The Bricklin and Car Safety and the frame of a Bricklin.
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The engines and the transmissions that the Bricklin used were what could be bought from the auto makers. I the case of his last engine and transmission. The ones from Ford they received the 351 cubic inch Windsor not the 351 cubic inch Cleveland which was the powerhouse engine. The 351 engine is of the family of small block fords that started with the 221 in the early 1960s. This family progress through the following sizes 221 260 289 302 351. This is why a new head was need for high output engines. The Cleveland is very close to being a polyspherical head with much larger valves. The top of the valve covers are much wider on the Cleveland than on the Windsor. The transmission was the Ford FMX automatic transmission not the C-4 or the C-6. The manual for the 1974 Fords say that the FMX transmission was not to be used for taxis or postal delivery cars. Warranty covers normal use and racing is not normal use. If extra restriction are put on there must be at least a more than normal limiting point to the power usage that the transmission can stand. Driving it as if it was a sports car could be a problem. The FM was a cast steel body that cracked under heavy load. There is only a couple of reasons that one might choose these two not know any better, easy of getting them to the plant in Canada, or it is all they would sell them. Since they are both made there and not in the United States. Past a point the parts should be made by the one making the car otherwise one can not count on the best or to be told what the best is.
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The seat set low in the car because of relying on the beam below the door for most of the protection from side impact. The use of an interlocking door beam in my design did not require this. I like the use of the beam below the door my first design had two beams side by side at floor level not stacked up. The dash is much the same as my Mustang only not as well color coordinated. The automatic transmission shifter is one sold for use by someone who wants to switch to a floor mounted shifter.
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What one makes will be around long after it is really noticed by most.
My own ideas of car safety are from look how smart boy died. He should have thought of that. Fear can be a useful thing.
I wanted to read Should We Have a New Engine a report put out by the Society of Automotive Engineers. The author where from J.P.L. (Jet Propulsion Laboratory. I called up S.A.E. to order the book and they asked if I was a member I said no but they had me on there mailing list for about a year. This gave a list of current problems and a review of engine types and current federally funded programs on alternative engine design. I called up the author at J.P.L. and asked him question at least twice. The one thing that was to both of us a disappointment was that this was all of the experiments that were going on. (The first time I tried to get him on the phone I got through. I later wondered
if it was because my name was Bob Petersen. The publisher of Hotrod magazine is named Bob Petersen. But we had a good talk.) I called him later and we talked again for about 20 minutes. The background information for electric cars is in
there. Facts like the Peak Rating for (6 seconds) can be 3.5 times the continuous rating. It is hard to find a motor above 10 horse power but if you can Peak the motor to get going or to pass someone you should be able to power
Vega, Pinto or Bug. The in the book the Vega is said to require 14 Horse Power to go 70 M.P.H.. Wind resistance goes up with the square of the velocity; so 50 M.H.P. should be attainable. These 'little facts' that all of a
sudden make something possible show the necessity of being thorough and the possible rewards.
The use of Ammonia as a fuel was one of the things I researched at this time. The reasoning was if there are two pollutants get rid of one and improve the other. The Nitrogen Oxides are caused by high temperatures and unburned
Hydrocarbons by not enough Oxygen or low temperatures. These two are hard to deal with at the same time. The book dealt with Hydrogen as a fuel. It would be hard to store. It does not smell and it is combustible at even 1 part 40 of
air. That means that it could not be detected till it explodes. Ammonium smells and small leaks can be absorbed by water. The idea of double walling tanks that surround and cushion the inner ammonia tank with water. The idea of using this for fueling a car will stop, but the their systems will find there way into other projects. The ideas generated will find application and variation of principle elsewhere also. (One of the variations was with fluorocarbon use.)
Opel GT
While working on the garbage route I needed a different car so I got a white Opel GT. The car looks something like a small Corvette and it has good power a 1900 cc engine. That will not be around area at the start of the emissions standards. (The engine is how Isuzu got there foot in the door by providing the engine for the Opels.)
The car's ugly design feature is that the roof does not set flat. The front of the roof is higher than the back end. The front of the roof would have to come forward in order to move the front of the roof down. Where I liked the seat in the car was laying back. (I measured it once and I got in and out of it often.) The inside height was high enough that my hat could stay on in the car. (The hat extends about 2 inches above my head.) There was a import auto salvage yard that had three wrecked Opel GTs. It would be possible with two extra tops to make a longer top by using two section made from the longer front and logger back section of the two roofs. (This way I would not be cutting the old roof off until I got the other roof done right.) The windows trimmed the appearance would be altogether different. The idea of a T top roof with two removable section to extend the roof forward and down. There was some small damage done to the front of the front bumper and the sheet metal behind it. The metal was joined by a seam that came out almost 1/2 inch in front of that round surface. I have a set of body shop hammers and anvils so I went ahead started to work on it. The metal was fairly thick and it worked real easily and the I got the dent. I decide to separate the top and the bottom of the front end. I chisel the sections apart and begin to hammer both the top and bottom sections out flat. I straighten out the 90 degree bend that formed the seam. The nose then came to a point and has a much more racey Corvette appearance.
I wanted to put away a engine for this car. The front cross member is removable and the motor mount are mounted on "posts" that come up from the bottom of the member. I bought another cross member so I could cut it to height and put on another set of motor mount. The engine was to be a 250 cubic inch Pontiac Overhead Cam. I would not with that size engine need to turbocharger it but it could be done. I had bought 2 engines and was looking for a 4-speed to fit. When I found the sagnaw transmission and the linkage it was on a 67 Firebird. I popped the hood and it had a 230 High Output engine in it. This engine was something for a straight 6. A Thermoquad 4 barrel carb, dual valve springs, split exhaust manifold feeding dual exhaust and of course a better cam. The 3 heads would now allow me to cut one head up. This head is cut so that you can see how thick the metal is around each intake and exhaust and what the "line of air flow is". This question showed it's importance on the 426 before the 426D Hemi engine, the earlier engine had very open intakes. They still did not seem to put enough power. What was discovered was that the flow along the bottom intake was coming straight at the intake valve. This part of the flow was cutting off the rest of the air flow at high speed. They made actual gave it a smaller intake passage made the whole passage slowly bend down toward the valve. I had a torque tube that fit, the front and rear cross members, a GM cross flow radiator,and a spare hood. (Total spent $265) This would have been quite a project car. The car weighed around 2000 pounds.
Bob L. Petersen
Something far short of this and not as sharp looking could normally be the fastest thing on the road. After that what is the point. A car of your own design.
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The was some drawing of planes before the start of work on cars but it was not as good as the design work after cars. There would be no space plane without it. This will be the start of my thinking about what I can realistically do with metals, chemicals i.e. fuels, gadgets and machines. This is a small part of the list I will be adding to it over time. There is no thing outside the box one simply moves around the box. At some point you will find you are outside where the old box was.
Bob Petersen
My 1974 Mustang II Mach I was light blue.
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The 1974 Mustang II Mach I had a 2300 cubic centimeter 4 cylinder engine in it. I had what I would have considered my hot rod a home in the form of my Dodge that I could have built if I wanted to. Not the 2600 cubic centimeter V-6 the that the 1974 Mach Is normally had in them. There were always looks like that is not a sports car at stop lights. It got pretty sickening. I cut off the muffler leaving only the small resonator and installed a flared chrome tube to get the exhaust out from under the car. I did not like a noise car but if I push on the gas I do not want to hear the carburetor sucking air. I want to hear the output. I bought the high power kit for the carburetor. I measured their jet compare to mine and then purchased the next size bigger jet. This does not mean I would be losing gas mileage in fact if the mixture is better the mileage should go up. I had opened the exhaust when I took off the muffler. With these modifications it was finally more than a gloried Pinto. The reared was a 3.5 to 1 and low gear was also 3.5 to 1. The small steel belted radial tires made the gearing appear lower compared to a large car with large tires. Standard tires at the time were about 28 inches tall the tires on my car were shorter by about 15 present shorter a speed. The tires on the front had a lot of weight on them and at correct pressure the tires looked much flatter. These were my first radials so I asked if that was OK. They said they look like that. I reasoned if the fronts could stand that curvature then the backs should also. I adjusted the back tire pressures down till they had the same curvature. This made the tire much shorter. Someone got to racing their motor next to me and I popped my clutch and took him at the light. The gears and tires plus the work meant I had a real good first gear. I would go though first and back off before they found out that was it. This worked well tell I ran into a 440 Charger with a 727 torqueflite he power braked. His tires were smoking before he let his foot off the brake. Left me in the dust on his way to the gas station. Twenty six miles per gallon on the highway and still able to get around quickly.
This all served as perp for designing a plane. The ability to work with the math needed and knowing that I might not understand anything else while working on a problem. It is very hard to sit there and know you do not have any correct answers. Until you consider all first thoughts prep for the real design. Ideas and parts of ideas will find there way into the final design. Perp for the unprepared or education for the uneducated it does work. There is though a freedom in not knowing range better. This perp must be in ernest though.
Bob L. Petersen
Bob Petersen
This separate subframe is what I will have to work with plus engine, transmission and steering gear. The four YELLOW areas are where the body mounted to the subframe. The bolts heads were about 1 inch in size, if I remember right. It was all I could do to break them loose with a bar. The BLUE shaded area is the engine motor mounts. The RED is the back end mounts of the torsion bars. (This is will be my why I will choose torsion bars for my tank design. Since the subframe at the this point is not welded to the body it is a much more massive structure.) There are two sets of adjustments one and the back end and the other at the front that you can not see in this picture. With both adjusted as far as they will go it will still take my body weight to get it off of the rubber at end of stroke. This means that the front end must have at least another 300 added to it to function with the existing torsion bars as they are. I could put some longer bolts on the back to get to allow me to have a lighter front end. This would take some additional work to unload the torsion bars and put on the new bolts but it could be done. The outside end of the YELLOW area was where I was originally going to weld on the rest of the frame for the car. This would go back about 3 ft. beyond the rear cross member (The area between the RED marks.) This is then where the rear end assembly would be welded on. The rearend needed to have a full travel so the rear member could not go just straight across. The area for the torque converter, transmission and torque tube back to the rearend then would have to be excluded from the inside of the car. The sheet metal for the floor the would have to be cut and small angle iron welded on and a frame box welded on to form the firewall floorboard.
This is the first frame design for the first car. I later when it came down to it, I did not trust it. But I still did not have any idea about what it would be besides a car with a body on it. It would have been right about 2000 pounds and had 300 horse power with out building the engine. The estimates for welding were below 300 dollars (rods and material no labor) and I will have 60 dollars in the transmission. I will sit in study hall with a J. C. Whitney Catalog and layout the dash. Where the gauges go. The transmission has a push button control for selecting the gears. Where can I put this so that it will look right.
This was the simple box I first design little more then a simple box with a pair of spoilers on it. The back spoiler was the first one on I put on to keep the back end on the road at high speed like the race cars. The design of the front one was arrived in stages. First as a spoiler, then as a spoiler and a bumper and then lastly as a spoiler and safety bumper. It started from the question. What would happen if I should hit a person with this front end or another car. The spoiler would rotate around till it's top is vertical and it was to be spring loaded by the horizontal members. I had the springs for this already.
This is how I found out about the old hemis, not the 426 the old 392, 354 and 331. I looked into what they had in the manuals on the different engines. There were a lot of 354 and 331 in the junk yards but I did not see any 392. The gentleman who ran the gas station down on the highway retire and he had an old Dodge Red Ram with a Hemi and a three speed clutch with an overdrive and the first of the torque converters. (If you do not believe you will have to look it up. There were a lot of odd starts to the automatic transmission.) The whole combination was interesting so I decided to drive it around for awhile and then I wanted to keep the engine and transmission.
