Each quarter-mile run, National Hot Rod Association drag racing teams gamble on engine setups. The right tuning decisions at the track don’t matter if the blower belt, which helps feed the nitromethane fuel mixture into a 7,500- hp engine, flies off the engine.
No longer wanting to take a chance on breaking a blower belt, more teams are betting on the Goodyear Eagle Pd synchronous belt-and-sprocket system. The belt’s helical-offset-tooth design provides continuous tooth engagement and selfcentering tracking, eliminating the need for sprocket flanges. And it can handle the stress of a blower turning at more than 8,500 rev/min and burning almost 5 gallons of fuel in less than 5 sec.
A dragster’s blower works like a large air compressor to increase air and help burn fuel more efficiently. The end result is higher horsepower, which in drag racing, can mean the difference between victory and defeat.
Ever since the 104+ Performance Additives/ Lehman Racing team started using the Eagle Pd on the Top Fuel Champion Clay Millican’s dragster, belt failures have been a thing of the past. Seeing the impressive results, three other Top Fuel teams have switched to Eagle Pd for the beginning of the 2004 NHRA season.
KNEE MILL FEATURES SOFTWARE CNC
Hardinge Inc., Elmira, N.Y., incorporates new CNC technology from Soft Servo Systems Inc., Waltham, Mass., into its latest machine tool product — the Bridgeport by Harding knee mill. The mill is manufactured based on the original design of the Bridgeport Series 1, an all-purpose mill used for milling, drilling, and boring for metalworking shops.
Soft Servo System’s S-120M PC-based CNC software controls up to eight axes, including four CNC axes, PLC axes, and a spindle. It features 1,000-blocks/sec processing time, flexible and extensive custom macros, and look-ahead contour control for highprecision, high-speed molding.