Full steam ahead... soon

The British Steam Car team aims to reach a speed of 273km/h. Photo / Supplied

The British Steam Car team has delayed its record attempt to the week starting August 17. Issues with support rigs and sticking valves will not be resolved before the monitoring FIA officials depart for Bonneville Speed week.w

The century-old record for steam-powered vehicles was set at 205km/h by American Fred Marriott in a Stanley Steamer back in 1906. The idea to break it came from a University of Southampton project, which sparked wider debate about the potential of alternative fuels.

The British Steam Car team aims to reach 273km/h in its vehicle, which is 7.6m long and weighs three tonnes. Twelve LPG-fuelled boilers heat enough steam to fill 1500 kettles, at a rate of 23 cups of tea a second, passed through 3km of tubing at 400C. The car carries just 140 litres of water, but uses the equivalent of 1000 litres, or one tonne, every minute. That runs a two-stage turbine which revs at 13,000rpm and delivers 268kW of power to the rear wheels.

The car reached 124km/h on its latest test at Edwards Air Force Base, in California. That test was aborted after a bypass valve opened and vented steam. But project manager Matt Candy is optimistic, as the test also showed the car was producing more steam than it had in UK runs.

The record attempt requires the car complete two runs of a measured distance in opposing directions within 60 minutes, with the time averaged to obtain the official figure.