12 inch throttle bodies, or how I spent my New Years day

[BKBridges]

Busby Berkely meets Bangshift...
138K lbs of steel and water and V10 Protoype Rousch power through 2 underdrive units and 8 driven wheels. I never had this one on my bucket list...But after sweating through a couple weeks of lousy surf (self generated, as I was responsible for the performance of the wave machine on board... I mean, why not?) I finally got it pumping out 2 footers tailored for dog surfing...(Natural Balance Inc was the float sponsor) One thing I can say is that 6600 gallons of water in an open-channel onboard a giant movie prop with 580hp and sticky brakes makes a 12% grade look like a double diamond ski slope from 12 feet up. Real cheek tightening experience. All went as planned though and we started surfing again after the grade... Yeah. The American Wave Machines Doggie Wave machine uses two 12" F&B throttle bodies throttling a 4ft dia blower run by a 90 Amp 480V three phase motor. Its kinda windy in the "secret" control room in the back of the float.
BKB

[Bob Holmes]

Good lord!!!

You play with some interesting stuff.

[Cyclone03]

That was AWSOME on TV!
So you ran the wave machine?Cool!

[Brian Lohnes]

Holy cow! How did you get into that project?!

[CDMBill]

How i the hell did I miss the surfing Dog Float? Oh. yeah, hangover.

[CDMBill]

BTW, way cool machine, huge props. As it were.

[Caveman Tony]

mmmmmm.... 480V... yum, yum...

That'll suck the paint off your house and give you a permanent orange afro.

[BKBridges]

This project was kinda stressfull as I was called in when no one else could make it work...1 day before they needed to run the surfing dog contest to pick the two winners to surf on the float with the "pros" (dogs that is). Nothing like live TV and 65 surf contestants (with owners) to help you concentrate on big technical problems. Got the first wave going at 11pm the night before the 5:00am "casting call". It still wasnt a bad day though since I got to work with the Best (Tillman the bulldog and his sister Winnie) talk about understanding clients (and you can scratch them under the chin when things get tough)! Dick VanPatten's Natural Balance Pet food company seems like a very cool place to be employed. I did get to sit in the pseudo scale flower covered Woody for the judging to operate the machine, but during the parade I gave the controls to the pres of Natural Balance so I could slog dog bitten water-logged surfboards (about 40lbs each) to the trainers since the very petite woman that had been pegged to do that made it through about 4 boards before I saw her "pain"...Cool hydraulically operated flower covered Woody "kennals" ran the dogs back and forth...Big 900KW generator was towed behind the float to run the whole thing. The drivers (siamesed twins separated at birth) drove the float with one below steering and braking and the guy in the lifeguard seat above and in front throttling and telling the guy below where to go. Tricky. After the parade I sat in the "seat of power"

[Brian Lohnes]

There were friggin' Siamese twins involved? Of course there were Siamese twins involved.

[BKBridges]

Well...
We did have Greg Biffle on board...Courtesy Rousch Racing!
BKB

[Cyclone03]

I loved the little Woody's that carried the surfers and boards.
And you got to ride in THE parade too! This has WIN all over it.

[70chevyC-10]

I wish I would have seen that - any vid's on their website? And way to save the wave !

[BKBridges]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=r-dB3orwl14

This one isnt too bad... You can see the geyser that was created when the water level went too low in the rear tank as we started down the grade...Just like the plan... Smile and wave everybody! As the water level slowly came back I had to yell out to Joey, the pres of Natural Balance, the instructions for "cheating" the machine to avoid the geyser and still surf dogs on low water... Hes a drummer, so he had the chops to time things just right.
BKB

[SuperBuickGuy]

why am I hearing beavis and butthead saying "why don't we create a float with surfing dogs, heh heh"?

still, it's awesome you pulled it off.

[Bob Holmes]

There were friggin' Siamese twins involved? Of course there were Siamese twins involved.

C'mon, keep up, would ya!!