Worlds Fastest 4 Cylinder!

[Jaybird]

This summer I started working with a land speed race team, and I wanted to give a well deserved shout out to these guys.

Rick Yacoucci and Jack Costella are the leads of a totally privateer team that have a striking list of land speed records under their belts.
They have been competing for years against the big money teams like Castrol and General Motors, and even though Rick and Jack get squat for sponsorship money, they manage to blow their highly financed competition away at El Mirage Dry Lake in S. California and Bonneville Salt Flats.

Last month at the Bonneville Speed Week event, Rick Yacoucci drove his Streamliner cars to yet more breathtaking records.
Two of these records make Rick and Jack's Nebulous Theorem II officially, and without challange, the fastest 4 cylinder car in the world!

In G class Blown Fuel Streamliner, the old record was 309.607mph and Rick managed to clock in a 348.743mph

In G class Blown Gas Streamliner, the old record was 290.567 and Rick absolutely blew that record away with a 352.525mph!

The Nebulous Theorem II is powered by a 4 cylinder 1300cc Suzuki GSX Hayabusa engine, and of course is chain driven :nod:
(if I mentioned that a special Digilube chain lube was used to keep the chain alive during the weeks brutal runs with life still left in them, where the chains were previously not seeing more life than a couple of Bonneville runs, it might be considered spam, so I digress...:) )

Rick's partner Jack Costella also did some amazing runs at Bonneville Speed Week by piloting a CR125, 50hp, powered bike to speeds in excess of 150mph!

With the margin that Rick managed to break the previously held records, it looks like his name and official times will be at the top of the record book for quite some time. It sure gives the big money boys something to shoot for...
keep dreaming GM! :nener:

http://www.yacoucci.com/

 

[Tony Eeds]

Congratulations!!

I wish I had known ... I was there!!!

 

[Kevin003]

CR125 at 150mph!!!! i want that bike to hell with 500's

 

[rickyd]

COngrats, always like hearing about a Privateer doing good :cool:

I would thing that the fuel car would run better than a gasser

 

[Jaybird]

I thought the same thing about the fueler vs gasser, Rick. But apparently runs on the salt are all about traction. The drivers often need to back off to go faster because if they simply hammer down, the wheels loose grip. That aspect makes it a drivers game when you get up in the 700hp range. They could let the computers take over and throttle accordingly, but as of now it is not leagal to do so.
They are considering letting the drivers use the computers since it is hard to prove they were used or not. If they do that, faster times may well start happening, and I imagine we will see the fuelers start to log faster times than gassers.
Very volitile engines though, with paper thin head gaskets.
The sport is very intriguing to say the least.

 

[gwcrim]

150 MPH with only 50 HP? I'd love to see a pic of that bike.

 

[junkjeeps]

Ever since seeing "The World's Fastest Indian" I think I would like to take a vacation and go watch some of speed week at Bonneville. Looks like it would be pretty interesting to say the least.

 

[Okiewan]

CR125 at 150mph!!!! i want that bike to hell with 500's

Prolly took 5 miles to get to speed :)

 

[rickyd]

I thought the same thing about the fueler vs gasser, Rick. But apparently runs on the salt are all about traction. The drivers often need to back off to go faster because if they simply hammer down, the wheels loose grip. That aspect makes it a drivers game when you get up in the 700hp range. They could let the computers take over and throttle accordingly, but as of now it is not leagal to do so.
They are considering letting the drivers use the computers since it is hard to prove they were used or not. If they do that, faster times may well start happening, and I imagine we will see the fuelers start to log faster times than gassers.
Very volitile engines though, with paper thin head gaskets.
The sport is very intriguing to say the least.

I would of never thought traction.. I was thinking maybe something to do w/a breeze.. Congrats again :cool:

 

[slickpuss]

348!!! That is awesome! I used to go to el mirage a bunch with a friend of mine who was trying to set the land speed record for a un-modified 4 cyl car. He put a lot of time and money into those pinto's. It sure was fun being out there passing wrench's, push starting his car and seeing all the other stuff. Gyro-copters and all kinds of strange junk running around there.
We never did get the record, but had fun attempting it. It addition I was able to run my dirtbikes around there, probably the last time 5th gears ever seen those rpms.

 

[Tony Eeds]

Prolly took 5 miles to get to speed :)

Actually the long course is only 7 miles total length. The traps are between 3 and 4.

Traction is the biggest issue, next to tires. The most important single item to procure for your machine is tires. They are no longer producing tires rated for 400MPH, if I remember the story correctly. I will look it up in my Bonneville info I have, but in any case tires are the biggest problem.

check out http://teeds.smugmug.com/gallery/1816183 for the photos I took while I was there.

 

[Jaybird]

The course the streamliners run, they are supposed to pop the chute at the 5.3 mile mark. To qualify, the drivers have 1 hour to turn around and repeat the run. The official speeds are an average of the two runs.

Rick sort of upset the staff as he decided to continue to run after the course end.
He explained to them that he just wanted to experience the +350mph thing.
Hey, funny cars only get to see a bit over 300 for seconds, Rick got to experience way over it for minutes. He says they backed off of him after he gave them his reasoning, being the judges are all freaks too! :)

crim, here is a pic of the world record holding 125cc run engine.

 

[BSWIFT]

Very cool. Congrats to the winners! Tony, how did the bar stool racing go?

 

[gwcrim]

Cool looking engine, Jay. What's the bike look like?

The short course is 3 miles and they only time you on mile 3. In order to run on the long course you have to go over 175. The way I recall the long course was that they timed you at the 3,4,& 5 miles. In order to back up the record, you had to do it in the same mile as the qualifying run. (But my memory isn't the greatest and I can't find a rule book to confirm.)

 

[Tony Eeds]

Cool looking engine, Jay. What's the bike look like?

The short course is 3 miles and they only time you on mile 3. In order to run on the long course you have to go over 175. The way I recall the long course was that they timed you at the 3,4,& 5 miles. In order to back up the record, you had to do it in the same mile as the qualifying run. (But my memory isn't the greatest and I can't find a rule book to confirm.)

I am a bit confused as to how they ran the record runs because when a vehicle exceeded the record in a class it was sent to impound on Sunday (the first day it happened). They did not get a chance to back up their record run within the hour time limit.

Jay, can you illuminate us on that issue as I have always thought the same as crim did?

I didn't mention the short course as I could not remember the length of the course, but that sounds correct.

Regarding the rule book, they sold out of '06 books and didn't mention when the '07 books will be available. We are looking for a particular bike at the moment to go after some records with ... with luck, we will be there next year and I will find out what running Bonneville is all about.

 

[rickyd]

Somethings just have "COOL" written all over them!! :nod: http://teeds.smugmug.com/gallery/1816183/1/90692706

 

[Tony Eeds]

Somethings just have "COOL" written all over them!! :nod: http://teeds.smugmug.com/gallery/1816183/1/90692706

Could you tell that I LOVED the rat rods?

I have the RAW version of each one of the photos in the gallery. I need to start tweaking some.

 

[rickyd]

Please share when you finish tweaking them, Thanks for the gallery, i saved a few for wallpapers if you dont mind :cool:

 

[gwcrim]

I recall leaving the bike in impound over night. The back up runs were made the next morning.

Nice pics Tony. Bonneville is a unique place. To say the least.

 

[Jaybird]

My understanding is that the run is 5.3 miles in total. The streamliners have 1 hour turnaround time after the first run, to initiate the second 5.3 miles on the same course.
Both top run times are averaged together for the official posted time.

Having trouble finding a shot of the 125cc bike..I assume this isn't it!

Rick has a slew of records with this little jewel...

The GSXR in street clothes:

Instead of the traditional draw-thru single carburetor system this bike has been designed to blow through the Electronic Fuel Injection System to preserve the stock bikes driveability, even fuel distribution and heat management. The electronic injection gives me complete automatic control over all functions such as cold start, acceleration, enrichment and automatic altitude/ barometric correction. The user friendly Software allows me to use my laptop computer to adjust the fuel system. We mounted the turbocharger in front of the engine near the exhaust ports to minimize heat losses and improve turbo response. Tuned 180 degree firing, heavy wall stainless steel exhaust headers insure perfect exhaust timing and even heat delivery to the turbine wheel. Front mounting of the turbocharger isolates the heat from the rider, eliminating burned shins, and as a further benefit removes the turbocharger from its traditional location behind the engine where it can get hot enough to boil the fuel in the gas tank. Twin intercoolers lower inlet temperatures an average of 150 degrees Fahrenheit under boost giving The cylinders a cooler, denser charge . Without intercooling higher boost pressures could not be reliably maintained. It can run 15 psi on unleaded premium and up to 28 psi on high octane racing fuels. This system features a sophisticated priority breather valve that allows the engine to breathe directly at the inlet plenum. thus bypassing the turbo and intercoolers to eliminate any turbo lag. Also on the bike is a digital air fuel ratio meter thats on the dash . This gives me an instantaneous readout of my exact air fuel ratio for both monitoring and tuning my engine. This system is reliable and predictable enough for everything from daily commuting to sport bike activity and out and out racing.
http://www.turborick.com/