Rocket Powered Funny Car

Discussion in 'Cars for sale' started by Duane, Apr 29, 2004.

  1. Duane

    Duane Member

    OK guys,
    I am out of my league with this one. I would like some help figuring out the best place to list this car for sale. Any help is appreciated.

    CAPTAIN AMERICA
    EXHIBITION HYDROGEN PEROXIDE ROCKET POWERED FUNNY CAR
    (ORIGINALLY BUILT AND DRIVEN
    BY LEW ARRINGTON OF BRUTUS FAME)

    Buy a piece of History.
    This is the first Rocket Powered Funny Car ever built (RFC 1) and was originally designed as an alternative fuel car. The car was campaigned up and down the east coast by Lew Arrington sometime between 1975 and 1977. The body, a 71-73 Mustang, was painted by Circus and is still wearing most of the original paint. The propulsion system which was designed by Keller, works like this. Fuel is placed into a stainless steel tank that is pressurized by 2 nitrogen tanks. Once the fuel valve is opened the fuel enters the engine. Here the fuel comes in contact with a mesh and is broken down into Hydrogen and Oxygen. The heat of this decomposition ignites the Hydrogen and the result is water vapor and tons of thrust. Canard wings were installed to help keep it glued to the track at high speeds.

    This is the last car built by Lew Arrington and possibly the only one left in existence. The car comes complete with both Canard wings.

    Selling Price is $22,000
    If interested Contact Duane Heckman
    (610)-544-8252 Evenings and Weekends
    or e-mail me at bdheckman@att.net
     

    Attached Files:

  2. flynbuick

    flynbuick Guest

    Duane

    The first jet car I saw run was called "The Liquidator"in about 1969-70. It blew us all back when he lit the after burner on that GE. It caught the fence behind the starting line on fire, then blew the burning fence into the woods which caught the woods on fire, next was the Christmas tree which was smoked and blown down. The fire department had to come to put everything out. Truly a strange sight with just opening in the rail fence with the ends still burning.

    This machine looked like a real rocket laid on its side with just 4 wheels stuck on. Do you know if the same person designed it?
     
  3. DugsSin

    DugsSin Well-Known Member

    Duane the fellow that operates the Nailhead Buick website on Yahoo groups also owns the Standard 1320 website. This should be a great starting place. www.standard1320.com
     
    Last edited: Apr 29, 2004
  4. ricknmel67

    ricknmel67 Well-Known Member

    Very cool piece of history Duane!
    :TU:

    I remember hearing about those (I think)
    Weren't they outlawed shortly after they started running because of how fast they were?

    What kind of ET's did this car run?
     
  5. Duane

    Duane Member

    This is a Rocket Funny Car, Not a Jet car.
    It has no moving parts like a Jet engine, it's basically a big nozzle with a catalist grid that breaks up the H2O2 and makes lots of thrust/steam. The guy that designed the engine supposedly also worked at NASA. It's the same technology that puts the Rockets in space in Florida, the only difference is this one stayed horizontal.

    The cars were never outlawed, but the rules became more strict. Originally they also had no off switch. They ran until the fuel was used up. Later they developed a way to dilute the fuel below the ignition point. They also had a 250 MPH limit.

    Lou used to put enough fuel in to be under power for 1/3rd of the track, then would coast the rest of the way and go through the traps at 247 MPH or so. Lou is still on the books with an et of 6.125 @ 247.93 MPH. I have a time slip around somewhere for 276 MPH from a track in Miami.

    Some stunt driver from Canada went 1/2 track under power with a 306 MPH through the traps.

    I always figured Lou was crazy, but he said it was a pure rush. The car still has the original tires, plus nothing ever broke, you just washed and ran it. Nothing to rip down and fix.
    Duane
     
  6. flynbuick

    flynbuick Guest

    The German's used the same technoogy for some early nonpiston designs in WWII. I remember the stuff was so caustic that some leaks unfortunately dissolved some pilots while they were still in the cockpit.
     
  7. Matt Knutson

    Matt Knutson Well-Known Member

    Sounds like the real sport here is staying alive! Have you contacted some of or any of the drag racing museums? I have seen your car up close and personal...no offense, but, I doubt anyone is going to pony up 22G for that ride. Why not donate and take a tax break? Sure to get you audited, but, worth try.

    Matt
     
  8. 1971gsx

    1971gsx Well-Known Member

    I had a summer job when I was in school driving a forklift for FMC (Fools Making Chemicals). There was a corner of the warehouse that had high % hydrogen peroxide, maybe 90%???. The plant manager told us if we ever hit those storage containers with one of the fork trucks, we would be toast. I also wondered about swiping some to mess around with. I'm glad I didn't!
     
  9. Duane

    Duane Member

    Matt,
    Don Gartlet wanted me to donate it to his museum, or offered to let me keep it there free for 18 months if I restored it cosmetically. (Which would be easy as there are not many components to restore, the fuel tank and lines are stainless.) That would be fine if I didn't have money tied up in it, or he offered to help offset the costs of the resto, which he didn't.

    If I restored it cosmetically, I also have race tracks that are willing to pay to put the car on display at various events. This would more then offset the cost of the restoration.

    I could also redo the car and show it in AACA events. They have a rule that all race cars must be self propelled, but due to the nature of the fuel, are willing to discuss making an exception for this type car. (The fuel needs to be around 96% pure to work, and at that percentage it is highly corrosive to anything made of protein.)

    The problem is that the true race car nuts don't want me to re-paint the car. They say that anyone can afford a repainted race car, but there are only a few cars left with their original paint jobs, and I would be hurting the value of the car by redoing it.

    I feel that if I display it, without repainting it, I am not doing justice to Lou. That's the problem, what to do.
    Duane
     
  10. mrfido

    mrfido Well-Known Member

    funny car

    Howdy
    Show the car the way it is. It is a survivor the way it is. Clean it up and show the world how things were built thinking out side of the box. How fast could it go on the salt?
    Mark Sheppard
     
  11. Duane

    Duane Member

    Mark,
    I don't know what she would do on the salt flats, but the car is no way what I would call streamlined. The fastest it ever went was 306 mph in a quarter. Sammy Miller runs his car "Vanishing Point" over in europe and he is doing 3.583 @ 386.26 mph in the quarter. He is a real nice guy, I met him at englishtown when I had the car at the funny car reunion. Everyone there liked it, and said they hadn't seen one of these cars at a track for over 20 years.
    Duane
     
  12. ricknmel67

    ricknmel67 Well-Known Member

    Sammy Miller Info

    Wow, those cars are awesome!
    I'd love to see one in action, but I doubt it will ever happen.

    If I owned you car Duane.... my wife would have to hide the hydrogen pyroxide bottle from me! :laugh:
     
  13. Duane

    Duane Member

    Rick,
    I hear ya. One of the guys that originally sponsored the car is coming over to look at it. I heard he tracked it down through contacts at Spring Carlisle. Who knows, maybe I can get something going with the car. It would be nice if I could afford to get it done, and show it at the different tracks. We will see.
    Duane
     
  14. Bruce Hunter

    Bruce Hunter Well-Known Member

    Duane, your more than welcome to bring this car to the BPG nats this year, it would be a wonderful conversation piece for most everyone!

    Bruce
     
  15. Duane

    Duane Member

    Bruce,
    You don't think some of our fellow "Buick Nuts" would mind me bringing a, bad word, "Ford" to a buick show? The only saving grace is that there is not 1 Ford part on it. Even the mustang grill emblem is painted on.
    Duane
     
  16. Duane

    Duane Member

    Here's a picture of the rear of the car in it's day. I especially like the "Beware of Rocket Blast"
    Duane
     

    Attached Files:

  17. Duane

    Duane Member

    James,
    I brought this ttt for you to look at.
    Duane
     
  18. Billy

    Billy Well-Known Member

    WOW, Thats some pretty neat stuff.:TU:

    I would think you will get close to what you are asking for it.

    Hell if it was on the BJ auction, it would probably bring big $$$$$$$.

    Billy.
     
  19. CTX-SLPR

    CTX-SLPR Modern Technology User

    The Germans used a hypergolic mixture of sodium permangenate and hydrogen peroxide. Sodium Permangenate is a very powerful oxidizer and hydrogen peroxide is a very potent reducer with a very low molecular mass which makes it an excellent fuel. Hypergolic means that it ignites on contact with each other rather than needing an ignition source. The monopropellant hydrogen peroxide catalyst system is a very popular thruster system for satelites because it only requires 2 tanks, hydrogen peroxide and the inert gas pressure agent to force it out of the tank. These are know as hot gas thrusters since there actually is a exothermic reaction vs a simple pressure based cold gas thruster. The problems the Germans had were 2 fold. 1 if the hydrogen peroxide tank leaked into the cockpit it would kill the pilot rather painfully since it liquifies organic materials on contact in strong concentrations, esentially reducing the complex proteins into thier more basic hydrocarbon compounds. 2 both tanks could rupture and you have an uncontroled fire that if there is enough contrainment equals explosion since the fuel and oxidizer are both prescent the reaction can take off unrestrained by a lack of air.
    I'm not sure what kind of liscence it would take to get 96%+ pure HOOH and it would very restrictive on how and where you could transport it, how much you could have on hand, and the safety measures to fuel the car would probably make its use on a strip next to impossible since you could likely not fuel it on site and trasporting it fueled would probably also be illegal. I don't want to be anywhere near any HOOH more concentrated than 15% unless I'm fueling a rocket and there are lots of metalic items between me and the stuff.
     
    patwhac likes this.
  20. Mr Big

    Mr Big Silver Level contributor

    Duane,

    Recently I ran across a picture of your Mustang on a "drag strip records link" it was in the background loaded on a ramp truck. I'll try to locate it again.
     

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