Returning from the winter series drag racing championships in Bahrain, the Red Victor1 Racing Team report they have clocked-up their best speeds ever. Success was in no small part due to the advanced hard coatings from Wallwork applied to the highly stressed gear components to extend their operating life in this extremely testing application.
“The drag racer accelerates from zero to 191mph in 4.09s producing up to 4000bhp,” explained Red Victor managing director Andy Frost. “The gear box on this car is relatively compact due to limited space and so the stress forces on the transmission are immense. Prior to involving Wallwork we were achieving just two quarter mile runs from a gearbox, after which we would see galling and welding of the planet gears. With the hard-coated gears from Wallwork, we ran a staggering 21 runs in total – without a failure, throughout the Bahrain event.”
The Red Victor Team is owned by Penn Autos, whose main business is the engineering of transmissions for drag racers. Red Victor3, the latest version of the car, is a live test-bed for engineering innovations that will then be offered to clients with the assurance that they will significantly improve performance.
Wallwork are specialists in surface engineering, providing heat treatment and hard coatings to enhance characteristics such as hardness and lubricity. The company provide service to clients in demanding industries such as aerospace, motorsport and medical equipment where endurance and high performance is essential in extreme operating environments. Gears in Red Victor3 were coated with Nitron MC and gear retainers with titanium nitride.
Red Victor3, Europe’s fastest street-legal drag racer, will remain in Bahrain for the 2017 drag racing season starting in November. The engine and transmission have been shipped back to Penn Autos in Wolverhampton where they will be stripped and re-built. Wallwork will be working with the team to evaluate the performance of the coated parts and advise on refinements to further boost performance. The team is hopeful of taking a World record on the return to the Bahrain championships.
