Tuesday, February 8, 2011

A 500-bhp Fuel Pump

They say that a Bugatti Veyron consumes fuel at such a rate that you can actually see the fuel gauge move.

But the Veyron is like a Toyota Prius compared to the planned world land speed record car "Bloodhound":

Bloodhound's Falcon rocket will be the biggest hybrid (solid fuel propellant, liquid oxidiser) booster ever produced in the UK. Such is its scale, it will need a Formula One engine supplied by the legendary Cosworth group just to pump the oxidiser through the motor.


The Cosworth-Ford engine was the phenomenally successful powerplant that dominated Formula One racing starting in the late 1960's. It was a conventional 3-liter, four-cam, 32-valve V-8 that initially produced about 375-bhp. During its competition years the output was tweaked to 500-bhp.

And now it's going to be a fuel pump.

3 comments:

Old NFO said...

Oh man... That is a HELLVA fuel pump :-) I could use a couple of those :-)

Roberta X said...

Brilliant! How many rocket engines have used internal-combustion, piston-engine fuel pumps, do you suppose?

Turk Turon said...

I believe that the Arienne rocket uses an actual fuel pump, from a BMW.