27 June 2009 NEW UDDEHOLM DEIVAR CRANKSHAFTS

Two new 4.250” Crank Shafts is now ready to use. The material is Uddeholm Deivar which has excellent toughness and ductility in all directions. This material also has many other properties that makes it a excellent choice for high quality crankshafts. After ruff machining it is hardened to 45 HRC then fine machined on all surfaces and grinded. The final step is a Plasma Nitride finish and then hand polishing.

10 May 2009 FOCUS ON TESTING 2009

The 2009 season will have focus on testing for Karling Racing Team. The new bike that was built from scratch during the last three years needs some more testing. During 2008 did we “torch” the heads bad three times and at the end of the season had we solved that problem. The reason was cam timing in combination with intake design and fuel distribution.

The main things that is new on the bike for 2009 is:
New Leahy Ignition Crank Triggers
New designed Karling Crank Trigger Bracket
New lighter Venolia Pistons for Dykes ring package
New Aker & Childs Dykes .017 Piston Rings
New Karling Countersunk Copper Head Gasket
New Karling Uddeholm Deivar 4.250 Crankshaft
New Karling Uddeholm Orvar Supreme 1.094 Wrist Pins
New light weight hard anodised Supercharger drive pulleys
New ARP2000 ½” Super High Strenght Cylinder studs
New in case timed Cam Lobes

To make the most and best of testing this year will the team go to the European Championship races in Finland and Sweden. It will probably be more testing after Mantorp depending on how it fits into the schedule.

RACING SCHEDULE FOR 2009 IS NOW UPDATED

8-9 January 2009 AUTOSPORT INTERNATIONAL SHOW 2009 BIRMINGHAM ENGLAND

For the second year in a row did Udddeholm UK participate at the Autosport International Show. The new Karling dragbike was a big help attracting visitors to the display. The new bike is not only good to get attention to the Uddeholm brand it is also useful as a reference object for 13 different Uddeholm materials used in the 6000 hour project. Materials that are used is from the simplest low-carbon steel in clutch plates to the most exclusive powder steel in valve train parts.

Karling Racing also had some examples of components on display together with Dealer Sports STCC Team that use Uddeholm materials in different components. On display was some parts that is going to be used in the SAAB 9-3 BioPower STCC car for coming season.

To see pictures and text at Eurodragster just click on the link:
http://www.eurodragster.com/live/2009autosportinternational/reports/friday.htm
http://www.uddeholm.co.uk/
http://www.autosport-international.com/

20-21 November 2008 SACO STUDENT SHOW STOCKHOLM SWEDEN

Saco Student Mässan 2008

For the second year in a row did Bergsskolan from Filipstad use the new Karling/Uddeholm dragbike at the annual Saco's student exhibition in which most of the Universities in Sweden participates. The show had 22.751 visitors which is 1.700 more than last year. Bergsskolan has expanded their courses for engineers with high grades of steel and metal industry training. The basics with all from minerals to steel production still exists of course. A lot of the high grade of engineers at Uddeholm comes from Bergsskolan.
See: http://www.bergsskolan.se/index.asp?textid=251

Oct 21th to 24th 2008 TECHNICAL FAIR STOCHOLM

For the second year in a row did the new dragbike attract visitors to IronCAD/Solidmakarna´s display at 2008 Technical Fair in Älvsjö (Stockholm) Sweden. The new dragbike is designed in IronCAD 3D and as Charley Karling says “It had been impossible to get a bike like this together without IronCAD. And now when the bike is built we have a product not just a one-off dragbike.”

This years show had over 22000 visitors during 4 days. Solidmakarna did feel a very
good response at the show and the bike really did show what can be done with a good easy to use 3D program. In matter of fact Charley who have been doing the designwork did learn IronCAD the same year the bike project started.

Aug 29 to 31 2008 Alastaro Finland at FHRA DEFA Finals for testing

We have to cancel the race at Gardermoen There was to little time to work getting the bike ready, finding the problems we have and travelling. The weather in Norway was bad and if we had worked day and night to be there we have had been disappointed because of the bad weather.

We decide in an early stage to repair the bike and try to figure out what is wrong. We know that there is no mechanical problems but we do get a lot of mechanical damages when we are torching the heads.

By a discussion in the team and with people around us we find out that there are some areas that we have to make modifications to eliminate the risk of failures.
What we also decided was to cancel the Europen Finals at Santa Pod. We wanted to do testing before season is over and that must be on a good safe track - like Santa Pod - but we find out that we had one closer and that was in Alastaro in Finland the weekend before England. FHRA did run their finals. We did contact Tapio Valia in Finland and FHRA and they wish us welcome to come over for testing.

So, with the bike in perfect shape did Greger Johansson, Matte Tärnström, Carina and me go by the boat over to Finland. The weather was perfect all three days. Only one round was cancelled because of light rain. We did burn a lot of fuel during 16 warmups in the pits, adjusting and checking. The engine did run much better on idle and the response was there too. We did three shorter test runs, one per day. No sign of torching heads. But we got misfiring on front cylinder under load from the first round and by adjusting and checking we got less misfire every round. We couldn´t get rid of it before the weekend was over. But anyhow did this test weekend give us a lot. A very big thanks to FHRA letting us be there.

We did watch the race in England on the internet and for us that needed to get runs were glad we did get them in Finland. We did see many racers doing very good ET:s at Sunday mornings qualification and it was really exciting to follow the races and counting points. Congratulations to Svein-Olav Rolfstad who became 2008 Super Twin European Champion. There are many that is going to chase him next year.

Must mention Sverre Dahl Norway that now is running the new Karling/McBride clutch and setting a new European Speed Record with 371,93 km/h (231,11 mph) in Top Fuel Bike.