"Beast"

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Ron LaDow
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"Beast"

#1 Post by Ron LaDow »

A book on the Penske/Benz push-rod engine.
Not a lot of specific details regarding the engine, but a lot which can be inferred. More about how it was kept secret.
I certainly hoped for more about the engine (was it worth sacrificing balance for the 75* V?); only near the end was there mention of an interview with a Honda engineer who admitted they had worked on the CART engine base on F-1 data and had ignored how methanol burned compared to the high-octane dino-fuel used in F-1. Care to enlarge on that? Nope.
The book was written by a somewhat tech-savvy publicist rather than any of the engineers involved, and maybe there's an SAE paper on it which has yet come to light.
Still a good read with enough drawings to keep gear-heads involved.
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Re: "Beast"

#2 Post by Ron LaDow »

Software guys...
Last edited by Ron LaDow on Thu Jun 06, 2019 11:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: "Beast"

#3 Post by Ron LaDow »

...forgot to include...
Last edited by Ron LaDow on Thu Jun 06, 2019 11:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: "Beast"

#4 Post by Ron LaDow »

If someone can tell me how do delete the copies, I'd be more than happy to.
How much did we pay for this software?
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Re: "Beast"

#5 Post by Ron LaDow »

...a "delete' function.
Last edited by Ron LaDow on Thu Jun 06, 2019 11:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: "Beast"

#6 Post by Ron LaDow »

Screw it...
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Vic Skirmants
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Re: "Beast"

#7 Post by Vic Skirmants »

Those Honda engineers are messing with you.

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Re: "Beast"

#8 Post by David Jones »

Removed
Last edited by David Jones on Thu Jun 06, 2019 10:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
If I had known I would live this long I would have pushed the envelope a little harder.
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Ron LaDow
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Re: "Beast"

#9 Post by Ron LaDow »

David,
That worked once; now I get "edit", "report, or "reply with quote". No "delete".
Was this stuff done by the guy who gave us the bottom-sender gas tank?
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Re: "Beast"

#10 Post by David Jones »

I managed to delete the body of my post as you can see Ron by putting one word in by "edit." Inputting nothing to remove the entire post resulted in a message saying there was insufficient content or some such.
If I had known I would live this long I would have pushed the envelope a little harder.
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Ron LaDow
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Re: "Beast"

#11 Post by Ron LaDow »

David,
I knew that was a work-around, but in one case, I actually found a "cancel" tab, which has since disappeared.
Forget it; these guys aren't good enough to design a bottom-sender tank; they're responsible for the single-mount 741 trans!
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Re: "Beast"

#12 Post by Vic Skirmants »

Ron LaDow wrote: Thu Jun 06, 2019 11:11 am David,
I knew that was a work-around, but in one case, I actually found a "cancel" tab, which has since disappeared.
Forget it; these guys aren't good enough to design a bottom-sender tank; they're responsible for the single-mount 741 trans!
I was just going to say single-mount 741 trans!

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Re: "Beast"

#13 Post by Erik Thomas »

Ron: I assume you are referencing the Mercedes Benz 500I 3.4 litre V8 built by Ilmor/Penske in 1994?

See Karl Ludvigsen's Classic Racing Engines page 210 . Peak power of 1,024 BHP @ 9,800RPM.

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Re: "Beast"

#14 Post by Ron LaDow »

Erik Thomas wrote: Fri Jun 07, 2019 2:45 pm Ron: I assume you are referencing the Mercedes Benz 500I 3.4 litre V8 built by Ilmor/Penske in 1994?
See Karl Ludvigsen's Classic Racing Engines page 210 . Peak power of 1,024 BHP @ 9,800RPM.
That's the engine, and that dyno result was shown, with qualifications. While Ludvigsen's a good writer, I'm looking for more than a page, and his 'popularizations' can be facile; he spends no more than a couple of pages on the Ferrari Colombo engines in his book on V-12s, 1500cc to 4.5L. Weak tea.
This books isn't bad, but it's simply not as good as it could be.
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Re: "Beast"

#15 Post by Erik Thomas »

Ron:

I agree, a few scant pages. Still, all I have been able to find out about that interesting engine. I was thinking about making a special cylinder head for a pre-war Mercedes engine, and was thinking about valve train geometry along those lines.

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