JCB Dieselmax

The JCB Dieselmax is a diesel-engined 'Streamliner' car designed for the purpose of breaking the land speed record for a diesel-engined vehicle.

The car was built for JCB. As of 2008, it holds the World Diesel-powered land speed record, having been driven to over by Wing Commander Andy Green in 2006.

Design

The car is powered by two specially-tuned versions of the production JCB444 powerplant, developing up to each (over five times the power output of the production version) and featuring four cylinders and 5 litres of displacement, accompanied by two stage turbochargers, intercooler and aftercooler. One of the dual engines drives the front wheels while the other drives the rear. Each engine is rev-limited to 3800 rpm.

As the size of the car prohibited meaningful wind tunnel testing, the streamlined shape of the car was refined entirely though the use of computational fluid dynamics by MIRA Ltd, which has enabled the car to obtain a very low coefficient of drag of only 0.147 and a C_dA value (drag coefficient × frontal area) of only 0.129 m². The fuel tank, which holds only 9 liters (2.38 U.S. gallons), is located directly behind the carbon fiber cockpit. The fully-laden weight of the vehicle, including fuel, oil, ice, water coolant and the driver, is...
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