Design and Development of the BUB 7 Land Speed Record Motorcycle

In 1994 the author presented a paper (942532) at the Motor Sports Engineering Conference that described the design of a custom-built engine intended for a land speed record motorcycle. At that point the engine had not yet run and no performance data was available. Since then the engine has been completed and on September 5, 2006 it powered the BUB 7 streamliner ridden by Chris Carr to a new world record of 350.884 mph. In the first part of this paper performance details for the engine are provided along with a brief update of engine development. The second part of the paper describes the design and development of the motorcycle. A combination of wind tunnel and coast down testing has demonstrated a remarkably low coefficient of drag of .09. The design and construction of the carbon fiber monocoque chassis is discussed along with finite element analysis results and experimental measurements of torsional stiffness. Finally the use of computer simulation of vehicle performance and its confirmation with experimental data is described.