline scratch over three or 4 inches can affect the top speed by 20 or 30 mph. I might be wrong in the numbers, but I’m solid on the effect of tiny defects affecting the top speed.

Does the blue rocket still have rain gutters over the doors? Are the mirror holes plugged with raised head bolts? Are the windshield wiper stubs still there? You get the idea. At the end of the run, tiny things are only going to make tiny changes, and at @Maritime Drag Racing ‘s level, that may be the blue ribbon.

As always, my two cents, this is a blue sky intellectual exchange, not a knowledgeable technical seminar…

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

A tangent thought. It’s my understanding when we went from B-47 jets to B-52 jets, one of the features was to make the rivets like a flathead screw flush with the wing surface, instead of a Pan-head screw with a raised head, and that made a significant improvement in range and speed. On the B2 bomber, and F-22 fighter jets, I vaguely remember reading that a hairline scratch over three or 4 inches can affect the top speed by 20 or 30 mph. I might be wrong in the numbers, but I’m solid on the effect of tiny defects affecting the top speed.

B-52 also has 10klbs more thrust per engine on top of having two more engines...

Stealth aircraft have very unique coatings that us peons can only speculate about.

Also different scale, in flight school they said as speed doubles drag roughly quadrouples. Marine may think he is fast but the ol' B-2 cruises at 560 mph. F-22 can cruise above the speed of sound without even using the afterburners.

The airflow around a first gen is hardly laminar, there are voids of dead air against the body that isn't moving.

 

[Bgunner]

For aero dynamics I looked at the picture maritime posted. It appears that his hood replaces the factory cowl so the wiper holes are no longer there. I did notice that he still has mirros and door handles on it.

Removing the mirrors would help but if he uses them to line himself up on the track after a burn out then they can not be removed. As for door handles this comes down to cost again as parts will be needed to set up a different latch system plus sheet metal work and paint. Not cheap for a better time.

 

[MaicoDoug]

You need mirrors during the burnout to see who's watching and how well your tires smoked.
Don't pull my kill switch dude.

To quote Don Rickles ("Big Drag") "the wheels have to be perfectly round".

 

[JoshT]

Well the only thing I've really got to add is...

Here is the jest of the conversation so far:

The word you are looking for is "gist". Gist in this context basically means to summarize. To jest means to say something jokingly. With the contents of the thread jest may be applicable, but isn't correct for the context in which it was used.

Thanks for the chuckle with the discussion of aerospace drag when traveling at near Mach speeds, or even several hundred MPH, and how it applies to drag racing at sub 150mph.

Few more comments. Tailgate nets are essentially the same as driving with tailgate down, and that was debunked ages ago. Fastback truck caps exist for a reason, they do help in hypermiling, but that doesn't mean that it would be an advantage for drag racing. IMO, weight transfer is more important than being low for this application and speed. That's why gassers existed, the setup worked great for transferring weight to rear wheels and increasing traction, suspension has advanced a lot since then.

 

[Rick W]

Also different scale, in flight school they said as speed doubles drag roughly quadrouples

Again, my point. It becomes a significant factor above 55.

Removing the mirrors would help but if he uses them to line himself up on the track after a burn out then they can not be removed.

You need mirrors during the burnout to see who's watching and how well your tires smoked.

I imagine the mirrors create a lot of drag. What about using a cheap Chinese GoPro with a little screen on top of the inside of the windshield or something like that?

The word you are looking for is "gist". Gist in this context basically means to summarize. To jest means to say something jokingly. With the contents of the thread jest may be applicable, but isn't correct for the context in which it was used.

Maybe it’s you that isn’t getting the gist. Maybe he was jesting about gist in our discussion of gusts. Maybe it was Siri dictation, which frequently leaves me aghast! Are you getting the gist of what I’m thinking?

 

[Maritime Drag Racing]

I'm not concerned with aerodynamics since the truck is 100% 1/8 mile and we're only doing 100mph and that's even with a big tailwind. Photo below is less than a foot off the starting line and the suspension is topped out front and rear. It tends to settle back down around 100ft out and the nose is even down a bit going over the finish line.

This one shows the ride height at rest so by comparing the two you can see just how much it changes when I let go of the transbrake.

And here's one a little further out from the starting line....

 

[JoshT]

Are you getting the gist of what I’m thinking?

Not remotely, and not sure that I want to.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Wonder if there would be any benefit to putting limit straps on the rear to keep it from climbing so much on the launch

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Again, my point. It becomes a significant factor above 55.

Drag racing is generally more about consistency more than setting new land speed records.

 

[Bgunner]

Wonder if there would be any benefit to putting limit straps on the rear to keep it from climbing so much on the launch

I do not know if limiting it would help. I personally have never seen limiter straps on a drag car but I do know if you control the speed that it raises does help.

 

[Rick W]

I'm not concerned with aerodynamics since the truck is 100% 1/8 mile and we're only doing 100mph and that's even with a big tailwind. Photo below is less than a foot off the starting line and the suspension is topped out front and rear. It tends to settle back down around 100ft out and the nose is even down a bit going over the finish line.

View attachment 119659

This one shows the ride height at rest so by comparing the two you can see just how much it changes when I let go of the transbrake.
View attachment 119660

And here's one a little further out from the starting line....

View attachment 119661

How dare you try to stop the conversation about what you’re doing with your own stuff? Now what are we going to whine and complain and fight about?