******LATEST NEWS********
7 September 2016: This weekend I ran a standing mile race here in Sweden with my old 170hp engine, I ran a personal best of 284.8km/h and I have a trick or two up my sleeve to tune the engine for next year so I can break the 300km/h barrier before changing to the new 270hp engine that I am building.
Here is a video of the run, I ended in 16th place of 44 and beat among others a Ferrari 458, a Dodge Charger Hellcat and a Lamborghini Gallardo.
The final results:
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24 May 2016: The new engine is 50% done now, it will be thoroughly run in a test bench before fitted to the bike so I will run the turbine bike with the old engine for a year or so more.
12 Mars 2016: The new engine build is progressing nicely, I have almost finished the bearing section and am starting on the turbine NGV housing.
The rear half of the thrust bearing:
Here is the compressor side and shaft tunnel assembled for the first time:
The beginning of the assembled turbine NGV section, laser cut from thick stainless steel sheet with vanes made from 253MA high temp steel.
I keep a much more updated build thread at JATO, check it out for some details:
http://jetandturbineowners.proboards.com/thread/734/building-ju-02-gas-producer
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6 November 2015: I just succesfully cast the compressor section for my new and twice as powerful gas turbine engine build, This one will produce 300hp and the plan is to have it running in a test stand in a year or two.
I 3D printed the casting pattern and cast it in petrobond sand, I even left the printing ripples on the pattern and it still released from the sand. Very useful way of casting stuff!
Cheers!
/Anders
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7 September 2015: I just got back home from a One Mile race in Färila, Sweden. The best run was 275.3km/h which makes my bike the fastest home built jet bike in the world as far as I know.
Saturdays run:
I aim for 300km/h next summer, to get there I need to build a water injection system and modify the fairings so I get my head down behind the windshield.
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2 March 2015: I just got back from Speed Weekend with a smile on my face, top speed of 215km/h, average speed of 204km/h and a new class record by far!
I had a little more throttle to give and the gearing was way too high so with normal street tyres on tarmac instead of the spiked (and therefore extremely draggy) ice tyres it will be much faster.
Now I need to check the bike for wear and try to get the front end a little bit less nervous at speed, I am very glad that the bike worked so well first time on the track and that the engine didn´t get any damage as far as I can tell.
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20 february 2015: I made it to the finals in the Boca Bearing invention competition and won a 3D-printer! The printer have already been used to make a fire extinguisher mount on the bike and lots of other stuff, but the main use will be to print casting patterns for my aluminum foundry.
A million thanks to all of you who voted for me!
Anyway, the Swedish Speed Weekend land racing event on a frozen lake is next week, the bike is 99% completed with fairings and everything and I have high hopes of a fairly fast run if the weather keeps below zero. The weather is a bit too warm right now and if there is water on the ice track I can´t run since I risk having water slung from the front wheel into the air intake, and that would damage the compressor blades.
I did a final test of the bike last week that went really well except for a blown oil pump fuse.
Wish me luck!!!
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30 August 2014: I did a static test run of the gas producer with a jet pipe attached instead of the power turbine, the goal was to log everything that is happening in the engine and possibly find out what the perfect nozzle guide vane area for the power turbine is.
I have a couple of friends...
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Amazing project! Thanks for linking to your JATO build threads; the casting work in particular is really impressive. Can't wait to see the new engine run!