How Vacuums Made This Car Fast
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The Chaparral Can-AM team's 2J was a revolutionary technology that got their car banned from racing.
All right guys, I want you to imagine if you were a race car builder and you came up with some technology that was so revolutionary, so advanced, so freaking crazy that it got your car banned from racing. Well, that's exactly what happened to the Chaparral Can-AM team with their 2J.
I can only imagine how exciting and innovative the concept must have been for such a drastic measure to be taken, but apparently it was enough for the governing bodies to step in.
WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- All right guys,I want you to imagine ifyou were a race car builderand you came up with some technologythat was so revolutionary,so advanced, so freaking crazythat it got your car banned from racing.Well, that's exactly what happened to theChaparral Can-AM team withtheir 2J "sucker car".It took a whole new approachto aerodynamics in downforcethat no one had ever done before.And it caused it's competitionto absolutely hate it.And when you have engineeringthat's controversial, whew boy!That intrigues the heck out of me.That's a little tush tickler for ya.So, today we are going to lookat some of the wild engineering that wentinto building one ofthe craziest race carsto ever hit the track.We're gonna look at how they used fansfrom a Howitzer tank tosuck the car to the ground.How they used some unconventional bodyworkto create a vacuum whilethe car was zipping aroundthe track and how they kept650 of 1970s horsepowerto the ground usin' anautomatic transmission.This car is a good one, let's go.(upbeat music)I want to thank Surfshark VPNfor sponsoring today'sepisode of Bumper to Bumper.You guys are making my job too easy.You keep all your personalinformation easily accessibleon the interwebs.Oh, Oh, look at that.Oh, (laughs), I knoweverything about you now.I know your passwords, your emails,your dreaded middle name.(beep)I sound like someone who's for sure aHarry Potter character (laughs).(beep)You don't have to dealwith chumps like thesewith Surfshark VPN.They protect you withhacklock that scans databases,looking for your personal information,alerting you if one of youraccounts is compromisedand not only doesSurfshark VPN protect you,but they block targeted advertising,allowing a much higher online experience.So take control of yourdigital experience,don't let these fools try to scare youand renew your onlinefreedoms with Surfshark VPN.Click the link in the descriptionand use code donutmedia,it not only gives you a massive85% off the regular price,but also three months ofservice totally for free.Give it a try.Click the link in the description below.Thank you for supporting thecompanies that support us.We love you.Now back in the late sixties,there was a little racing seriescalled the CanadianAmerican challenge cup,or if you didn't have timeto say all those words,the Can-Am series.And it was a no limits free for all,engineer and buildwhatever race car you wantand throw it on the track.Now think early days of MMA,nut punching, eye gouging,head stopping all legal stuff.It was a wild (beep) time for racing cars.And the 2J was one ofthe wildest of the bunch.Now the Chaparral teams 2Jwas feared by its competitors.On race day the car wouldnot only qualify first,but it would qualify a fulltwo seconds a lap quickerthan the second place car.Now other teams argued to the SCCA,that's the governing bodyof the Can-Am series,that the 2J was illegal andtried to get the car bannedfrom racing the series.It had a massive seven literV8 making 650 horsepower.Now what really set this carapart from its competitionwere two 17 inch fans froman M109 Howitzer tank.And those two fans werepowered by a secondary motor.That's right, the 2J had two engines.Now its primary enginewas the all aluminumChaparral ZL1 motor.You may have heard of it.They put it in some Copo Camaro's,those engines are the same onesthat were from the Chaparral race team.And aside from its primary engine,it also had a secondary engine,which was a two cylinderRockwell engine from a snowmobilethat spanned the fans up to 6,000 RPM.I just gotta send that.Two stroke too, that's freaking tight.You like mixing gas andslapping frigging buns?That's what a two stroke is.The fans would suck the car to the groundand shoot air out the back so hardthat it could power the 2Jup to 40 miles per hour,just on the fan power.(dings)What?But the fans weren't thereto give the car a boost of speed.It was designed to suckthe car to the groundand increased grip in the cornerswithout creating drag at high speeds.Now you see with normalaerodynamic elements,like wings and canardsthe air travels fasterunderneath the ring creatinga low pressure zone.Now we talked about this before,it's called the Bernoulli principle,but the problem withmore traditional formsof making downforce is that they were relyon the airspeed outside of the car,and that is determined byhow fast the car is going.So, if the car slows downthe air speed slows down,making your wings less effective.I'm talking to you, my civic boys.That's why you gotta alwaysdrive fast in that little thing.(laughs)Now this has always beenone of the big dilemmasof aerodynamics to get the carto grip more from downforce,you need to go fast,which increases the amountof downforce you needto maintain grip.Now carrying on with that thought,another problem withdownforce generating elementsis drag, and drag refersto the car's abilityto cut through the air.So the sleeker and more aerodynamic it isthe less it's affected by the airand the less drag is holding it back.But aerodynamic components need drag.I mean wings need to cause air disturbanceto generate that low pressure.So when you're at high speeds,your air dynamics are working the hardest.The most stress is being put on your wingsand your car is being pushedinto the ground the most.But that also means thatyour car is working harderto push its way through the air.That's why it's so hard to make a cargo like 200 miles per hour.And if we look at the equationto find out how much drag there is,we can see that the velocity is squared,meaning that the drag willincrease quadraticallyas airspeed increases.Last time I talked about this,I said exponentially andI messed up, I apologize.Sometimes I go off script andI say things and I'm wrong,so I apologize.When it's a little two there,that doesn't mean exponential,that means quadratically.Okay, they're different.Two to the X, verse X to the two.Very different.So, how do two big fansin a two cylinder enginehelp you avoid those problems?Well, it's really pretty ingenious.(upbeat music)The sucking the air out fromthe underside of the carcreates a low pressure zone,just like a wing would,but here is the kicker.This low pressure zone isn't determinedby the car speed at all.So it can grip just as much in the cornersas it can on the straights.So this thing could carry speedthrough any type of corner.And the fan system also didn'tgenerate any drag, right?I mean, it's all tuckedunderneath the car,and if anything the fans push the carjust an extra little bit,we've talked about it beingable to go 40 miles per hourjust on fan speed,so it's giving you some extra velocityto propel your car inthe forward direction.Now, another advantagefor the driver of the 2Jwas that the fans sucked all that air upand whatever debris it was like rocksand it shot it out the back.So people were literally eating your dustas you drove by them,another reason peoplefreaking hated this car.Can you imagine you're on your racetrackand you're like doot, doo, doot, doo, doo,some guy comes up besideyou and his fans are blowingall that crap right in your face?So these fans are whatmade the car so well known,but the fans alone aren'tenough to submit this carin the pages of Can-Am history.The 2J has a few moretricks up it's jumpsuit.(upbeat music)Now looking at the 2J,the bodywork doesn't look all that fancy,but it was very specially designedto maximize the vacuum effect underneath.Now the rear wheels are enclosedto help create a tighter seal for the fansand the size of the carare straight and squareto house one of the mostingenious parts of the sucker car.And that is the skirts.(whistles)Now the skirts of the 2Jare lightweight piecesof lexan,which at the time was anew polycarbonate materialfrom General Electric,the same company that probablybuilds your washing machineor your fridge.Nowadays lexan and similar polycarbonatesare used in racing all the timeas a lightweight shatterproofalternative to windshields.But at the time it was a brandnew material in motor sports.And what made theseskirts special, though,wasn't just the material,but how they attach to the car.So the skirts were actuallyfree floating piecesthat use a series of pulleys and weightsand mechanical arms to balance themselveswith the suspension.And the idea was that no matter what,the skirts would stay perfectlylevel to the track surface,letting the fans create aconsistent vacuum effectall the time.But it wasn't a perfect seal,and for good reason.You're probably thinking"Well, how could it seal,why would you want a perfect seal?"Well, now I'm going to show you, okay,have you ever taken a vacuum hoseand you put it directlyonto a carpet and realizeit's a lot harder to move all of a sudden?Well, this is why the TJcouldn't just let the skirts dragon the ground.The friction caused by the skirtswith the added pressure from the vacuumwould have actually slowed the car down.But, if the skirts were too high,the vacuum effect wouldn'tgenerate enough low pressure.So the Chaparral teamfound the perfect balancebetween too much and too little vacuum.And this is also why the skirt system hadto be so complicated and self adjusting.That perfect balance andconsistency was really,really important.You might be asking, "Well,why is it so important, Jerry?"Well, imagine a cargoing around the corner.Now the car were leanedto one side a little bitas the weight shifts andit's called bodyroll.You guys probably know about it,when you turn around a corneryou could feel your carand you feel the weight shift.Which means that the skirtson the inside would lift,releasing some of the negative pressure,which would mean that you would lose grip.And in the middle of the corner,that's exactly the lastplace you want your carto suddenly lose grip.So with the skirt system counterbalanceto the movement of the suspension,that seal can stay consistent.The result of all this wasa car that could generate upto 1.5G's of downforce without moving.And when the fans kickedon the car would lowera full two inches.So, "Hey dude, oh mygosh, your car on bags?""Nah, Bro, I'm utilizingthe Bernoulli principle."But even with all this downforce,the 2J was still runningon the ragged edgeof what 1970s tires could handleand to solve that problem,Chaparral looked at an unlikelycomponent, the transmission.(upbeat music)Whenever any of us think of racing,you think about rowingthrough the gears, man,just frigging banging throughthose sweet ass shifties.And when a car slows for a tight corner,you can hear the manual downshift.Everybody knows that.Pop up on pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.That was perfect. (laughs)So what if I told you thatthis fricking 2J sucker carthis marvel of engineering was runninga three speed automatic transmission.I know that friggenblows your mind, right?But, this slush box wasone of the reasons the 2Jcould get its 650horsepower to the ground.Now with a standard manual transmission,the power output of theengine goes into the gearboxthrough a clutch.And when the car is in gear,the clutch disc is squeezedagainst the flywheelof the engine so that theclutch spins at the same speed.And that spins the gears of the gearboxand eventually the wheels.Now the problem is that the power deliveryof that clutch system iseither on or it's off.So to change gears in a race car,you got to be super duper skilled.You've gotta know how to rev match,you've gotta know how to heel-toe shift,you've gotta throttle blip,you got to do all kinds of stuffthat us normal drivers take for granted.And if you mess up even just a little bitwith an engine thispowerful on 1970s tiresthat can't handle that power,you can shock the system.So to explain what that means,imagine a car acceleratingthrough a high speed corner.It's getting faster and faster,right on the limit of grip.And as it shifts up, thepower to the wheels is cut.And when the power comes back on,the engine is spinningat a different speedthan it was before.Now race car driverstrain to match the revsas much as possible,especially because a newgear means a different ratioand a different engine speedfor the new wheel speed.But imagine if you'reoff by even a little bit,all of a sudden the engineis driving the wheelslet's just say five miles per hour,slower than it was a second ago.And that discrepancy andwheel speed is enoughto break the tires loose and spin the car.But with an automatic,the clutch system is replacedwith a torque converter.So instead of a clutch and a flywheel,the engine output drives an impeller,and that's just like a propeller,but instead of moving throughfluid, fluid moves through it.So impeller spins and a housingfilled with thick fluid,and that housing also has a turbine.And as the fluid spins,it spins the turbine.So instead of friction,we're using fluid dynamicsto drive the wheels.So for the Chaparral cars,this meant that the fluidof the torque converterwould dampen any abruptchanges in the engineor wheel speed.And this is one of the mainreasons people often saythat automatic cars are slowerthan a manual equivalent,especially in early daysof automatic transmission,because there's a parasiticloss of power to the fluidin a torque converter,especially under acceleration.But on the flip side of that,you get a smoother ride andthat smoother ride helped keepthe 2J on track.And Chaparral also usedthis automatic transmissionfor a slightly different reason.If they were to have a manual,the 2J woulda had four pedals.And if we know anything fromClover lore, four is bad.So in their previous cars,Chaparral had a wingthat would be controlledby a pedal under the left foot.Now on the straights,you could press the pedaland flatten out the wingto reduce drag.And it was basicallya primitive DRS systemthat's used in Formula One today.Now active arrow was eventuallybanned in the Can-AM seriesand because it was banned,the 2J team was like,"All right, cool, whatever,you don't want to let ususe active arrow, fine,I'll just go and borrow some tank fansand I'll put them under my carand I'll suck it to the ground."That's why you gotta loveabout engineers, man.You ban us from doing this.We're clever, okay.We're gonna bend therules just a little bit.(laughs)Now the engineering on the2J was ahead of its time.And if the Chaparral 2J had been allowedto compete in 1971,I bet they would haveworked out all the kinksand racing today might looka little bit different,but you know,the concepts didn't totally die.F1 teams like Brabham and Lotus triedto use this tech as well.So let me know in the comments,if you want to see us breakbreakdown how they did it.I mean, that'd be pretty cool, right?I'd be into breakingdown some F1 technologyif you're interested in it.Do you guys like Formula One?I know Nolan does.He's made a bunch ofepisodes on Wheelhouse.You should go and watch those.Thank you for watchingall these videos on Donut.We love you guys.We're gonna keep makingvideos every day if we can,maybe even twice a day,there might be a timewhen we'll be on 24/7.Could you imagine?Thank you, bye for now.