World record, hold the fries

Posted November 13th, 2006 at 10:47 pm by Brent Daily, Yahoo! Autos

 10 Comments / Filed in: Cool Stuff

On Saturday, several of us from the Yahoo! Autos team caravanned down to the edge of the Mojave Desert. We spent the weekend with all sorts of car nuts who were trying to do the same thing we were…break a land speed record. With expert know-how from our friends at Orange County Rod and Custom, we built a 3,000-horsepower, 6-cylinder, twin-turbo truck that runs on peanut oil. It’s a crazy-looking beast with its 747 airplane tires and painted grill façade, but it flies.

The weekend was filled with lots of bizarre-looking vehicles — far more bizarre than ours. It was like Burning Man collided with a NASCAR infield. And just like Burning Man, you remember really enjoying yourself, but being a little fuzzy about the details. There were a lot of “lakesters,” the bullet-looking racing cars designed especially to run on a salt flat or dry lake bed, and one of them reached over 250 mph.

We didn’t quite reach that many digits. Our truck, named Lipid Lightning, (thanks to Yahoo! user Ken E. who had the best suggestion in response to our Yahoo! Answers challenge) performed well, clocking in at 98 mph and setting the record for the fastest grease-powered vehicle on Earth. We were hoping to run a little faster, but the weather on Saturday conspired against us and shut down test runs. We had to saddle up and go for it with a maiden voyage on Sunday. But we were still psyched to nearly break 100 mph and not blow out the engine or go into a flat spin, an all-too-common occurrence this past weekend at El Mirage. Check out the video below for a taste of the peanut action.

I know what you’re thinking. Why would Yahoo! Autos do this? (Aside from looking for an excuse to live in a motor home in the middle of the desert and enjoy cold ones with hundreds of people we’ve never met, we actually had a legitimate “work” reason.) Last week we launched a new site that’s all about alternative fuel vehicles (though not a lot of info exists about peanut oil). There’s a lot of misinformation out there about alternative fuels, and this site helps debunk some of the myths, lays out the pros and cons, and best of all, gives you an easy “green rating” for new cars.

It’s a product that’s been a lot of fun to work on and has been incredibly rewarding. When your personal beliefs align with your job, it makes it far more fulfilling to come to work.

It may take a while to knock the dirt out of our ears and come down from the nitrous high, but this weekend was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced (see photos). I can only hope to be along for the ride when we get closer to the 200 mph barrier.

Brent Daily
Marketing Manager, Yahoo! Autos

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10 Comments Add your own

tundyattundra | November 29th, 2006 at 9:36 pm

very nice. now would you please ask yahoo executive to recativate my tundyattundra account. I miss nursing my blog anD my jazz friends. Thank you. When will we be seeing peanut oil at the pumps? Lucky billy and jimmy carter.

SCOTT | January 31st, 2007 at 9:33 am

THIS IS AWESOME COULD YOU PLEASE SEND ME SOME CONTACT INFORMATION ON THE COMPANY RESPONSIBLE FOR BUILDING THE ENGINE FOR THIS BEAST. THANKS!

george | April 19th, 2007 at 9:46 pm

very nice work guys. keep raising awareness on bio-fuels. but…..

my friend has a STREET DRIVEN ford F250, hopped up with performance products from bullydog.com. after seeing a website on making homebrewed biodesiel, he now runs his truck exclusively on that stuff. the truck runs 12 sec @110mph in the quarter.

3000hp? 98mph?….didn’t you guys take it out of first??

charlie | April 25th, 2007 at 10:24 am

jeez guys. you are giving away my secret. the local restaraunts used to PAY ME to take their spent peanut oils. i’ve been brewing fuel for my powerstroke f350 for years.(and it actually PAID ME a few cents a gallon to do it.) then stacey david did a show for trucks about recycling used oil for deisel. now the restaraunts still give me the oil, but i take it from them for free now.(and now i compete with 2 other guys to get it.) i’m up to about 35 Canadian cents to produce a gallon of fuel. (still cheap, sort of, and much cleaner than dinosaur bones.) now, you guys come up with lipid lightning. what now? i’m gonna have to break 50 cents a gallon for fuel? lol.

and, on peanut oil bio deisel, my crate runs 140 km/h pulling my trailer WITH 1300 kg race car on it. (and would break 160 km/h easy doing so if they allowed radar detectors in Canada.) if your driver is scared, e-mail me. i’ll shoe the bad girl. 3000hp and more guts than brains. bet you i’d get the old hot rod to break 350 km/h. EASY! (if the engineers have her geared properly.) either put her in gear, or my f350 is going to the desert empty to do a lesieurly 180 km/h to top that 98 mph record that’s in place. on street tires, with tags, insurance, and a tank of peanut oil.

do me proud guys. lets see the jalopy top 350 km/h.(on peanut oil.) you have the horsepower! no doubt there! good luck.

jack | April 25th, 2007 at 1:04 pm

good stuff guys. i won’t rag on you about 98 mph. i SHOULD, but i won’t. i think you left out the words “testing period”. anyways, i hope you don’t look at this as spam.

here’s a site to get you into making biodiesel at home:
http://homebiodieselkits.com/

got a fleet of tractor trailers? here’s a site for you too:
http://www.se-energy.com/

biodiesel is much cleaner than fossil fuels. no matter which RENEWABLE source(s) we choose.

OZI | April 30th, 2007 at 3:06 pm

Oh guys, it’s shame, my european-build Renault Clio, small car with 1.9 D engine (47 kW – 64 horsepower) converted to use two fuel switch between diesel (for warm up) and used cooking oil (100% rapeseed oil) makes easy a 100 mph, at full gas pedal load, on switched oil, your driver must be so scary if he don’t break this tiny speed :)…..if I have a 3000 hp…thats will be a record :)

Audie | January 6th, 2008 at 11:37 am

very nice, I have a question, where do you buy the oil from, i’ve been trying to get manufactures information but have been unable to get anything. Let me know if you can help. Thanks

Matthew | March 27th, 2008 at 9:39 pm

Your numbers need some help. Ive traveled 170mph with 300 hp and the appropriate gearing. I plan on starting vegetable powered company with many cars that will break 120mph off the sales floor. If you would like help reaching more impressive numbers I’m sure I could be of assistance.
Matthew

WVO | May 5th, 2008 at 3:11 pm

This has to be a joke. My 03 Dodge Ram diesel ran 112mph STOCK. And it took 10 times the horsepower for them to run 98mph? Maybe I should have gone down to Tom Thumb, filled up on Mazola, and gone for first place. On top of that, I could have driven my truck there and back (haha). Ridiculous.

marina difesa it | December 3rd, 2008 at 7:59 pm

The topic is quite curious, i must say