i drove armoured vehicles with th rr b series engine for 19 yrs,and never once did they break down.finest engine in the world,precisin engineering at its best
Impressive build. Would love to see it on a sled. The throttle cable routing does concern me a bit though. Something grabs that puppy and its going to lock wide open. Hope you have a way to chop the fuel. Killing the spark might not stop it.
i dare say there is still a few crated new engines in sweden the centurion tank was was still in service in the late 70s i had a running mk 2b one with the roller rockers starter always sounded like a bag of ball bearings
As previously said, the Meteor was a tank engine. They were either "flawed" engines that could not go into aircraft or engines recovered and rebuilt from damaged aircraft. As a tank engine they were naturally aspirated, regardless of if they were built as a Meteor or rebuilt from a Merlin which had superchargers. As per usual in the war effort, they were assembled in the Rover car factory!
Hey @jbbumpkim Many Rolls Royce Merlin engines were built in Detroit Michigan USA at the Packard Car Factory .. They said Packard built higher quality than the British engines were.. In the USA many pulling Tractors use the Allison engine some of the later Allison's had two speed Superchargers and think Rolls Royce had that feature too. Both used Centrifugal vane superchargers not roots blowers like BM made for truck engines.. and heavy Equiptment engines..
@@mikeskidmore6754 There was no difference between Packard or RR built Merlins, this is a fallacy. Read the book ''The Merlin In Perspective'' from the RR Heritage Library. Packards built their engines to RR sopecifications and were identical in performance and standard of build. People are just perpetrating bullshit.
@jbbumpkin Not quite. The blocks are different, the Meteor also used a different crank and cams for opposite (CCW) rotation. The pistons were cast not forged and many other parts that did not need to be made to aircraft spec and standards were used. Different animal built at a different factory to a different spec.
@@TheLRider I watched a whole video that claims the Packard built engines were built to better specs and higher tolerances . better more modern machinery.
meteors are land based engines for tanks ie conquer and chieftain and do not have turbo super charges, some blocks surfaced recently from M.O.D reserves that was reconditiond and held for the 91 gulf war, they where clear for ac conversations.
Mr Tractorboy The merlin or any other RR aero engine NEVER used a TURBOcharger, they were all mechanically driven, learn the difference, US P38 P47 B17 B24 did use a TURBO system that fed the mechanical supercharger for a 2 stage system !!!
Around 1000-1200 hp from 27 liters is quite tame yes. These engines were built to last hour after hour on heavy load, not for drag racing. Another friend has a 38 liter Transmash V12 diesel. About the same case there. The power output in respect to cylinder volume is relatively low.
I'm real surprised that a single carb on each blower can supply nowhere near enough fuel to keep that thing from starving but I guess it must work. You got a badass pulling tractor !!
A lot of people have had their concerns. Personally, I am not experience enough with engines/carbs this size to tell if it would work or not. All I can say is that the builder, my friend Olle, got it more or less right at first try. And these carbs are really large! And I agree, the tractor is badass. A very nice build.
I think youre overestimating the displacement and power of this engine compared to 2 800 ci v8. 2 1050 dominators should be damn near enough for 1650 ci at 4500 rpm, and they make up to 1475 cfm if you want more rpm.
Nice looking tractor and a good idea of the roots blowers on the Rolls.... first one I've seen "built" with roots blowers like that. However, I think you're headed for some catastrophic problems "down the road".... if not on your first pull on the hook and under load. 1) I Never would even consider utilizing a "jackshaft" for that application, 2) you definitely should have an "idler" pulley on your main drive belt from the crank, 3) I would never have those fuel lines situated the way that you do... especially in relation to the drive belt, and 4) you should really consider some kind of "guard shields" for all your belt drives... so that when they let go, you can keep the damage to a minimum.... at least, externally. The sanctioning body for your pulls must have pretty relaxed rules to even allow that setup. The idea is Great, but unfortunately... the execution of it... not so much. Why didn't you go with a coupled direct drive setup between your blowers which would eliminate the jackshaft and two belts?? I realize that you would have to have a new end plate cover custom made for the rear of the driven blower between the two blowers, as well as a shaft extension from the crank driven rotor to the coupler, but it probably wouldn't cost you much more than what you probably already have in your current setup with two unnecessary belts, idler pulleys & brackets, jackshaft & bearings and fabrication of the jackshaft pedestal..... and it would be a lot more sanitary setup, while reducing potential parts breakage by at least 50 percent. I would use an industrial flexible coupler... not a slip or chain & sprocket setup, due to the fact that you would have to have 100 percent Perfect alignment between the two blowers to use a Non-flexible coupler.... but a flexible coupler would allow for any possible, however slight... variance between the two blowers. Someone below here, in the comments, asked why you didn't use a coupler from a 16V71 (or, at least that's what they were referring to without naming it).... you cannot do that, that easily. In order to use the factory blower drive setup from a V16, you would have to acquire the actual blowers from a 16V71, because the "rear" blower (the one that is gear driven from the engine) has a special rotor and shaft setup in it, which extends through the forward endplate and coupling with the forward blower. Unless you can replicate that setup, the factory coupling will Not work on your 8V71 blowers. How many rpms and how much torque are the jackshaft bearings rated for? What is your ratio between the crankshaft speed and blowers?.... it appears that the gilmer drive pulleys on the jackshaft are slightly smaller than the driven pulley on the shaft from the crank pulley.... are they over-driven by 10 to 20 percent?? How are you oiling the drive end gears of the blowers?... or are they just "statically" lubed within the end-case, and not pressure lubed from the engine?? I assume that you had the rotor lobes "prepped" and sealed for use with the carbs (and the gasoline) on your draw-through system? Maybe it was the camera angles, but I did NOT see any "burst panels" built into the plenum boxes under the blowers..... if you don't have any - you Will regret not having them at some point... you "should" have Four (4)... one at each end of your plenum boxes.... but you can get away with One in each plenum... sometimes. I wish you well... and good luck with it. If it were me though, I would be doing some serious re-configuring of the setup, Before I would ever put it under load. It would be really sad to see all the hard work and money you put into it.... go "ka - boom" (as if that doesn't happen in any form of motor sports, already ; ). Longevity of the engine... is All in the most minute of details.... and you have some details, that need some "re-evaluating".
This is not a finished build. What you see in this vid is a brief test run. This means that not all shields were in place, the fuel lines not properly routed etc. Also, I did not build this machine so I can't answer all your questions. All I can say is that it has worked well this far. There are burst panels, and they work. Bearings are not rated for torque, but for radial/axial load and RPM. I have checked the numbers and they are indeed running a bit on the limits but it does not seem critical to me. Especially since each run is short so temperature should not be a big issue. Regarding super chargers; I don't know much about these to be honest. The chargers are however rebuilt for this particular purpose. I believe this was done in the US but I don't know much more. Regarding the belt drive, all parts for that one (belts, wheels etc) were selected by the manufacturer/agent of the drive components.
@@LinusNil dont listen to them yanks no wonder we call them septic tanks ! so full of shit i think that blower set up is better as youre not driving one through the other and belts are very reliable it running in line keep up the work what bhp did it produce and is it still running
Not really. This was originally a Meteor, with superchargers added by the owner. The Merlin was manufactured with superchargers by R&R. I admit, this is probably a case of hairsplitting.
Those are actual Detroit blowers given away by the angled hold down bolts... why didn't you couple them end to end directly as they would be in a factory twin blower Application and ditch the jack shaft? The load on those belts WILL rip that aluminum sheet metal bracket off... maybe not right away but eventually...
I'm afraid there are no dyno results from this. No one really knows the power output. The original R&R Meteor engine was about 550-650 hp. This has upgraded carbs and two super chargers. I'd guess it's at least 1000 hp. The factory super charged version of the same engine, the Merlin, was 880 to 1160 hp according to Wikipedia.
That is one heck of a fine looking engine, i think i could take an engine like that and power 5 high voltage generators with it ,,,,,for those just in case moments , you know ?????
My only concern,is the jack-shaft and pillow bearing setup,that is running the front-ward Charger....those bearings are not great for high rpm applications and those pillow blocks are cast and like to shatter from heat...good concept,but She needs some CNC'd billet pillows and some dual roller bearings(or high speed,sealed w/nylon retainers) and it'll be bulletproof....she sounds awesome!
You are probably right that billet made blocks would be stronger. These have however proven to work fine for several years, and several runs since this startup. I'd say that heat is nothing to be worried about, but if the builder (my friend Olle) asked for my advise, I would probably offer to machine some stronger bearing blocks for him.
I would have special made metal fuel lines. that's more safer metal fuel lines all the way from the tank to the carburetors. I would also make some chrome custom belt covers for safety reasons to. That is a beautiful machine. Love them rolls Royce v12's such a unique beautiful craftsmanship there.
Nice tractor, but the jackshaft connecting the blowers is only secured to a custom mount on the valve cover??? And the bearings aren't built to turn the kind of R's that shaft will be spinning at WOT. I wouldn't want to be near it when it gets under load but I would like to see it. Damn good looking machine though.
I'm not to worried about either bearings or the shaft mounting. High RPM:s are only for really short periods of time, and at those moments the RPM of the shaft will be about the limiting RPM of the bearing units. Regarding the mounts; the valve covers are extremely sturdy. Just see how many bolts there are keeping them in place. And and the shape of them and thickness of the material makes me believe durability is not an issue there. I say thanks on behalf of the builder (Olle)!
Are the valve covers aluminum? I was thinking more about the aluminum breaking instead of the bolts, but sort of figured that anyone who could piece together a machine like that would have probably thought that through well enough to feel comfortable with the load. Looks risky from here but all the viewer has is a video too go by. I hope it works out well. I really enjoy the creativity and fabrication that goes into building one of these. Those blowers sound great. Best of luck with it!
Nothing is perfect, and we all make bad judgements now and then. We (me, my friends incl Olle who built this tractor) are all "amateurs" in a way. We are pretty good at what we do, but we make mistakes. Minimizing risks is always a priority, but I'd be lying if I said we never had an accident :)
Very true about not being perfect. There are no books on how to do this. Mistakes and accidents are part of learning. Life is a hard teacher - we get the lesson AFTER the test. Looks like a lot was learned on this build.
I think that the biggest lesson learned when it comes to the superchargers was the importance of really big pressure release valves on the manifold. I can only say that the first ones were not big enough...
Of course it's lean. 5.7L engine needs minimum 750 cfm of air. This thing would need approximately 3500 cfm to operate. So double everything (carb, blowers, and fuel) and it would really run. At minimum a huge 1 inch fuel line and much bigger pump to support this hungry beast. I would suggest a pair of 12v71 blowers with dual predator carbs on each, fed by four Holley red pumps. That big Allison is hungry! Feed the beast!!
A lot of people have been trying to point this out before. Still, it does not run lean. The carbs were recommended by Holley for this specific setup and I seriously doubt they are so incompetent they would recommend too small carbs. You are missing one important point here. This is not running at the same revs as a 5.7L V8, and since the RPM stands in direct proportion to the air flow need (cfm), your assumption is incorrect. With the same cui to cfm ratio but running at half the RPM, the Meteor needs 1762 cfm based on the 750 cfm for a 5.7 L V8 you stated. Two Holley Ultra Dominator can provide 2500 cfm of flow, which is enough for this engine running at this rpm.
@@LinusNil you're right! I hadn't considered the rpm being probably what, 2500? Those engines are often called Allisons here in the states. I have always liked them in pulling tractors and yours is no exception. I guess it just looks a tad small with just the two carbs.
@@turbo1438 Indeed, these engines are incredible! They are huge in comparison to the power output though, but this is common among engines which are supposed to handle high load for long duration of time. Also modern engines used in similar applications (marine, heavy machinery etc) have relatively low power output to cylinder volume ratio. It is relatively light though, being completely aluminum (both heads and block).
You're not alone being perplexed about how these old tractors hold together. The base is a BM-Volvo T 470 Bison. These tractors had a 73 hp engine. The power output of this thing is probably around 1000-1200 hp (maybe more, no one knows). The engine is directly coupled to the original gearbox and rear axle! Just think about it; power has been increased by 15-20 times and the old gearbox and rear axle have no problems dealing with it. Another guy I know has a 38 L Transmash V12 diesel in the same tractor. No problem. Yet another friend did put the same transmash engine in a Fordson Super Major. That rear axle was split in two.
