Scelzi Sez (and sez it to the point) (1 Viewer)

[stanman]

I'm curious how critical this Heat-treating issue was before John's crash at Dallas???

Joe,

Since I do a fair amount of fabrication on the side I follow chassis construction trends and rule changes pretty closely. I wasn't even aware they were using heat-treated tubing in Funny Car. The only announcement I ever remember was the changes in the construction of the back-half of the dragsters.

I'd be interested to see where the push came from to start using it on the Funny Cars!?!?

Personally, I never like the idea of the heat-treated tubing in the first place. It creates issues in other areas of the chassis.

 

[Larry]

As usual I know enough to be dangerous but I worked in a Aircraft heat treating facility but not as an engineer.

There are aircraft engineers who are experts and they might say " Hell's everyone knows you change the property's of the heat treated metal once again when you apply the heat from a welder to it".

Now we had a pretty large furnace but I don't think it would hold a complete FC Chassis of green metal with all tabs already welded on.
In fact you would be mixing different grades anyway because of the already welded metal.
Those guys with the slide rules can figure anything out.
Stretch , sag , flex no problem. LOL

My view is the cars make plenty of HP so a hundred lb's or two in extra strength especially in the cage area won't limit ET's and safety trumps everything else anyway.
I'll go back to munching tofu again.

 

[stanman]

I think NHRA cares about driver safety. They have just been getting bad advice and relying on the wrong people, people with a conflict of interest.

All this goes back to the fact that upper management used to be made up of former racers. Now it's degreed bean counters. Those bean counters don't have engineering degrees and didn't spend every dime they had to race a car at one point in their lives.

I think the right decisions will be made. There is just too much evidence and too many voices (like Scelzi's) that will make a difference.

RG

RG... reading my mind again!!

 

[Potknot]

Sounds like he has to pay for the new pipe out of his own pocket.

 

[Nemo]

Yea I agree, the problem (or one of them) is everybody that makes the decisions come from a corporate background. I'm not sure how many former "racers" are left, but not enough. Scelzi done right by speaking his mind, hopefully more will. I would buy my own car too if I felt it would help my safty, heck I buy alot of my own safety equipment now when the city goes with "low bid" for my fire gear.

 

[Buzzz Miller]

The thing I like is that he stated big words, and backed them up with big actions. Buying a brand new car from a source he can trust.

Actions always put an exclamation point on the words spoken.

 

[d'kid]

Sounds like he has to pay for the new pipe out of his own pocket.

Think that is he wants to... and not get Don involved... that way, if he moves on at the end of the year, he still has his own pipes...

 

[Randy]

Joe,

Since I do a fair amount of fabrication on the side I follow chassis construction trends and rule changes pretty closely. I wasn't even aware they were using heat-treated tubing in Funny Car. The only announcement I ever remember was the changes in the construction of the back-half of the dragsters.

I'd be interested to see where the push came from to start using it on the Funny Cars!?!?

Personally, I never like the idea of the heat-treated tubing in the first place. It creates issues in other areas of the chassis.

Greg:

If you read the spec and take it literally, heat treated tubing in a funny car chassis is illegal under the SFI spec. And Gary knows this wasn't a new problem that just showed up at Force's.

RG

 

[67 Cuda]

Is it possible to order a Murf chassis made completely of "N" tubing? Is there a problem with him using "N" tubing or does he just think it does not matter? Sorry if this is a stupid question.

 

[none]

I am going ask a couple of questions about all the posts and story's I have read. I am looking for answers and not trying to stir things up. A lot of the quotes and tales have been told over the last 30 days and these are the things I have read. Just wondering if I got it right.

1. Is Scelzi saying that part of the reason that he got out of TF was the chassis and how it was made.

2. Is the current SFI spec that open that people (NHRA) are not sure if the chassis is in spec.

3. Are all the reports about John Force's crash related to "heat treated " tubing and the fix is just a bandaid.

4. Am I to understand that Eric died because his head struck the roll cage over a hundred times.

5. Is Murf car's the only cars to suffer this type of chassis failure.

6. JFR is buying a Pluger chassis (From Paton) to create a clone for all future JFR cars to be built in house.

7. Nobody runs a Mustang Body and Murf car only JFR.

8. If you get enough experts on a subject you will come to a solution but maybe not a answer.

9. Two chassis builders use "heat treated tubing" on FC's and all others don't.

10. If not for the luck of the chutes getting stuck on the wall we would have losted our biggest star.

 

[stanman]

... heat treated tubing in a funny car chassis is illegal under the SFI spec. And Gary knows this wasn't a new problem that just showed up at Force's.

RG

Randy,

Dead on! I've got the spec right in front of me.

II. Basic Construction Practices

1. All structural material for the roll cage, rear-end mounting, and suspension mounting must be normalized SAE 4130 chrome-molybdenum steel (SAE 4130N) purchased to the requirements of military specification MIL-T-6736B and it's subsidiary document or equivalent. ...

So you and I are reading it the exact same way... Anything other than 4310N of the required Mil-Spec is illegal. And actually that is the case in any type of SFI spec'd chassis, other than the Top Fuel cars.

Does anyone know of an addendum to the 10.1E spec that allows the use of heat-treated tubing?

 

[Smiley]

Randy,

Dead on! I've got the spec right in front of me.

II. Basic Construction Practices

1. All structural material for the roll cage, rear-end mounting, and suspension mounting must be normalized SAE 4130 chrome-molybdenum steel (SAE 4130N) purchased to the requirements of military specification MIL-T-6736B and it's subsidiary document or equivalent. ...

So you and I are reading it the exact same way... Anything other than 4310N of the required Mil-Spec is illegal. And actually that is the case in any type of SFI spec'd chassis, other than the Top Fuel cars.

Does anyone know of an addendum to the 10.1E spec that allows the use of heat-treated tubing?

From what I have read it's the "..or equivalent" piece that allows the heat treated tubing to be legal, but that could just be one persons interpretations of the spec.

Either way, I am glad to see Gary speak out and let his feelings be known, afterall, it's his life on the line every time he hits the go-pedal. Something tells me that this will not work it's way into a "Scelzi Sez" episode anytime soon.

 

[Buzzz Miller]

I do not blame McKinney for building these cars. He may have info that stated it would be superior.
1) What bothers me is when Jim Head finds out after the fact that his car has heat treated rails, when he believed them to be N. That is unacceptable. A long talk should be instigated before the chassis is begun, or sold. That choice should be the teams.
2) What bothers me next is an assumption made from reading the Olsen interview, and could be less than perfectly correct. But it seems that these chassis were being created and tagged without a real understanding from the head of NHRA tech for the nitro classes. If this is the case, this is WRONG!
3) What bothers me is McKinney's lack of coming forth and stating, something like 'We were wrong. Real world testing is showing this may not be an improvement." Take some responsibility to move FORWARD. We all screw up. Accept it rather than hide it.
McKinney builds a good car. Always has. That is why so many people run the stuff. But I have been hearing about these main fraimrail problems since the first Vegas. I don't know how long the heat treating has been going on. I guess I have lots of little concerns, but these main ones really bother me.
This all happens when I am getting finalized to build my own funny-car chassis. Interesting timing.

 

[davey]

I don't really know how to put this and I don't intend to sound harsh but... these days saying "we were wrong" is basically an admission of negligence in a court of law. Very sad. Not saying anything would ever come to that but unfortunately we live in a CYA society that goes against the grain of everything I have been taught in life.

 

[67 Cuda]

I don't really know how to put this and I don't intend to sound harsh but... these days saying "we were wrong" is basically an admission of negligence in a court of law. Very sad. Not saying anything would ever come to that but unfortunately we live in a CYA society that goes against the grain of everything I have been taught in life.

Lets hope that there are some people involved that will make all the changes to make it safe and not worry about getting sued. NHRA needs to step it up and make the rules and enforce them to make it the best for everyone and not care about stepping on any toes.

 

[davey]

Lets hope that there are some people involved that will make all the changes to make it safe and not worry about getting sued. NHRA needs to step it up and make the rules and enforce them to make it the best for everyone and not care about stepping on any toes.

I'm with ya brutha!

 

[stanman]

From what I have read it's the "..or equivalent" piece that allows the heat treated tubing to be legal, but that could just be one persons interpretations of the spec. ...

Brian,

I don't know how anyone could consider the heat-treated tubing to be equivalent to the normalized. We are talking about completely different Mil-Specs and material properties.

But I'm no metallurgist.

 

[Smiley]

Brian,

I don't know how anyone could consider the heat-treated tubing to be equivalent to the normalized. We are talking about completely different Mil-Specs and material properties.

But I'm no metallurgist.

Greg,

I don't disagree with you, I was mentioning the fact that it seems to be the "loop hole" so to speak that was being used to allow heat treated tubing to used and still keep the chassis within SFI spec.

Remove "or equivalent" from the spec and none of us would be having this conversation. Instead we might be talking about Papa John's run at the championship, or some funny remark he made during a top end interview. We'll never know for sure if John's accident would have ended up with the same results, but if I was a betting man, I know where my money would be.

 

[d'kid]

Randy,

Dead on! I've got the spec right in front of me.

II. Basic Construction Practices

1. All structural material for the roll cage, rear-end mounting, and suspension mounting must be normalized SAE 4130 chrome-molybdenum steel (SAE 4130N) purchased to the requirements of military specification MIL-T-6736B and it's subsidiary document or equivalent. ...

So you and I are reading it the exact same way... Anything other than 4310N of the required Mil-Spec is illegal. And actually that is the case in any type of SFI spec'd chassis, other than the Top Fuel cars.

Does anyone know of an addendum to the 10.1E spec that allows the use of heat-treated tubing?

Maybe I reading this differently, but I'm reading the 'or equivalent' as the documentation, not the material... and we've done enough 'government work' that it has come up once or twice... the documentation must show the material meets the spec.

not exceeds it without approval, all variance of the spec must be signed off on by the project engineer and the O.I.C. of the project...

in this case, that would be the NHRA and their Staff Engineer

d'kid

 

[Paul]

You gotta admire Gary S. for speaking out so candidly on this issue.

Even though its appears that the 4130N tubing is probably a better choice than the heat treated tubing on these chassis I don't think just a decision alone to enforce the current rule on the books requiring 4130N will necessarily fix all the problems that have been occuring.

Both these tubing types are very strong. The 4130N has less strength but more ductility while the 4130HT has more strength but is more prone to crack when very heavily stressed.

If the current chassis designs are such that they are right on the edge so that the minor differences in these tubings are enough to cause a chassis to go over that edge and fail then we're putting the drivers at too much risk with the current designs no matter what kind of tubing is used, the safety margin is just way too thin.

In the short term enforcing the 4130N tubing rule is probably for the best, but the NHRA needs to figure out how to get an aggressive "car of tomorrow" design effort started as soon as possible. If this ends up with cars a couple hundred pounds heavier than the current cars that's not a bad thing, the cars need to be slowed down a little anyway.

The current rules that allow the words "8000 HP" and "0.058 wall tubing" to be used in the same sentence need to be seriously rethought.

Paul T.