Jay Leno's Tank Hot Rod

[DEI37]

http://www.myclassiccar.com/MCCTV/20.../jayleno.shtml

[lakefire]

bummer the pics are so small

[Confederate]

looks like a blastoline special

[Confederate]

[sadistikdreams]

thanks for the bigger pic, Confederate!
It's vewwy SHINY!

[Wingless]

It's a Silver Bullet! Wow, what a monster.

[wakelagger]

That thing eats 350's for breakfast.

[KiwiKiwi]

wow, that thing is HUGE! I wish I could see something like that more often!

[WarWagon]

Leno's the fucking man.

[deepinjello]

Sooo shiny and purty. I don't think it would fit in my garage though...

[Scorps]

Damn that is nice

[nick1701a]

Leno wrote about it in his Popular Mechanics column recently. Very cool.

[Scorps]

Originally posted by wakelagger
That thing eats 350's for breakfast.

man its only got like 4 more pistons then a 350!

[Collegestudent]

A few monthes ago I was invited down to take a look at his collection and he had it parked next to a fiat topalino(sp). The wheels of the special were nearly as big as the whole topalino. Its a fairly impressive car in person, the engine is absolutly massive. He had several spare engines just sitting around, he said that he was only paying 5000 dollars for each engine, not bad for an old tank engine. I really feel for the metal worker, to weld up an aluminium body and not be able to see any slight discoloration where the welds are takes a lot research into the aluminium type and paying careful attetion to the welding rod material.

[Esoteric]

Holy shit that's nice :O

[Asuka{eve}]

Man that's nice. I wonder how much hp its got.

[merkerguitars]

Originally posted by Asuka{eve}
Man that's nice. I wonder how much hp its got.

The article says: Jay also commented that there isn't much you need to build one of these babies up as the stock motor makes 990 horsepower and delivers a wrenching 1,600 ft/lbs of torque.

[irseg]

Wow.. I drove a 5-speed supercharged 3.8 Cougar once, and was most impressed with its 315 lb-ft at 2400 rpm. Another 1300 lb-ft would be fucking awesome, if you could avoid shredding the tires!

[bodypainter]

From the article.

the good news is that the engine runs on regular pump gas

Sadly, that was one of the worst things about the engine when it was in the tank. It made them even more likely to be a death trap for the crew than tanks ordinarily are.

What I can't imagine is how you can make an 1800 cubic INCH motor, wrapped in a tank chassis and shell, air cooled. And I wonder what the redline is on that engine. I'm guessing 3000 RPM or so. Would be a hell of a stump puller!

But in the final analysis, I love it! I'm a DIY guy from way back and love unlikely projects like this.