British steam car closes in on 127 mph record
Finally, after over 100 years in the record books, Fred Marriott's officially recognized top speed in a steam-powered car is in serious danger of being eclipsed. The British Steam Car Challenge team has reportedly already posted a two way average of 137.14 mph, which is well over the World Record of 127 miles per hour set in a Stanley steam car way back in 1906. Says Project Manager Matt Candy:
Finally, the British team plans an official run today at 6 am local time with FIA officials in tow. The goal: to beat both the aforementioned Official World Record and the American National Record of 145.607mph set by the Barber-Nichols Team in 1985. Check back later to see if there's a new record on the books.It was an enormous achievement on Saturday and one we hope to replicate now that the FIA timing officials have joined us today. The timing equipment is currently being set up cross the 6mile lake bed... Since arriving in the US the team has had to do a lot of preparations to the car with the effects of heat, altitude and the surface conditions. Compared to UK testing at Thorney, Portsmouth, the goal has been to make the car travel twelve times the distance, at double the speed and twice in within one hour. Saturday was a milestone for the team in achieving this goal.
[Source: British Steam Car Challenge]
PRESS RELEASE:
British Steam Car Team on Course for World Record Success!
Edward's Air Force Base, California: Tuesday 18th August
The British Steam Car Team has now successfully carried out 5 test runs in excess of 100mph ahead of its bid to break the century-old world land speed record for steam-powered vehicles. After numerous setbacks last week, the team were jubilant on Saturday having unofficially beaten the Fred Marriott record. The teams own calibrated equipment measured the two way average at 137.14mph, and a 48min 52 second turn-around.
Tomorrow the British Steam Car Team will commence their attempts to achieve an official record The current FIA record is 127mph previously set by American, Fred Marriott, driving a Stanley steam car in 1906
Project Manager Matt Candy said:" it was an enormous achievement on Saturday and one we hope to replicate now that the FIA timing officials have joined us today. The timing equipment is currently being set up cross the 6mile lake bed. When we left England we knew we had a tough challenge ahead, but we had carried out all the testing we could. Since arriving in the UK the team has had to do a lot of preparations to the car with the effects of heat, altitude and the surface conditions. Compared to UK testing at Thorney, Portsmouth, the goal has been to make the car travel twelve times the distance, at double the speed and twice in within one hour. Saturday was a milestone for the team in achieving this goal".
The FIA is the sanctioning body and now recognizes a land speed record as the average speed of two passes made across the same measured distance in opposing directions within 60 minutes of each other. The time of the two runs is then averaged to obtain the official recorded speed.
The record runs will commence at 6am (USA time). We will keep you posted with the team news!
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Luke 10:32AM (8/20/2009)
So how about giving us some way to measure the efficiency of this
car!? If it's green enough to make it on autobloggreen, then show us
why. Right now I'm thinking that replacing 200 ICE cars with steam
cars would require us to cut down a few national forest's worth of
trees to power them. Or, if they are powered by something else, I'm
guessing that covering my lawn with two inches of gasoline and then
lighting it on fire before taking my scooter to work would be more
efficient.
Reply
Rudi 11:07AM (8/20/2009)
Luke,
http://www.steamcar.co.uk/design/details.html, there are the details of the design of the car.
Runs on LPG, so no national forests to be cut down, oh and no need to cover your lawn with gasoline either.
Reply
Luke 11:41PM (8/20/2009)
That doesn't address my point, which was not about the particular fuels. How is this vehicle green? Whether it uses gasoline, wood or LPG makes no difference.
paulwesterberg 11:54AM (8/20/2009)
An ice workes by internal combustion, a steam engine works by external combustion by using the heat to create steam which is released at intervals to move pistons.
It would be interesting for some gearhead show to create an ice/steam hybrid car where the excess engine/exhaust heat is used to heat steam and move pistons. Steam pressure is less powerful, but every stroke could be a power stroke. You might even be able to use an auxiliary pressure tank to capture & reuse regenerative braking energy.
Are you listening Jessie James? Steam could be your next fuel of the future.
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dave 12:25PM (8/20/2009)
I like it Paul.
I thought about using waste engine heat to move a steam turbine to power an A/C compressor, especially in Arizona where I live this would be an ideal method of using wasted energy while at the same time maybe cooling the ICE.
The only problem is extra weight,
anyone working on small heat capturing solutions for ICE's ?
would it be as simple as wrapping a bunch of copper tubing around the head/block ? :)
Chris M 8:32PM (8/20/2009)
That was the idea behind the "six stroke" engine under development, with the standard internal combustion intake/compression/power/exhaust strokes, followed by a water injection that turns to a steam power stroke, and a steam exhaust stroke. Problems include coordinating the transition from 4 to 6 stroke operation and the need to use distilled water to prevent damaging mineral buildup.
BMW was researching the idea of using exhaust heat to power a small steam engine to provide auxiliary power. No idea on when or if it will ever come to market.
Jon 2:53PM (8/20/2009)
Seems like they're having problems:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/8206560.stm
They only have two days to pass the record officially now.
Reply
meg 3:44PM (8/20/2009)
Wait, I don't see where it says they only have 2 days. do you just mean because they only have the driving area reserved for two more days or something? They could always try again in a month, unless I'm missing something.
That car is wild looking.
Jon 4:01PM (8/20/2009)
I live close to Thorney so they talked about it on the local news this evening. They said they only had Friday and Saturday to complete the record but they didn't say why - your reasoning sounds plausible though.
They might be able to try it again in the future but I imagine that would all depend on investor support.