Think about this: the vehicle that you see here has possibly the highest horsepower output of any machine to grace AutoSpeed screens to date. And to think it's an automatic Volvo!
You want to see some big horsepower? You want to see four-wheel burnouts? You want to see twin turbos that are big enough to house small families?
Well say hello to five times Australian Super Truck racing champion and four times winner of the Trans Tasman Trophy - Rodney Cricks' Shell Rimula N12 Volvo Truck. Like many successful race drivers, Rodney began racing go-karts - in his case, at the age of five. Since then he has continued to race anything that moves - progressing into sports sedans at the age of 18, then racing an ex-touring car to victory at state levels in NSW and Vic. In 1990 he made the big step - and I mean big - by switching to Truck Racing, a new racing category which was rapidly gaining momentum.
Rodney has won the Australia Super Truck Championship five times - 1992, 94, 95, 98 and 99. And this year he has launched a new truck.
Team Shell Rimula Super Truck N12 Volvo is quite an amazing piece of hardware. To get to the mumbo under the cabin, the custom-fabricated fibreglass nose tilts forward and the cabin tilts back - both sections are hydraulically operated. The Volvo looks like a monster, with a 12-litre, in line six cylinder, twin turbo diesel engine, able to generate 1350hp, capable of 12-second quarter miles and 52.8 second laps of Oran Park. Not to mention the Volvo is able to hit speeds above 200 km/h, but race regulations limit all Super Trucks to 160 km/h. Stopping this six tonne behemoth are 9-inch drum brakes on the front and 8-inch drums on the back. I sure wouldn't put my hand up to be the poor flag marshal at the end of the straight, seeing a dozen six-tonne Super Trucks hammering down the track!
The Volvo engine is based on the standard Volvo TD122 12-litre, inline six cylinder, turbocharged diesel engine. In standard form they generate 385hp, but in race trim Rodney's team is able to get the Volvo to hammer out 1350hp! Oh yes, that's a nice round 1000kW!
The compression ratio is raised from 16:1 to 18:1 - but if you think that's high, the twin Garret turbos pump out a thumping 60 psi of boost! And like everything else on the truck, the turbos are huge! A cold air intake is located on the roof of the Volvo with the air then flowing down behind the cabin and into the turbos. Exact turbo sizing can't be revealed, but what can be revealed is the team has an association with Garret and all hardware comes direct from Garret USA. Looking at the size of the turbos, you'd think they'd suffer from excessive lag. That's not the case, as the Volvo is able to develop the full 60 psi boost at around 2000 rpm and carry this all the way to the next gear change at 3000 rpm.
Getting the power to the ground is an Allison six-speed automatic gear box, Volvo locked diff and Continental Tyres all round. No low profile tyres here, with 315/70, 22.5 inch being used on all six wheels. Individual wheel speeds are monitored with the use of a MoTec engine management system, the same system used on the V8 Supercars. Other factors logged include steering angles and individual exhaust gas temperatures. This is to ensure that the team can fine tune and monitor the Volvo as they go.
Fuel delivery comes via traditional mechanical diesel injection. The team has just taken possession of a new designed Volvo engine for next year that operates a full house electronic injection, "But until then, the mechanical injection has served us well," the guys say.
Keeping the Volvo cool is another big task, with heat exchangers for almost everything - not just your typical front mount intercooler and radiator. There are coolers for the engine oil, transmission oil, fuel and a water spray system for the drum brakes. Garret made the bar-and-plate front-mount cooler, with a 100 degree C temp measurable drop across it. The Volvo holds 40 litres of water on board for the water spray systems on the radiator, intercooler, oil, brakes and fuel coolers.
In the cabin you won't find many creature comforts - what you find are the essentials. There's a roll cage for safety and a fabricated dash that wraps around the driving position to give excellent vision of temperature gauges, MoTeC monitoring equipment and the huge speedometer. You'll find the standard windscreen wiper switch, along with more obscure others like a lock diff switch and a large red eject-like button used as a kill switch! Rodney is wrapped up in the Momo race seat, with a seating position that would make you feel like you are sitting on top of the world.
During the first round of the championship, the Volvo encountered a problem with leaking liners in the number three and four cylinders. Testament to the professionalism of Rodney's team, they accomplishing a total engine re-build - including the installation of new cylinder liners, pistons and precautionary crack and pressure testing of the six individual cylinder heads - in four and a half hours. Due to the nature of the hand-finished experimental high compression pistons fitted to the engine, the damaged matching liners and the lack of replacements on hand, the team fitted standard road truck pistons sourced from the Adelaide Volvo Truck Parts distributor, with a resultant drop in horsepower of 25 per cent.
You'd expect that every ride in a race truck would be a wild one, but Rodney's most infamous drive was one at Thunderdome in 1998, "when the truck blew a wheel at 160 km/h and sent me straight into the wall. It hit so hard it cracked the block." And since Rodney started racing trucks, his lap times have dropped six seconds at Oran Park, "Which is testament to the new technologies being used on the truck, let alone the safety improvements."
With the new truck comes the challenge of fine tuning and reworking many parts until it's just right. By the time you read this, the engine will have had a full rebuild and turbo configurations may have changed in an attempt to find those elusive tenths of a second that mean the difference between first and the rest.
Thanks to:
Shell
http://www.racingwithshell.com.au
Baylie Steel services
+61 2 42722600
Burt Jones Race Cams and all other race sponsors
Contact:
http://www.supertruckracing.com.au
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