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Archive 2 Set 1: Gallery 101 - 120 | ||||
Archives of your 3-Wheelers. | ||||
Gallery 106 | ||||
My thanks go to Alex Smith for these photos of his Dolphin Vortex. Alex writes: ... I've driven the car quite a few time now with the longest trip being about 25 miles. This particular trip was to work and the first leg was in the cool of the morning. The trip home took almost two hours with two stops to let the engine cool down. Seems the with the engine tucked so tightly in the back and the radiators also back there, I'm just not getting enough air movement to keep things cool. I have two radiators, each from a Honda Goldwing motorcycle (which should be twice as much as I need) plus two 6" x 8" x 2" heater cores. I should be able to keep a small block v-8 cool with all that but, on run to a local "car show" (special cars, mostly older muscle cars and hot rods gather at certain times and places) it boiled again. This trip couldn't have been more than 5 or 6 miles of city driving. I'm going to add a bottom scoop to try to bring some air into the engine compartment and do some aerodynamic studies to see where the air is going. I have a product called "Water Wetter" which is a surfactant which claims it will bring temps down by 20 or 30 degrees F so I'll try that also. As well, I'm going to replace as much of the nice, insulating, silicone hose with copper tube. That will radiate some heat also. Finally, I have some "header tape" which, once wrapped around all the exhaust tubes, will keep the heat in the exhaust until it exits through the muffler (have to pull the engine out to install this stuff). With all this said, I'm not nearly as frustrated as you might suspect I would be. The car is a real show stopper and it's a blast to drive around town. It's rock solid in all driving situations and very fast with the over 100hp motor. I'll solve these heating problems eventually and then finish off the interior. Add some graphics to the paint job and by that time it will be time to put it away for the winter :-( To the best of my knowledge, there are two other cars built from the same plans. The Dolphin was the original prototype and the Scorpion on your web site is not yet complete. Both of these cars are using air cooled engines. I decide against this option in order to improve the lines of the car. Well, it looks great. Now if I can only............... | ||||
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