[DeTomaso] fuel cells

[Mad Dog Antenucci]

Darryll,
   
  Most excellent 'real-world' feedback. When you can make it out here Darryll, Team Pantera Racing will pick up your food, lodging and bar tab...in fact try and make it to Silver State in Sept.
   
  Thanks mate!
   
   
  Mad Dawg Antenucci
  Teampantera Racing
  "if it was easy you'd do it"

Mountjoy <mtjoy at telis.org> wrote:
          Ken & Mad Dog,
   
  I mostly lurk since I haven't found the right Pcar yet but I do respond to individuals, as you may recall MD (on the topic of crank pulley rebuilding), where I think I can be of assistance.  
   
  Regarding fuel cells, My race car is a '64.  Originally it had a fuel tank of odd shape.  While we were going through restoration to bring the car back to its '64 specs the tank was one of the issues.  The car now had an off-the-shelf ATL....  not nearly enough capacity as I was taking the car to the Goodwood Revival and Le Mans Classic.  For whatever reason the original tank had followed with the car through its sequence of owners.  What I did was have my restorer make an aluminum box in the configuration of the original tank.  We then sent the tank to Fuel Safe.  They made a bladder and foam for it, including fuel level sending unit, and returned the unit to us.  It fit like a glove, gave me about the same capacity as when it ran at Le Mans in '64, will now allow the required carrying of the spare tire, and most importantly is SAFE.  For shorter track events I simply run it 3/8 full.  
   
  It wasn't cheap (a little over $1300. in 2002 money) but for me this was the right solution.  Perhaps it will work for you.  For chuckles I've included pics.
   
  Darrell Mountjoy
   
   
  
Message: 3
Date: Sat, 26 May 2007 09:43:52 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mad Dog Antenucci <teampantera at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [DeTomaso] Fuel Cells
To: Ken Green <kenn_green at yahoo.com>, Gray Gregory
<rgg at gregorycook.com>, michael at michaelshortt.com
Cc: detomaso at realbig.com
Message-ID: <437643.42550.qm at web50110.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

Ken,
  When is this this Pantera gonna be finished?
  I mean what year? ;-]>
   
  Mad Dawg Antenucci
  Team Pantera Racing

Ken Green <kenn_green at yahoo.com> wrote:
    Gray,
   
        I'm looking at the nose fuel cell as a space management solution.  I am trying to build an efficient and fairly compact twin turbo motor and actually have luggage space.  I also want short and as close to straight headers as possible, and I think the best solution is to hang the turbos off the heads on each side of the engine.  The only way I think I can do that is to move the gas tank to the nose.  Because at least some of the ORRs are ran at high altitudes, an efficient turbo motor should be an excellent approach.
   
        I talked to Wilkinson last year, and I think he said they were able to fit a 20 gal conformal fuel cell into the nose of a Pantera.  I think a generic rectangular cell is limited to about 10 gal.
   
        I admit that this is becoming something of an engineering exercise, but that's something I enjoy.  
   
  Ken

Gray Gregory <rgg at gregorycook.com> wrote:
  The problem with fuel cells up front in a Pantera is cost and capacity,
especially for ORR. Only full race cars need to consider a fuel cell, so
we're talking about full race motors that will probably only average 4-5
MPG at race speed. 10 gallons is about all you can get in a front fuel
cell and there is no real benefit to having it up front for ORR anyway.
It makes much more sense for a track car where you might notice a
benefit from better weight distribution and 10 gal is sufficient for the
average vintage race or track session.

Gray





Mad Dawg Antenucci 
Team Pantera Racing 
  The 1st & still the only vintage race team in open road racing 
www.teampanteraracing.com