Heavy Iron at the Fair

NTPA was there, too. Every configuration, up to about 5000 ponies and gassers to turbines. Hot Damn is still my favorite, with two Allisons SXS. Great paint jobs, and some real honest to gawd redneck engamineerring.

love seeing and hearing those old Allisons.

Thanks for the pictures. Lot of nice looking tractors.

Guess I'm kind of a purist. I still like the single engine mods.

that first one is my lawn mower and the truck is my daily driver

Looks like the Harford Fair.

Thanks for the pics! What a money spending and engineeeeeering contest!!! More power to them and their fun.

Was.

Don,

Step son is one of the techs, either

inspects or flags .

george

Please educate me! What is with the 12 exhaust pipes coming out of one side of "Hot Damn"?
Is it a V12 with all pipes routed to one side?
Thanks

Where's the money in that operation? Are the builders doing that at the expense of the family? farm? bank?

Seems like a lot of money for a few minutes of glory on the track.

The engineering and money plus hard work put into these is amazing..I still liked it when it first got started and a good small block Chevy in an H would make the crowd cheer or 200HP was enough.I help with some pulls and I have seen more crowd response for a local older junk pickup that will pull good or break than a super nice tractor.Most of the pulls cant pay enough to meet the expenses that it requires to run one of these.Tractor pulls still fill the grandstands much better than most country singers and usually make the fairs a profit.$10/$20 is cheap to see that kind of power.More than a few have motors costing 50K plus
Semis and 4x4diesel pickups seem to be on the upspring.

Looks like a Allison aircraft engine.V-12. It has 2 intake valves and 2 exhaust valves per cylinder. Plus, it has 2-exhaust ports per cylinder. So, you end up with 24 exhaust pipes, 12 on each side.

Ofcourse, being "Hot Damn" has 2 Allison aircraft engines on it. It would have 12 exhaust pipes on each side and 24 in the middle.

Most of these guys pull for fun and as a hobby. Many of the rigs are junyard parts- Six Shooter has four turbos- two pushing into two, for about 120 pounds or so of boost. I think it's the first two that came from end dump quarry truck motors into a Ford truck block on steroids. It pushes 1000 HP. The two Allisons on Hot Damn came from an old fighter, and it's the second machine they have built. This one is 'new' and has most of the bugs worked out. The first Hot Damn had both mills fore and aft rather than SXS. In the pulls, there are twelve prizes, ranging from about $50 or $60 to about $800 or so. but the big prize is points for the Nationals. More points, bigger payday later. If you really look at these rigs, there is nothing near a tractor you see in the field. The wheels leave the line at about 50 or 60 mph, and the rig hopefully has enough ponies to keep them spinning for a good chunk of dirt. Weight distribution, track conditions, horsepower and even the driver all make a difference in the outcome. But these rigs are cobbled together by some real, honest to Gawd, funloving geniuses who just like to tinker with an engine out of a junkyard and see how many more rpms they can come up with. Aircraft turbines and pistons are fun. A friend of the SIL's is working on a radial rig from a B-26 bomber. I saw one some years back that had 7 engines on it. What a driveshaft! Heckuva neat hobby- just the boys and bigger toys!

Thanks for enlightening me. I was unaware of the 4 valve per head design.