Is my valve cover faster then your BOAT !

[Travmon]

Somewhere around 30 years ago while employed at Boeing the Goodguys car shows were just getting started and they announced that they would be racing valve cover’s pinewood derby style at their events. Challenge accepted and so I glanced at the rules and showed up with this at the first northwest event. We fired up some very expensive machines back in the day to make some parts. The motor however was all made by hand with a file and a bandsaw for the most part. Its solid for weight and we shotpeened the block to make it look cast. I Will Never Forget the look on the crowds face when I pulled it out of the box turned on the cruz lights and put her in the lanes.
For the most part I was racing against valve covers with skateboard wheels bolted to them. POW ! I love those moments I am sure I have some PT Barnum in me.

 

[RiverDave]

That’s pretty bad ass.. when I was a kid my girlfriend was in some physics class where they did random contests.. one of them was to take a rat trap and see how far it could propel itself..

My old man designed it, I machined it.. when we showed up I suspect the looks on everyone’s faces was about what your experience was.

It ended up being a frame with skateboard wheels that I machined a taper on.. some one way bearings etc.. most the contestants went about 2-5’.. this thing was still Accelerating when it went by second place at 15’ish feet.. lol

RD

 

[4Waters]

In 5th grade we had to build a catapult to launch a marble.

Well my pops was a front, brake, suspension and alignment tech for Ford and had some extra brakes shoe return springs laying around. I was disqualified because we couldn't find the marble/marbles after a few launches to measure the distance it traveled . Thoes fukers went to orbit I should have gotten 1st place

 

[HydroSkreamin]

That’s pretty bad ass.. when I was a kid my girlfriend was in some physics class where they did random contests.. one of them was to take a rat trap and see how far it could propel itself..

My old man designed it, I machined it.. when we showed up I suspect the looks on everyone’s faces was about what your experience was.

It ended up being a frame with skateboard wheels that I machined a taper on.. some one way bearings etc.. most the contestants went about 2-5’.. this thing was still Accelerating when it went by second place at 15’ish feet.. lol

RD

My eldest daughter informed me one night when I got home that her mousetrap powered car was due the next morning. Obviously I wasn’t too pleased with the late notice but I laid out a design and made her lay out all of the cuts, cut the ready rod, and assemble the entire thing.

I basically took a piece of plywood, drilled a 1/4” hole cross-ways through it, then notched it at the rear for the string to be able to wind around the ready-rod (some call it all-thread) axle with a small hole drilled through it.

Performed a similar operation on the other end of the “car” but putting a single front wheel between the rails.

So at 9 PM, hardware store is closed, what do you use for wheels? CD’s! Rubber bands on the outside gave the rears traction, and the rubber isolators and bushings from Mercury ECU’s just happen to fit perfectly!

Trying it out at midnight netted great results, instilling confidence in the eldest daughter.

The competition was in the high school gym, and like RD stated, the others went 5’-10’. “Ours” went across the entire gym and hit the opposite wall!

The teacher asked my daughter what she knew about how it worked and she did a good job explaining, then he confiscated it and showed the other classes what it should look like