The Hawk That Lurks in The Shadows

[SScopelli]

Here is a picture of a 56 Hawk that happens to be in JR Blooms driveway for a photo shoot.

You know who J.R. Bloom is, right?

J.R. is the photographer that captured all the racing photos of "The Whistler..."

His family was nice enough to pass on these photos for the Studebaker enthusiast..

This must have been set for some racing magazine..



The dawn of Hot Rodding, its always nice to grab parts off of a military bomber, like an oxygen tank for some special fuel.



But when you can't fab up a turbocharger manifold, why not use a mini turbine engine to spool your boot



Notice the fuel inlet on the top, and the igniter on the side..

[tsenecal]

Pretty cool photos. Thanks for posting. I wonder how well that setup really worked.

[showbizkid]

Very cool! I love seeing the way things were done back then.

[52-fan]

Someone would have to explain that to me.

[SScopelli]

Someone would have to explain that to me.

I believe the part in the middle rectangle is the gas turbine..
Fuel is pumped in and ignited by that spark wire.

The right rectangle is the exhaust of the turbine.

The left is the compressor section, and is piped to the bonnet on the carburetor.



But what are the two bottles for sicking through the firewall? Notice the Avanti style carburetor and bonnet..




I am taking a big guess at this, but my guess is that this really provided a set about of boost through out the RPMs.

Must have made one heck of a noise going down the track.

And look at the exhaust pipe coming out of the back! What is that about?

[Mark L]

The turbine engine is probably an auxiliary power unit to supply compressed air to turn an air-driven starter for a larger engine. In this case, the compressed air is used to force feed the engine in the car.

Turbine engines can be fueled by gasoline, but they generally don't last very long on gas. The tanks on the firewall look to be plumbed down the passenger fender to a fuel regulator, then to the turbine engine. I suspect the fuel for the turbine engine is coming from them. The tank in the trunk is labeled "oxygen aviators".

[BobWaitz]

I would have loved to see that run!

[Noxnabaker]

Wonder how many others tried the same trick...?

[S2Deluxe]

Wonder how many others tried the same trick...?

Quite a small handful, I'd imagine?

Mark

[Buzzard]

I love to see ingenuity at work! The owner was probably military so as to have access to this neat stuff.
Bill