Why so many Bruno units for sale ?

I note there are a lot of s/h bruno units for sale, why is this.

A lot have lencos attached too ???

Are they not up to it for a blown alky car ?

 

Perhaps it's because more lencodrives are available on the used market now. I know several people who run the Bruno/Lenco combo in doorslammers in the 7.0 - 6.5 second range with no truble. But the Lencodrive is still a far superior piece and many people are always looking to upgrade when the opportunity arises.

 

my opinion

I think the reason you see all these units for sale is when everything is equal,the clutch is faster,more adjustable to varied track conditions & changing track conditions.If you are running a series where time between rounds is short,or running to the thousand of a second takes preference over maximun performance then the bruno-lencodrive units may take preference.and some people are just afraid of clutch settings,different hardness of disc,different sizes of clutches as well. plus the labor of regrinding clutch packs. The bruno-lenco units just look more freindly if you can afford one and you have no knowledge of clutches and there use.Just my 2 cents worth!!

 

i agree with flash. I only have myself and one volunteer with average of 45 minutes between rounds. I have no knowledge on the clutch, and its tough sometimes just to get the leaf blower on the clutch between rounds.:eek I do know the clutch will always be faster, but you better have a good crew to help

 

I do know the clutch will always be faster, but you better have a good crew to help[/QUOTE]
Mick Snyder has gone 5.59's and more than one ProMod has gone in the 6.10's on a convertor.

 

If you want my opinion about the BRT drives send me a PM.

 

i own 2 brunos on 2 dragsters. given the choice between a bruno and a lencodrive i will use the bruno for 2 important reasons - the lenco does not mix fluids with the converter drive and it appears that the bruno brake releases quicker than the lencodrive. since the bruno has been available longer than the lencodrive i suspect there are more available used on the market - thus you would see more available for resale. i have found it much easier (on a bruno) to work on just the lenco side of the unit than the lencodrive. it is easier to repair the lenco tranny and also swap gear ratios by leaving the bruno drive in the dragster and just work on the lenco than removing the lencodrive which then entails having to remove the converter. i have also found it more flexiable to use alternative fluids within the bruno drive whereas you are limited with the lencodrive. i know of several bruno drives that use different viscosity hydraulic fluids to tune the converter stall speeds whereas on a lencodrive you are restricted to using the same fluid for both the drive unit and the lenco tranny.

 

low,
That's cool and all but the LencoDrive is the only convertor based trans NHRA allows in the T/A and Promod classes. Also, it has no external fluid lines.... which I think is why NHRA allows it. In regards to the transbrakes being slower..... you just get used to it and become tuned in with it. Snyder's been able to pull some pretty quick reaction times with theirs.
We happen to use a Donovan Unit in or Q8 / Q16 car. It's literally a slice of a powerglide pump section. The transbrake/band is actuated with pneumatics. We have it and our throttle cable system on the same CO2 circuit triggered by the delay box. We've loved our Neal Chance convertor but are looking into the newer Coans Snyder has been running with great success.

 

i have both the 2 piece coan and a 10" 1 piece. by far the 2 piece is better. i've worked with walker at coan and they have been very helpful in my combinations. the 2 piece is worth the cost and it gave me back over 400 rpm in the last half of the 1/4 mile with the same 60' times as my 10". doesn't the lencodrive use hydraulics on it's tranny brake? it is not unusual for me to run from 1.14 to 1.17 into the delay box to keep the bruno from red lighting on a full tree and even sometimes a little bit .02/.05 into it on a pro .4 tree. we do not see a "drop off" in reaction times with the bruno because it uses air instead of hydraulics that tend to get hot and slower.

 

will - you bring out some good points on the lencodrive. i have always run a quality tranny cooler with my bruno/lenco set up. i believe that helps with the life of both units. yes i do run a 3 speed pnut and the motor is out 44 1/2 inches on the dragsters. i also run a cs1 2 speed but it has recently become the spare tranny only because the 3 speeds work best in 1/8 mile races where i do not use 3rd gear. with a 1.81 1st and 1.48 2nd pnut and a 114" roll out tire the dragster doesn't use 3rd gear whereas a 1.64 1st 2 speed has a real drop off in the 1/8 and causes the car to et slower. you are correct about the leaving over 5000 rpm and blowing off the tires. the 2 piece converter helped the best leaving at 5000 and not losing et and also not blowing off the tires. i was even able to remove the wheelie bars with the 2 piece and save 28 pounds weight.

 

also need infor on a donovan unit

hi guys have a chance to buy a donovan unit but have not heard any thing about them. should i stay away. also he said it might be an older 1. still is that any good. or do 1 of you guys have 1 for sale thanx rob

 

rob,
first i'd like to mention replying to your post is the first time i've typed on a keyboard since breaking my wrist earlier today.... please don't mind my lack of using capital letters.... it just hurts too damn much to try to use two hands.

as mentioned earlier in this thread, we've been running a donovan unit in our q8 car for nearly 10 years with hardly any problems. we run 6.80's in a 3,000 door car. it's a blown 526 tfx hemi with an scs 1471 roots that makes 37 pounds of boost. we used to eat up the old one piece coan convertors regularly but have had zero problems since we've switched to the 2 piece neal chance. about 5 years ago we twisted an input shaft ..... we thought we had a valasco shaft but learned otherwise. we've had no problems since replacing it with a valasco unit. we likely have the older version donovan as it's literally a bandsawed from pump and banb setion of a powerglide. the neat thing about that is it's about as mechanically simple as can be and have few parts to them and many of them are directly interchangeable with a powerglide. parts like the pump, band and drum are all interchangeable. we once broke the rotor assembly in the pump during a long hard fought battle with extreme tireshake (a lower first gear and hoosiers cured that).
those parts are cheap so i recomend carrying a few spare sets. also note that we've actually found the donovan unit to be stronger than the lenco as we've broken numerous spagues in the lenco with no damage to the donovan. the transvrake works on a co2 system which is neat for us because we use an air cylinder to throw our throttle open on the same air circuit off the delay box by way of electric/air solenoid switch (if interested more on that just ask). back in 97 when we built the car i think we paid $2,500 for it. How much do they want for the one you're looking at? they aren' as good as a lencodrive and not allowed in the alky or promod classes by nhra but are
a very cheap alternative. i should also mention we use a jw alluminum bellhousing. we also use a regualr trans cooler like the ones that used to only be available from direct connection. the hottest i've ever felt it get is luke-warm. seeing how the lencodrive uses no cooler at all even with it sharing the fluid with the trans, convertor an brake. the donovan could likley get away with no cooler at all..... but then again we've never gone round-robbin with ours.
good luck with your decision..... i gotta go take some more pain meds for this damn wrist!

 

hemi dude please check your pm and take your meds

thanx for your infor, but need more

 

When set up correctly the Lencodrive can redlight with the slowest driver. The key word is correctly. It took me 19 months to get Danny Gracia to ok the use of the Lencodrive in TAD for NHRA. His exact words to me were: "Let the SOB run it if he wants to. If he wants to be a half second slower, then let him." I thanked him kindly and went to 131 Dragway and qualified #8 with a two speed lencodrive against 22 millionaires and us. They threw us out at midnight and then came back at 1:00 am and said it would be all right since we had written permission from Gracia. All that time I just kept thinking about comp eliminator and what the auto-trans did to it. Thanks to Larry Snyder, we now can be competitive. Dial your lenco with trans fluid, hydraulic fluid, motor oil, fish oil, synthetic oil or whatever. Larry won't tell me all he knows, and I sure ain't telling what we learned the hard way. Gave some secrets to Gary Sumek, but he was awful good to us when we were developing the thing years ago. Sell you my whole outfit for $250 large and you'll know all we know and I'll go fishing with a K-B powered bass boat. Really want to show up at a Tournament with a 3400 hp bas boat and see what they say.

 

lencodrive

What I would like to ask is has anyone solved the problem of the lencodrives brake not holding on the starting line other than tying a linelock in with the transbrake ?

 

blown375 just had a friend that had the same problem. he said there was a small plug, like a freeze plug ,that was loose and loosing pressure in the trans somewhere. i did'nt get into details about it, he taped the hole and pluged it and worked fine fron there .ya might look into it.hope this helps

 

I've never had a problem with the lenco drive transbrake holding, have run with PSI and superman and the superman was making 34lbs at 3500, holds 100% and releases as fast as any other tranny that I have run, I would suggest that you have a fluid pressure leak somewhere when the pressure is applied to the pack.
Lenco drive is by far the best, strongest auto trans available, convertors are were the secrets are kept.