Mercury Powered Dirt Car

[DaddySundown]

I would like to share this fun project with you all!

This is a little Project that I have been helping a car builder with. I built the engine for this car. A drop on Mercury 200 powerhead that he has installed in a midget racer. Races start this wed. and go through the week end. This race is called the Chili Bowl. It is ran indoors at the Tulsa, OK fairgrounds. I'll be there in case they run into any problems with the engine.

Here is the link to the pictures.

Mercury Powered Dirt Car

Alan..........

 

[DaddySundown]

I forgot to ad that the builder has adapted the alcohol injection on this engine. We fired it in the car today and it does sound wicked.

 

[Lake S.P.O.R.T.]

That is really trick. I have heard of dirt track racers many years ago using the old Merc in-line 6 cylinder powerhead. Have you ran a two stroke engine of that size on a radiator before? Let us know how it does!

Mark

 

[BigChuck]

I saw the video tape of Al Copeland's belt drive system for 8 merc power heads in a big cat. AWESOME SOUND!

Just question out of coursity. Were you limited to the 200 becasue of HP or because it did not have the fuel sysem like the EFI.

Now an 2.5 EFI midget, would be out of this world. Just a thought.

Race car looks KOOL B) B) Good luck at the Chilli Bowl I will look out for the car on Speed TV when they show the race.

 

[DaddySundown]

Running it in the drive way today the temp was 140. We have a large electric pump that circulates the water and a fan to draw the air through the radiator to cool it at an idle. I shut off the fan and it went to 170. Looks like it's going to run cool enough.

The real test will be when we put it under a load.

 

[DaddySundown]

I saw pictures of the offshore boat you mention. wasn't that Popeyes?

I think the restrictions are cubic inches like 155. This is the 2.5 153 ci block. This was built originally for a test engine. It has some mild port work and the rod slots opened. with this mod and the alcohol injection it should be somewhere around 240hp. If it works like we hope it will, a 280hp EFI of 300hp drag engine will be the next powerplant.

 

[Joe_Knesek]

Alan, I wish you and Kevin good luck & Godspeed! It seems like Kevin had a good 2004, at least at the big races. A lot of wins and fast times.

It would be nice to see something listed after the engine type...like sponsors. The Chili Bowl is always a great show. All the big guns come out to play just like Turkey Night. Some of the business owners on this board may want to consider it since it's likely the car will get air time.

When will the race air?

 

[Jerry Wyss]

OH! That Thing Is Going to Have an Awesome Power Delivery!! Two Stroke Power

on Wheels! YEEHHAA! In the 70's I was a Mercury IB and OB Mechanic in the period that the "Black Max" came out. They produced some pretty Serious HP,(30 yrs ago)

What Rpm do you intend to run? :huh:

 

[Ron Olson]

Bad little buggy ya got there!

let us know if you can of when the race will be televised and what channel. I remember seeing this race once before on one of the channels, either ESPN or Speed TV.

 

[DaddySundown]

Joe,

I been woking with the builer Buddy Cagle. He has recruited Kevin Bayer to drive it. I understand that Kevin has many wins under his belt but has not won the Chili Bowl.

You will probably have it say tuned to the Chili Bowl web site for air times. If I here I'll will post it.

Jerry,

These newer 2.5 blocks put the old 2 and 2.4 liter's to shame. The modified 260 I ran on my drag race hull was aroun 350hp.

We think the 2 stroke power will be quiker off the turns. RPM between 8,000 and 9,000. Hope she stays together!

 

[Jerry Wyss]

Yep,,That's turnin' it perdy good h34r: I live 3 mi from "Devils Lake Oregon"

where APBA has their Record runs,,The "Rocky Stone Memorial",it's on the APBA

schedule. Saw a Champ/Endurance style boat here last year with a "Merc" that

had "200" on the side,,wasn't all that fast,,had a 5 blade prop on there. We really

haven't seen a high speed record in "Champ" type class yet on the Lake that I

know of. But there is a guy that lives on the lake that has 3 of the 2.4's and two shallow "V" type hulls of some kind,,and when he runs on that lake(not racing)

Everbody Knows It,,Sounds like a B-52 Taking Off the Lake

 

[BigChuck]

Mercury blocks will give you a few option. The new 2.5 are AWESOME motors and that not race versions.

Yeh you were right it was Popeyes. To much power there as well motors ripped the transom out of the boat before Al could brake it. But, it was leading the feild when it broke.

Don,t know how the buggy will run But it must have one CRAZY sound to it.

V-8 power sound good. But twin EFI's have NO match in the world. The closes thing to second is twin Lambo V-12 in the Euro offshore boats.

Git err dun............Hammer down B) B)

 

[NAMBA860]

THERE IS A GUY HERE IN VEGAS THAT BUILT A SAND BUGGY LONG TRAVEL WITH A 4.0 LITRE V8 JOHNSON OUTBOARD POWER HEAD IT IS REAR ENGINE CONNECTED TO A MENDOLA TRANS IT SITS ON ITS SIDE IT HAS 8 CARBURATORS AND A CUSTOM EXHAUST. THE ENGINE WAS WICKED SOUNDING AND RAN LIKE A RAPPED APE I SAW IT AT GLAMIS LAST YEAR WASNT TO MANY THAT WOULD RUN WITH IT.THERE WAS ALSO AN UNLIMITED HYDRO I BELIEVE IT WAS CALLED THE ARCADIAN IT HAD 8 200 MERC. POWERHEADS COUPLED TOGETHER I DONT RECALL IT RUNNING VERY GOOD WHEN IT RACED HERE IN VEGAS BACK IN THE LATE 80S.

 

[catman]

Awesome project SOO COOL. Ive just been wanting to do that for a while. My only concern would be cooling. a few years ago a mate and myself put a 52hp 250cc yz250 motor into a omega go-kart and we made and mounted sequential stick with a motorbike clutch on the shifter it was mounted off the left of the column, quick and easy to change thru the 5 gears, we had major heat issues at first, the 2 stock yz radiators didnt do the job(they did while at idle and not under load) and after hoses blowing, and a lot of frustrations and hot water burns(a and another couple of experimental radiators.we ended up finding a gsxr 1100 radiator and slung across the back with a alloy skirt picking up air, the kart did 213kmh, was reasonably low geared. My point being we put a radiator 4 times the size of the factory setup too keep it 150 degrees Celcius.IMHO would have thought to run a much larger, maybe thick alloy radiator (depending on how many laps you are doing) than what was in the car, as the outboard is normally cooled by a fresh cold water supply, not hot recirculated water. might have to spray nitrous on the radiator to cool it

I wish you luck!!

do you push start it? is

Oh so cool tho man!! I want one

Get us a video to watch!!

is there an expansion chamber and an exhaust powervalve planned ?

 

[DaddySundown]

We'll see how this goes with this exhaust first. It sounds pretty bad ass.

The cooling I think will be OK. We ran the engine this evening. I first let it run about 5 minutes then turn on the water pump and began to circulate the coolant. Let run another 5 min and watched the temp clinb to 180. Then I kicked on the fan to draw the air through the radiator and watched the temp go down to 145. I think the cooling will not be a problem.

We lost our driver Kevin Bayer. But we have recruited another by the name of Mike Brooks, he is a seasoned veteran. Mike is the father of Matt and Matt will drive. Think he will do just fine.

The weather is so bad now there will not be a chance to test before we take the car to the race Friday morning. We are schedualed to qualifying Friday evening.

I'll see if I can get a little video footage.

 

[catman]

cool!! how many cc is the engine?

cant wait to see video.

wonder what a 90hp go kart would go like...

 

[DaddySundown]

Well, we are done. This was basicly a test just to see if this would run with the field.

First heat Friday we were rich. Ran one lap and died. Second heat friday she ran a lap and a half after richening it up bunch. Saturday after richening up as far as we thought it could handle and changing to a lower gear. We ran hot laps and finished without the engine dieing or hesitating. RPM was 11,000 :blink: and the temp was 240 degrees :blink: . We checked the radiator and it was low, added half a gallon of water took it back out for the last and final heat which was the first heat of the day.

This heat is what you see on the video. If you will notice we kept up with the field untill the engine once again got hot. You can see going into each turn right after the car fell back that water was blowing out from under the front of the car.

Link to Small File

Link to Large Video File

We will be able to get another 100hp out of the next engine. So YES we will be competitive.