This is a personal preference question, not a tech question. I wanted to qualify that because of course there is a difference in classification between a streamliner running a turbine or piston engine. What I want to know is if the general BangShift readership at large cares how the horsepower to drive the car down the course and through the air is made. We certainly know that there are hotly defended opinions in the pits themselves. The piston guys don’t seem to have a lot of love for the turbine guys and the turbine guys couldn’t care less about that fact. What about you?
The world of land speed racing has always embraced alternative powerplants with respect to its top shelf record holders. Back in the 1930s, airplane engines were jammed into monstrous creations along with anything else that would fit. Those gargantuan engines allowed guys like John Cobb and Sir Malcom Campbell to thunder into the history books with top speeds that had never been achieved on land or even air (at that point) before. The rise of helicopters and the use of turbine engines that actually turn a driveshaft got the attention of land speed racers because the engines are relatively small and can be packaged in the tight frame of a machine. Also, they are pretty light when compared to gas or diesel burning engines so teams can better concentrate weight in places where they need it, instead of the middle.
Each year at Bonneville we see things that blow our minds. ‘Liners will engines ranging from Cummins diesels to multiple blown alky burning hemi plants flood the pits. Some with tiny little engines and others with the turbines were asking about. You tell us!
What do you think? Are pistons the only way to go or is anything that makes horsepower game?
I appreciate the work that goes into anything fast. But piston engines hold the most attention, as I probably can’t afford to play with the others.
To a spectator, there is nothing that compares to the sound of a pair or a quartet of fuel burning Hemis thundering down the salt at 400+ mph!
Trying to look at it from a competitors viewpoint, Tom Burkland has 2 blown fuel Hemis in his \’liner. He told me that they have enuff power to go A LOT faster than the 450 mph he has already achieved. Like 500+. Horsepower isn\’t an issue, the Hemis were tuned way down on his record runs. The issues are traction; and control of the vehicle on that slippery, variable, often rough surface. But mostly trAbsolutely!action. Same thing with Danny Thompson. 4 unblown nitro burning Hemis. More power than he can plant.
So knowing that, for a competitor, does in really make a difference what kind of motor drives the wheels in the top level classes? Probably not. They all can make sufficient horsepower. If they were all lumped together would there be wailing and gnashing of teeth?
As long as it’s a wheel-driven car, I don’t care what’s under the hood.
Danny Thompson\’s Challenger II uses only two unblown fuel engines.
YOu are right, I stand corrected. Short memory in my old age. THanks
piston engines for me
True Hot Rodders want a HOME for any power plant.
The most favorible for this is Bonneville…who offer classes for everything.
A step down is NHRA…. who don’t want Ford in the Pro-Divisions with their
Ford-hating bore-space requirements and NASCAR with their previous love affair with Chev and Toyota.
The worst HATE of Hot Rodders was the Indy series with their (until recently)
mandate for ONLY Honda engines. They told everyone else to piss-off.
Thank God for Bonneville.
The matter is really if the threshold of absolute speed for all wheel-driven cars has been reached as the salt maybe just to rough to allow traction to go above 460mph. Personally I don’t care what powers streamliners as long it does not bear the hated name of Chevrolet.
Pretty hard to beat a turbine, they don’t break and they’re fairly inexpensive compared to piston engine/engines along with the maintenance involved with one,,,,,, you can pick up a used 2000 HP turbine engine for around $20-25 grand and it will run all day, what would that horsepower let alone the reliability cost in a piston engine? And they do sound really cool by the way,,,,,,