great reading peter. i once read on another car forum of you guys approaching murray anderson to build your next racecar was there any truth behind that or was it just chinese whispers. was he who built your original 300zx or was it purchased overseas ? if you were to build another car would you have one built here by a particular chassis builder or would you just buy an overseas car like a lot of the bigger names in racing are doing these days.

Quote: Originally Posted by GMHBT1 great reading peter. i once read on another car forum of you guys approaching murray anderson to build your next racecar was there any truth behind that or was it just chinese whispers. was he who built your original 300zx or was it purchased overseas ? if you were to build another car would you have one built here by a particular chassis builder or would you just buy an overseas car like a lot of the bigger names in racing are doing these days. The 300ZX was built by John Taverna and Sons - all of them together. It did a great job and kept me alive today in the accident. This is testamony to the build quality and the design - and to simple things working well like the seat belt and seat mounts, which didn't move at all thankfully as otherwise I would have not been retained within the car while rolling. Yes, I did speak to Murray about a new car. He is a friend of mine and between us we had lots of ideas about car development. I wouldn't hesitate having Murray build me a new car. He is very clever, and puts a lot of time into thinking about how things could work best when building the vehicle. A lot of the cars from overseas are also very high quality and reflective of the number of vehicles they produce. It is more important to ensure that you would actually get a car that was built the way you wanted it to be. Unless you were fortunate enough to get into the queue of someone like Don Ness.

Very interesting topic and probadly one of the best ive read on any forum to tell you the truth .. Thanks for the response Peter .

Quote: Originally Posted by lostit Very interesting topic and probadly one of the best ive read on any forum to tell you the truth .. Thanks for the response Peter . No problem. Thanks and regards.

very usefull info u have put out mate ...cheers. its blokes like you that are willing to share ideas, theories,stories, and obviously info that is proven on the track, that really helps alot of less unknowledgable people out.....an a lot at that.. 1 of the most interesting threads i have read to date if not the best. why have u not got back into racing in the rb class?? sorry if i missed that. an are/would u ever consider getting back in the game of racing an building engines again...?? also cheers for an awsome read mate keep it coming.

unbelievable reading peter, im amazed at the knowledge you have and the r&d you have done over the years to make your car as consistant and Competitive as it was and still would be today if you were still racing. if you have any pics you would like to share id love to see them, [email removed] much respect steve

Here you go guys... As promised. Anymore videos or pics Peter feel free to send across and i can upload them for you. Click Here.... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LhghtUEam0) email: [email removed]

Anyway these guys have done it well before anyone else. Any VL done better then there 300ZX? witch was done way back in the 90's!?! I think I brought this up in 2003-2004? Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

i think there 300 still has the highest mph for a full rb30 till today with 175.10 correct me if i am wrong peter. i read it on some drag list somewhere.

Quote: Originally Posted by GMHBT1 i think there 300 still has the highest mph for a full rb30 till today with 175.10 correct me if i am wrong peter. i read it on some drag list somewhere. You are right. Well done. I am looking at the time card now. 175.13 at Calder Park TRaceway on 26 November 1994. 15 years ago next month. I also see that the temp was 36 degrees, barometric pressure 990mbar and humidity 60 percent. Pretty poor conditions. I can also see that was the year we were Australian Champions in Super Stock as we were carrying the number 1. The time was a backing off 8.126 We ran 175 mph at some other stage I remember while in DD/G with about 200lbs overweight. DD/G (for 2 valve enegines) required 12.3 lbs per cubic inch - 2251 lbs with 183 cu in. We weighed 2450 for a while before we removed some weight. Interestingly, 4 valves per cylinder were allowed but you had to weigh 13.2 lb/cu in ie 165lb more for the same engine size. In Super Stock DD/G, the regulations said you could not have two forms of supercharging (ie no turbos and nitrous etc - but you could have any number of turbos you wanted), only mechanical injection and separate electronic ignition (so no engine management systems and computer control of fuel and spark and boost etc together), no clutchless transmissions, different weights for 2V and 4V etc etc. The other interesting point is that some people focus on absolute power or absolute performances (ET's etc). We never did really. Of course we did focus on being able to make lots of power, but we were really focussed on winning races, and lots of them over as long a time as possible. So, when racing in the ANDRA Indexing System at the time (even still now), the quicker you went, the more your index was lowered for the next round and also for the next race after the index adjustment period came around. So the trick was always to win with the SMALLEST margin and to keep the true performance of the vehicle undisclosed. We won lots of races over 13 or so years that way. Also, winning by the smallest of margins was important so that people didn't ban you or create some form of additional handicap. We lost one whole class - CC/G - to race in becuase of that sort of thing. So you see, we were never motivated to run the car any harder than we needed to win. As I have said before though, one of my greatest frustrations with this is that due to our accident, we never had the chance to show what the car could truly do. That was a pity. Lots of people who race in the class indexing system would probably say something similar, and would like to avoid having to back-off during races. However, with a category of racing that has so many diofferent types of vehicle and engine configurations, you need a system to bring some parity to the racing. Peter

such a shame about the accident peter the more you speak of it really it must depress you a bit thinking of what might of been. it would have been great just to see the full potential of the old girl with no excess weight in the car. obviously it would have went a great deal faster than 175 mph and really who exactly knows just how fast the car could have gone at its full potential. would you care to have a guesstimate at how fast in your personal opinion you think the car could have gone with no weight breaks and with obviously maxish sort of power whilst still retaining utmost reliability.

Quote: Originally Posted by GMHBT1 such a shame about the accident peter the more you speak of it really it must depress you a bit thinking of what might of been. it would have been great just to see the full potential of the old girl with no excess weight in the car. obviously it would have went a great deal faster than 175 mph and really who exactly knows just how fast the car could have gone at its full potential. would you care to have a guesstimate at how fast in your personal opinion you think the car could have gone with no weight breaks and with obviously maxish sort of power whilst still retaining utmost reliability. Well, can't predct the future. I also had a habit of never counting my chickens before they hatched, so to speak. Often, I never counted them even when they did! There were lots of people that use to tell me about what we did at this and that race. Often it took some remembering myself after they pointed it out. What I do know is that at just over 1000HP the engine was very reliable in drag racing competition form with the preparations we did, and that tells you that the engine was not seeing its mechanical limits. That makes sense when you see what is capable of other in line engines in pro rwd. The reliability levels for other forms of racing like endurance racing would be a different story. All sorts of other problems arise when you talk about running an engine at these sorts of power levels for hours and hours. That would be the same issue no matter which brand of engine was run. But for short duration racing like drag racing, you can get away with a lot.

in other words for people with no clue the 300 left the line when the light went green not when the converter came up as for rods and pistons peter what where you using ?

very amazing i think peter sould write a book bcoz this is sooo usefull and very intresting and makes u think alot about your racing car

Quote: Originally Posted by ANK in other words for people with no clue the 300 left the line when the light went green not when the converter came up as for rods and pistons peter what where you using ? We used lots of different rod and piston setups. Some worked better than others. Rods were all billets, but we tried different materials. Pistons were machined from a particular Cosworth blank that was sourced for us and with a particular ring pack/wrist pin setup. Nothing special. But then again, nothing looks special when it all works well for you.

so what worked better aloy or steel rods?

Quote: Originally Posted by ANK so what worked better aloy or steel rods? I am sure there are lots of people using lots of different rods with success these days. The rods just need to be strong enough to handle the power without undue distortion (including in the big end where all the trouble starts if the oil film breaks down) yet as light as possible. Fatigue strength is important and on alloy rods, you have to count the number of runs because forged or billet, the lifespan is limited. There are added benefits of additional strain with the aluminium rods if the cylinder pressure spikes so sharply that you need some elastic cushioning provided by the aluminium rods to not break down the oil film on the big end side. If you can control the cylinder pressure from not spiking (ie avoid/control any detonation) then the metal type of the connecting rod is immaterial. The other thing to take into account is the reciprocating loads, which can be calculated. The heavier the rod, the greater the loads. This in itself can be a determining factor, especially on an RB engine - narrow bearings so high pressures applied. I guess I haven't answered your question directly, which is quite deliberate. If I did, it would mislead people, plus it's better to understand the reason for choices, not people's choices themselves. Both alloy rods and steel rods have worked fine for me but that's not an answer you see. I hope this answer is a little more informative. At extreme power levels, everything has to be chosen to suit the application - torque levels, maximum rpm, compression ratio, fuel type, how heavy the piston is etc. At lower power levels, you can use whatever you like and it will hardly make a difference provided it is good quality and can handle the load. Leave alloy for racing though - any manufacturer would tell you that anyway.

Absolutely loved this car................... Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

so peter are you saying with lower spec engine for say running a 10 sec et pretty much anything will do with weights of parts etc and the faster you go the lighter internally you need to make it all whilst keeping everything super strong.

Quote: Originally Posted by GMHBT1 so peter are you saying with lower spec engine for say running a 10 sec et pretty much anything will do with weights of parts etc and the faster you go the lighter internally you need to make it all whilst keeping everything super strong. That's pretty much the concept. For the 500HP range on an engine that wasn't doing super high rpm's (which would get you deep into the 10 second zone in say a 2700lb car) any good quality manufactured rod should do the job. Remember there are a lot of production cars coming out with more that 350kW using a factory forged rod - but they are designed for this loading to run reliably. So get a rod designed to do that too and it will be a good investment.