DIY_EFI Digest Saturday, 23 March 1996 Volume 01 : Number 084 In this issue: Re: Blackbird ignore this message Team SAE Edmonton Re: Alternate fuel EFI RE:Stainless steel valves See the end of the digest for information on subscribing to the DIY_EFI or DIY_EFI-Digest mailing lists. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: steveb@xxx.com Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 06:47:39 -0800 Subject: Re: Blackbird WRT SR-71 and it's fuel ... It turns out that there aren't deliberate holes in the SR-71's fuel tanks per se, the designers simply decided to use the wing surfaces as the con- tainers for the fuel rather than having separate tanks. Since the mater- ials expand under temperature they were actually designed to slide relative to each other as the individual pieces expanded. This allowed expansion of the pieces without changing the shape of the airfoil. The reason the tanks leaked is that fuel could seep between the sliding joints when the surfaces were cold. The fuel for the SR-71 is a form of kerosene, not any kind of gelatinous material. The interesting feature of the fuel (JP-8) is that it is actually very difficult to get it to burn! I've seen demonstrations where a lit match was tossed into a container of JP-8; the match was actually extin- guished by the fuel and vapors. To start the engine or light the after- burners it is necessary to inject tri-ethyl borane (TEB) into the engine. I think the TEB is a hypergolic material, which establishes a high enough temperature to support burning of the JP-8. It is actually interesting to watch an SR-71 motor start because the TEB injection causes a green flash in the engine. I guess that jet engines employ fuel injection, probably not DIY though :) but to bring the subject back toward automotive powerplants ... I went up to Beale AFB for an open-house when the SR's were active up there. As I was walking amongst the jets on the tarmac I heard a sweet-sounding V-8 on cam. I had noticed that there was a group of '50's american cars up ahead so I thought it was one of them. It turned out that I was wrong ... to spin the engines of the SR to the point where they could start they had built an APU that was built from a pair of Buick small-blocks, coupled together through turbo-hydramatic trannies, which would then connect to the shaft that spins the turbine/compressor shaft of the jet engine. They had really tricked the motors with all kinds of chrome and performance goodies. Ah, to get paid for doing your hobby ... :-) I hope that this slightly off-topic discussion doesn't bother too many of you, but you touched on one of my favorite subjects ... betcha couldn't tell! Steve Buchholz s_buchho@xxx.com San Jose, CA (USA) ------------------------------ From: Darrell Norquay Date: Thu, 21 Mar 96 18:06:08 MDT Subject: ignore this message I thought I told ya to ignore this! Just testing my mail system... pretty dead out there if it is working... dn - -- - ----------------------------------------------------------------- Darrell A. Norquay Internet: dn@xxx.ca Datalog Technology Inc. Voice: (403) 243-2220 Calgary, Alberta, Canada Fax: (403) 243-2872 "Absolutum Obsoletum" - If it works, it's obsolete - ----------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ From: Grant Beattie Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 14:31:29 -0700 (MST) Subject: Team SAE Edmonton A loosely related item: Edmonton, AB - Team SAE meeting Monday, March 25, 1996. Time 5:00pm - 6:00pm at Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, 11762 - 106 Street, Room A135. GB ------------------------------ From: Michael Fawke Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1996 11:04:39 +1000 Subject: Re: Alternate fuel EFI The name of the company is 'Liquiphase', Australia 08 345 3500. Cost for a 6 Cyl Falcon is $2500 Aus, and they are working on a version for the Holden/Buick V6 engine. Michael Fawke fawkacs@xxx.au ------------------------------ From: masmith Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 18:45:06 -0800 Subject: RE:Stainless steel valves At 11:58 AM 3/21/96 +1100, you wrote: >> The best currently used valve material is "Inconel", once >>used in Bell's X-15 aircraft (or rocket?) >Inconel is actually a brand name for a range of Nickel based 'super alloys' >(eg Inconel 718), but there are also iron and cobalt based super alloys >(examples being Incoloy 800 and Stellite 6B respectively). 1200C is right >at the upper limit for the conventional super alloys and at these >temperatures no significant load could be carried. Generally, 950C is >regarded as the upper limit for load carrying applications. the Space Shuttlle Main Engine is about 80% Inconel alloys. I am not sure if Hydrogen embrittlement is a problem with any of you (does anyone do Hydrogen injection) but you have to watch out for it with inconels. (i am honestly not sure if it's only a cryogenic or high temp problem metallurgy is not my expertise) Matt Smith masmith089@xxx.com Mailer Eudora 1.5.2 ------------------------------ End of DIY_EFI Digest V1 #84 **************************** To subscribe to DIY_EFI-Digest, send the command: subscribe diy_efi-digest in the body of a message to "Majordomo@xxx. A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to subscribe to that instead, replace "diy_efi-digest" in the command above with "diy_efi".