Jesse James breaks land speed record

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Vette73

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Jul 5, 2000
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Jesse James breaks land speed record for a hydrogen powered vehicle


He did not break THE land speed record, just one for a hydrogen powered vehicle
 

StageLeft

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Sep 29, 2000
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Neat but i something that looks like a rocket and is tweaked for speed on hydrogen can't even come close to the top speed of road-legal exotics, is that not yet another indication as to how far fuel cells have to go? 199mph is extremely slow for a land speed. The really fast land speed cars could make that with their chutes hanging out the back.
 
Mar 10, 2005
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James, who is married to actress Sandra Bullock (who starred in Speed, somewhat fittingly)

fitting only because both are unwatchable

broke the world land-speed record for a hydrogen powered car yesterday in the Mojave desert. Jesse's new record speed of 199.7mph (321km/h) was documented by the Southern California Timing Association

land-speed records are sanctioned only by the FIA. he got "a" record, not "the" record. what class is this record? it implies only one run was made, not two in opposite directions., therefore it's definitely not official.

The engine uses hydrogen gas, rather than liquid hydrogen

every engine, of internal or external combustion varieties, uses a gas as fuel because fuels don't combust in liquid form. i'd love to see what a shot of liquid hydrogen does to the valves. do they mean the fuel is stored as a gas? i'm not sure what benefit that would have.

overall, pretty poor, even by blog standards
 

CurseTheSky

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Oct 21, 2006
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"Now, James rebuilt the vehicle from the ground up, replacing its Chrysler engine with a twin-turbocharged 9.8L V8 engine from Chevrolet."

I wish they gave the HP / TQ numbers, or even estimates. For the sake of the record, drag, friction, gearing, etc. play a bigger role, but I'd still be interested.
 

dawp

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Jul 2, 2005
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Originally posted by: Skoorb
Neat but i something that looks like a rocket and is tweaked for speed on hydrogen can't even come close to the top speed of road-legal exotics, is that not yet another indication as to how far fuel cells have to go? 199mph is extremely slow for a land speed. The really fast land speed cars could make that with their chutes hanging out the back.

It wasn't a fuel cell, just a chevy v8 converted to run on pressurized hydrogen. the hyrogen was stored in gas cylinders.
 

EricMartello

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Apr 17, 2003
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Well the bar is low...maybe the American Chopper guys can bolt some random crap to a chopper frame and beat his record.
 
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