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There's a video of the Beast being assembled which is worth watching. The thing set the speed record of 128mph in 1911.

Apparently at that speed the engine was doing just over 1000rpm.

I'd be scared s@#$%less at 30mph in it !

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in the 80s watched a typhoon? engined 30?s race car go around pukekohe track at a wings and wheels

owner/driver said he liked the pukekohe back-straight as it was the only place he could get the car into top gear

didn't like that the power would destroy the narrow classic car tyres

can't seem to find any mention of it on the web

but did find something similar in brutus

https://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/300387755/meet-brutus-the-most-dangerous-car-in-the-world

While Brutus was actually built (well, started being built) in 1998, aero-engined cars initially rose in popularity after WWI as many aircraft engines were available after the war, because Germany was not allowed to have any aircraft.

This led British motorsport enthusiasts to do the thing that motorsport enthusiasts have always done and jammed the biggest engine they can get into their cars, as tracks like Brooklands (the oldest race track in the world) only had two banked curves and sheer, outright speed was the priority, making it a simple matter of mount a hugely powerful aircraft engine on an old chassis and use it for racing purposes.

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Anyway, we should get back to bikes !!

Rodger Freeth was a man I admired from back in the day. He was my Physics tutor in 197? Was always interesting.

It did seem slightly weird seeing him racing. He was never spectacular like Croz, he just put his head down and got on with it.

He certainly stirred up the natives when he turned up with this !!

37230660cff7c69813d.jpg

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Rodger was a real gentleman - i recall going to a midweek test day at Baypark and noticed his van and small entourage in the pits with him out on the track on his (1300?) Mcintosh . as i was getting my own bike ready i noticed him looking over everytime he went past the start/finish straight, and his crew (busy giving laptimes etc) would in turn look (glare) at me too... Just as i was about to go out on the track myself Roger pulled in and rode over to me to tell me about a patch of sand in the braking zone at the end of the back straight, then rode back out past his crew and carried on . Very few top level racers at the time would of done that ... 

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59 minutes ago, twisty said:

Anyway, we should get back to bikes !!

Rodger Freeth was a man I admired from back in the day. He was my Physics tutor in 197? Was always interesting.

It did seem slightly weird seeing him racing. He was never spectacular like Croz, he just put his head down and got on with it.

He certainly stirred up the natives when he turned up with this !!

37230660cff7c69813d.jpg

Before his time, aero is where a lot of the improvement in MotoGP is coming from. In Aragon Pecco had better braking and drive out of the corners than MM, they are saying that the aero is keeping more load on the tires. No load- no grip, I wonder what Dr Freeth had in mind with that wing though as it appears it would make the front quite light. 

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The rear wing was connected by a linkage so that under braking it became an air brake. The idea with the front was that with the dive on the forks the front wing would also pitch down. It was a clever idea. Apparently it didn't really work.

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surely he would have the cambered surface on the bottom complete with a couple of degrees of negative angle of attack... can you imagine on a tz750 having that starting to lift and then getting (exponentially) more lift...

 

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"Rolls-Royce Merlin engine with a 3rd bank of cylinders grafted on 1 side" any background info on this?  i know there were quite a few merlins floating around in the 60's and 70's ( i even had possession of one for a while) but that would be a tremendous engineering feat...

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My understanding is that that is what a typhoon tempest engine was...on walk-about, will dig up more at home.....but a quick search says that typhoon engine was a Napier sabre.....up to 3000 ps monster ..... a 24-cylinder piston engine with sleeved valves. Actually it is better described as two 12-cylinder horizontally opposed engines*, fused together in an ‘H’ cross section, as opposed to its famous ‘competitor’ the V-shaped 12-cylinder Rolls Royce Merlin......perhaps it was a Napier Bentley

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1 hour ago, jim s said:

"Rolls-Royce Merlin engine with a 3rd bank of cylinders grafted on 1 side" any background info on this?  i know there were quite a few merlins floating around in the 60's and 70's ( i even had possession of one for a while) but that would be a tremendous engineering feat...

perhaps it was this.................no wrong dates

Sunbeam V12 Special

 

The 1917 12 litre, 48-valve, Sunbeam Maori V12 aircraft engine produces 270hp at 2100 rpm.

Created in the spirit of Sunbeam's record-breaking post-WW1 cars in 1998 by Wallace McNair of Hamilton, New Zealand, using Sunbeam vintage components.

Currently on display at the Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre in Marlborough.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/sidm/3295986425

another here

https://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/customs-classics/9666507/Old-land-speed-record-breaker-is-fired-up

 

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