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Clutches? We Don't Need no Stinkin' Clutches!
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Are the IHRA Pro Mod teams ready for automatics?
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By Brian Wood Photos by Brian Wood, Carl Witt and Russell Witt |
There's been a lot of talk recently concerning the inclusion of converter-backed automatic transmissions in the ranks of IHRA Pro Mod beginning in 2004, so in order to shed some light on this potentially significant development, we take a look at the history of one of the pieces involved, the Lencodrive unit from the Lenco Equipment Company. The Lencodrive is the co-creation of Lenco and Indiana 's Larry Snyder. Lenco President Gary Sumek explained the basics of the new technology. “The Lencodrive was designed for those who want to run a torque converter in front of one of our regular units, said Sumek. “Basically, it's got the drive system incorporated into it so when you look at the transmission it has the drive and the gear set in one unit. If you add one more section it becomes a three speed, or add another to make a four speed, all with the reverser on the back.
“The L encodrive independently regulates the trans-brake, converter feed and converter return pressures for the maximum performance of each system,” he continued. “ The Lencodrive trans-brake utilizes a hydraulically actuated clutch pack which has proven to be unsurpassed in holding power and quick release times. A safety sprag clutch allows the car to safely coast to a stop in the event of an engine failure by allowing the transmission rpm to over-run the engine rpm. Also, the engine rpm will fall to an idle any time the throttle is closed, eliminating unnecessary stress on the engine. “The lencodrive is the best and most efficient automatic racing tranny on the market, “Sumek explained. “It's lighter, smaller and stronger than anything else out there and it basically has the same characteristics as our CS-2 transmission – it uses the same gear sets and the same clutch pack. We make everything from the valve body to the internals – the shafting, the gears – right in our shop. We have a variety of ratios – in a two speed we have something like 17 different ratios in low gear – when it shifts it goes one to one, of course. With the three-speed, I honestly don't know how many combinations there are, as it increases exponentially.
“You can just keep stacking units on and make up to a four-speed if you want. There are three different size input shafts, from the Turbo 400 up to a 1½”, 29-spline “Mega Shaft” that's utilized in Top Alcohol Dragsters and Funny Cars. It's gone as quick as 5.60 in the upper 240 mile-per-hour range, and we're looking at going substantially quicker and faster than that, naturally. This is by far the most efficient transmission hooked to a converter out there. It simply does not rob horsepower. There hasn't been a single case of a racer installing a Lencodrive and going slower then before they made the switch – in fact, everyone's gone quicker, from alcohol dragsters and funny cars right down to super comp. The Lencodrive pretty well sells itself because it's the perfect solution for racers who don't have the time, money or inclination to work with a clutch system.” As stated earlier, Larry Snyder of Snyder Motorsports is the man behind the success of the Lencodrive, and he'll readily tell you that the ease of operation and substantial cost savings are what inspired him to become involved in the project in the first place. “In a nutshell, the drive unit itself has been around for a while, having been originally developed by Dan Hughes at Quaker Engineering,” Snyder said. “The people at Lenco later put one of their transmissions behind it, but they had problems making it work the way it had the potential to work. All the hydraulics and all the drive parts on the front half Dan knew about and all the parts on the back half Lenco knew about – but neither knew about the unit as a whole until I came along. I just worked at it until I had a handle on the entire unit. The design was right – we just had to fine-tune everything. .
“What a lot of guys who run Lenco transmissions with a clutch don't realize is that all the parts in the Lencodrive, from the converter on back, are the same parts they all use, and they know that these parts are bulletproof – you just don't break any of the internal components – the planetaries, the clutches, etc, and that's all there is to it. It's the combination of the drive unit and the tough Lenco parts that make the thing work so well. The beauty part is that we just cool the converter down between rounds and go back out. “Without a doubt the ease of maintenance and the cost factor are the Lencodrive's two best selling points,” Snyder said. “It can cost a fortune to run a clutch these days. By the time you buy the clutch for $20,000 and spend another $30,000 chasing it all year, well - I don't have that kind of money to spend, and I'm sure a lot of others are in the same position. Just that factor alone could open doors for so many good racers who have to run on a budget. The other big thing is the fact that a clutch changes every pass, whereas while I still have to chase down what my converter likes, it's not always changing.” At the beginning of the 2003 season, the Lencodrive received a huge amount of press when a Missouri-based racer by the name of Ron Muenks stunned the crowd assembled in Houston for the Pontiac Excitement Pro Stock Super Bowl by wheeling his Outlaw Pro Mod Corvette to a mark of 6.096-seconds at 234.21 mph.
Weighing in at a stout 2,800 pounds, and equipped with an Alan Johnson Oldsmobile bullet topped by a PSI screw blower, the colorful ‘Vette from the “Show Me State” did just that, and in spades. At the time, Muenks explained his decision to run the Lencodrive in his car. “I used to think that I would run a clutch if and when I ever built a serious drag car,” he said.” That is until I spent some time working with Britt Micetich and Jeff Brozovich on Roger and Michael Heckert's blown doorslammer car one year. I was just there to watch and learn, and I sure did – after watching those guys fight with the clutch over and over again, I said to myself ‘there's no way.'” “Besides, it would cost me close to $30,000 to convert my car to a clutch, and I'd have to have a spare set of clutches, a spare set of floaters and a clutch grinder as well. On top of that, I'd probably burn up a bunch of stuff trying to figure everything out. As far as I'm concerned, it's hard enough to tune a motor, much less a clutch on top of it. With the converter, it's set, and all we have to concentrate on is doing the motor. That's why I ran the Turbo 400 in the car originally and went with the Lencodrive when we stepped things up. I love the fact that when we come back to the pits we put a blower on the converter to cool it off and that's it” “One trouble we've had with the car in the past was trying to get it off the line without violently shaking the tires because of all the power we have,” Ron added. “Thanks to a new converter, tested and perfected by Larry Snyder and built by Coan Engineering, we have that under control now. With our old set-up, I could leave with more rpms, but less horsepower, and we were getting 60-foot times of .960, .970. “Every time we tried to bring on more power, though, we couldn't get the car off the line because it would go into severe tire shake. We eventually sent the converter back to Coan, and based on the work that Larry had done, they figured out a way to take torque multiplication out at the starting line. The first race we went to with the new converter in the car we qualified first and won the race. We shook the tires once in the first session of qualifying, but once we ramped the power up, we never had another problem. Jason Coan told us that it would take more power to get off the line, and he was sure right. Now it will handle just about anything we throw at it.”
All of which brings us to the present and the recent news out of the IHRA's office in Ohio that the lencodrive, as well as the Bruno, would be accepted in Pro Mod and Funny Car in 2004. IHRA Director of Competition and National Technical Director Mike Baker had this to say when contacted by Competition Plus: “ We're accepting aftermarket planetary converter drive units, such as the Lencodrive and Bruno, in Pro Modified and Funny Car for 2004, with the stipulation that they meet existing bell housing rules. In other words, they have to meet appropriate SFI specifications. In addition, you can't run any cast material in the torque converter, and the release of the trans brake must be controlled by the driver's foot as in current rules pertaining to cars in these classes. The bottom line is that a driver using a converter drive unit has to do everything that a driver using a clutch has to do.”
So now the door is now open for another way to attack the Pro Mod equation, and it looks like Ron Muenks is going to be the guy to stick his toe in the water first. “We're going to an IHRA/NHRA set-up for 2004, replacing our outlaw engine with a legal Pro Mod piece, “said Muenks. “As far as I know right now we'll be the first legal Pro Mod car out there with the lencodrive and converter combination. I guess we're going to be the guinea pigs for this deal, but with our past success with the automatic in Outlaw configuration, I'm pretty confident we'll get a handle on things pretty quick.
“Right now my main focus is making the same power as everyone else. We have to buy new pistons, a new cam, a roots-type blower to replace our PSI screw blower, a new injector and so on. Obviously we have a lot of work to do before we can get out for our first round of testing. “We're thrashing to get the engine put together in time to go to Houston for the Pro Stock Super Bowl on Feb. 1, but we may not be ready by then. If not, we'll likely head to Virginia Motorsports Park for the Competition Plus Spring Open in mid-March to log some track time. In any case, we're looking forward to taking on the name drivers in Pro Mod next season and prove to them that being clutchless is not necessarily a bad thing!”
Another man that many racers have their eyes on right now is Australian legend Victor Bray, who has recently converted his trademark Castrol-sponsored '57 Chevy to a Lencodrive and converter set-up for competition in Top Doorslammer, the class where he's won six championships. Bray is well known for being on the cutting edge of chassis and engine technology, and he has definite reasons for taking a serious shot at making the Lencodrive work to his advantage. “I really feel that attacked properly there will be some real advantages with the Lencodrive,” he reported. “Where we're at with the clutches at the moment – running them so light and then powering them up – you tend to blow through them. We're running close to the edge, you know? I mean, we're not getting to the end of the clutch scene entirely, but under the current rules, where we're only allowed to use one set of levers, well, I think we are getting close to the end of that.
“The problem we have here now is that we're making all kinds of horsepower, but we have trouble getting the cars down the track, and that has a lot to do with the clutch. I think that the Lencodrive will allow us to use more of the power we're producing, and that's the name of the game. “With doorslammers running 6.0's now, well, we're only going to keep going faster and faster, and I don't think there are any great strides to be made in the clutch area,” Bray added. “I ran a lot of automatics in my early days, so I'm really interested in trying it again.” Unfortunately, government red tape threw Victor's timetable way off track, as he explained during another phone conversation. “Yeah – it's one of the things we have to live with over here, having to order a lot of our parts from the U.S. Being so far away, we naturally have to wait quite a while to get stuff, and if the customs paperwork and so on isn't perfect, well, then it's a real mess. That's what happened in this case. I thought the titanium can I ordered had left and would be here in time for us to test, but than I found out that because the paperwork wasn't right, it wasn't shipped at all.”
This was all just a few days before the season opener at Queensland 's Willowbank Raceway Park on the weekend of November 20-22, where Victor eventually had to go back to his clutch set-up. Just two weeks later, the Bray team found themselves all the way across the country for the second round of the Top Doorslammer Championships in Perth . Needless to say, Victor never had the time to do anything with the Lencodrive during that time.
With the next event on the 7-race Top Doorslammer tour scheduled for February, however, and with all the parts having finally been assembled, he will at last be getting down to some serious testing. During our most recent conversation, he had this to say: “The unit is now in the car, and we'll be testing it in the next few days. If everything works out, I'm going to run at a local meeting in early January and then set my sights on the next round of Top Doorslammer at Sydney in February. “During the first day of testing we're going to make eight or ten launches under a few different scenarios and then analyze the data to see what we have to work with. Then we'll likely rent the track for another day and make some full runs. But it's steady as she goes – it's such a big change that I don't want to screw it up. We're going to take it slow and work our way up. “I really want to learn more about the Lencodrive and understand more about how to deal with it. The same holds true for the Coan converter we're using with it. It's a very steep learning curve, but we have the time to sort it out now before the next race. We're pretty serious about making this thing work – I know what's wrong with the stuff we have, and I hope this fixes it up.”
To wrap things up, we went back to Larry Snyder for his thoughts on the future of the piece of equipment he's nurtured for so long. In his no-nonsense way he said “well, to tell you the truth, we don't know how the Lencodrive will work in a Pro Mod application because no-one has tried it yet behind a legal combination. There are a lot of people talking about it, but until someone takes the plunge, we really won't know. Victor Bray and Ron Muenks are the guys we'll be looking at for initial data. “Otherwise, at this point it's a lot of theory without any real-world feedback to back it up. We know the Lencodrive works in a funny car, because my son Mick ran one in NHRA last season, where it's been legal since 2001, and was very competitive, running a best of 5.65 at 251 miles an hour. “So based on that, we're pretty sure the Lencodrive will work perfectly well in IHRA funny cars, but the jury is still out as far as Pro Mods are concerned. While the IHRA and NHRA Funny Cars are basically the same, except for the screw blowers, supercharged Pro Mods, while running a similar engine combination as an IHRA Funny Car weigh quite a bit more. To go from an NHRA Funny Car to a pro Mod, you have to exchange the screw blower for a roots blower and then add 500 pounds, which is quite a difference, so we'll just have to wait and see how it works out. “Also, there has been some talk that the Lencodrive and converter set-up would benefit the nitrous combination in Pro Mod, because they're allowed to run lighter than the blower cars. Again, without any tangible data to go on at this point, this is another theory we have to go out and prove. We do know that the equipment is tough enough to handle just about anything these guys can throw at it, so all it's going to take is some serious testing. I guess we'll know real soon just how successful this will be.”
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