I think this is retro, engines from WW2 fighter planes, and a few retro body shells!
Well last weekend i went to holland to see a round of the european tractor pulling championships, to the uninitiated this involves pulling a sled with a moving weight, the further it gets pulled the more the weight moves off of the wheels and over a plate dragging in the mud thus increasing the drag.
The trailer that is used dosent look like much to pull, that was untill it broke and they did some fixes. To test it out they got the biggest tractor you can imagine ploughing a field and hooked it up, even with 4x4 etc it could only manage about a pull of 10m. Compare that to the pullers and their astounding 95m pulls!
I saw three classes pulling and all indoors at Zwolle Icehalle, this was the first round of the 2007 european tractorpulling championships.
The first round was the two wheel drive modified class, these run a single engine usually a supercharged methanol V8.
Second class was the 3.5 ton supermodified tractors, anything goes in this its just the weight that is restricted, the tractors were using aero engines (merlin 27L, allison 27L, and griffon 37L) or a few blown V8's!
The last class was the supermodified alky tractors, running straight six compound turbocharged engines.
We arrived an hour or two early so we could have a good nose round the pits (i apologise for the quality of some of the photos, my camera is on its last legs, and the lighting meant i had to use iso 400 film)
Twin griffon engined tractor -
Another twin griffon engined tractor, this was the winner in its class, and it also made the most amazing sound, a deep low rumble with massive exhaust flames -
Triple allison engined tractor -
This tractor was in a class that i didnt see running, it also had an engine i could not identify, any one got any ideas?
This was in the 4.5 ton class, so i didnt get to see it run, what a monster!
The turbo set up on one of the methanol tractors
2CV madness -
This -
Was in this -
Dyanne!
Another unidentified engine, its a massive quad cam V8, that blower is good to fill a 400ci V8 but look how over driven it is!
All of the tractors has to go outside to warm up, we didnt realise this untill we heard one starting up, so me and my dad ran out to catch a close up look see -
This was being pushed out side to warm up the engine -
They start the engines in a different way to their dragster counterparts, at the drag strip they spin them up and then introuduce fuel with a spark, so the engine starts very gently. In holland they spin the engine over with the fuel turned on, and the hit the spark. I took one photo as they were spinning it over -
I then hit another long exposure photo as they hit the ignition, the engine instantly went to 5000rpm and blew my head up, i jumped about 2 foot in the air and shat my self! This was the resulting photo -
Multiple V8's -
beetle -
Griffon engines running under load -
tractor, pulling as it should -
Finally this is a collection of all the video that i took that evening, its very hard to describe the sound or pass it across in the videos. All i can say is that it was by far the loudest thing i have ever heard, far surpassing a side by side top fuel run!
video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-8534666364426947142
Cheers guys
J
Well last weekend i went to holland to see a round of the european tractor pulling championships, to the uninitiated this involves pulling a sled with a moving weight, the further it gets pulled the more the weight moves off of the wheels and over a plate dragging in the mud thus increasing the drag.
The trailer that is used dosent look like much to pull, that was untill it broke and they did some fixes. To test it out they got the biggest tractor you can imagine ploughing a field and hooked it up, even with 4x4 etc it could only manage about a pull of 10m. Compare that to the pullers and their astounding 95m pulls!
I saw three classes pulling and all indoors at Zwolle Icehalle, this was the first round of the 2007 european tractorpulling championships.
The first round was the two wheel drive modified class, these run a single engine usually a supercharged methanol V8.
Second class was the 3.5 ton supermodified tractors, anything goes in this its just the weight that is restricted, the tractors were using aero engines (merlin 27L, allison 27L, and griffon 37L) or a few blown V8's!
The last class was the supermodified alky tractors, running straight six compound turbocharged engines.
We arrived an hour or two early so we could have a good nose round the pits (i apologise for the quality of some of the photos, my camera is on its last legs, and the lighting meant i had to use iso 400 film)
Twin griffon engined tractor -
Another twin griffon engined tractor, this was the winner in its class, and it also made the most amazing sound, a deep low rumble with massive exhaust flames -
Triple allison engined tractor -
This tractor was in a class that i didnt see running, it also had an engine i could not identify, any one got any ideas?
This was in the 4.5 ton class, so i didnt get to see it run, what a monster!
The turbo set up on one of the methanol tractors
2CV madness -
This -
Was in this -
Dyanne!
Another unidentified engine, its a massive quad cam V8, that blower is good to fill a 400ci V8 but look how over driven it is!
All of the tractors has to go outside to warm up, we didnt realise this untill we heard one starting up, so me and my dad ran out to catch a close up look see -
This was being pushed out side to warm up the engine -
They start the engines in a different way to their dragster counterparts, at the drag strip they spin them up and then introuduce fuel with a spark, so the engine starts very gently. In holland they spin the engine over with the fuel turned on, and the hit the spark. I took one photo as they were spinning it over -
I then hit another long exposure photo as they hit the ignition, the engine instantly went to 5000rpm and blew my head up, i jumped about 2 foot in the air and shat my self! This was the resulting photo -
Multiple V8's -
beetle -
Griffon engines running under load -
tractor, pulling as it should -
Finally this is a collection of all the video that i took that evening, its very hard to describe the sound or pass it across in the videos. All i can say is that it was by far the loudest thing i have ever heard, far surpassing a side by side top fuel run!
video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-8534666364426947142
Cheers guys
J