New Limited Modified Pulling Team from Luxembourg

In the last 13 years Luxembourg had two teams in the sport with the Roude Leiw Pulling Team and the Wild Star Pulling Team . From 2019 on the little country will have a third pulling team who will compete on the pulling tracks in Germany. It's the Bear Pulling Team around Frank Medinger from Contern in the middle of Luxembourg. The young team was founded in the spring of 2018. Tractor Pulling is not an unknown territory for the team, especially not for Frank Medinger. He has been visiting Tractor Pulling events as a spectator in Europe for some 30 years and knows the sport very well. Why has the team decided to build a Limited Mod Tractor with an V8 semi truck engine?

They always had in mind to build their own pulling tractor and with the new Limited Modified class in Germany it seemed possible to realize a modified tractor on a limited budget.

The hopes with the new Limited Mod are to get everything ready for the first event of the season. All major and hard to organize parts are in the workshop, now it’s all about getting everything together.

After the first parts were organized, the guys started with the construction work of the new vehicle on the computer.

The new tractor is completely designed, constructed and built in a CAD program. Frank Medinger did all the CAD and construction work on the computer.

The new tractor will get a used steel wedge frame with a newly constructed homemade 25CrMo4 rollcage, a Kirkey Racing seat from the USA, a homemade hydraulic steering, new homemade wheelie bars, and a newly constructed drawbar with a homemade sheet metal rear axle housing. The frame rails for the new mod come off the former Red Painter Modified Pulling Tractor in Cloppenburg, Germany. Also, the used aluminum sheet metal fenders for the new project came off a former Red Painter team's tractor. 

The newly built sheet metal rear axle housing will have a Rockwell / Meritor aluminium center section with a stock Rockwell differential, an original Rockwell ring and pinion gear, machined MAN / Mercedes aluminium planetary carrier housings with stock MAN / Mercedes planetaries and 4 piston Iveco brake calipers with homemade steel brake rotors. 

Also, the drivetrain of the Limited Mod will be completely new constructed. The new drivetrain will get a new 11-inch centrifugal clutch with 5 discs and a billet flywheel from Freakshow Performance in Germany, a homemade steel clutch bell housing, a self-machined steel drive shaft between the clutch and reverser and a new homemade reverser based on Eaton / Fuller parts with a CNC-milled aluminum housing. 

The first plan was to build a 3-speed gearbox configuration out of Fuller parts, which was canceled in favor of a lighter reverser only style gearbox. The team is only running one class (Limited Mod) so they will try to get the right overall gear ratio with the ring and pinion gear and the planetaries.

The Bear Pulling Team have bought for their new ride a set of good used cut Firestone Puller 2000HP tires on polished Midwest aluminum rims from the Roude Leiw Pulling Team in Luxembourg.

The new tractor called ``The Bear´´ will have an 17.2l / 1050cui Fiat 8280 V8 semi truck engine with 2 turbochargers on methanol fuel. This V8 truck engine has been and is currently used successfully by several European truck and tractor pulling teams, either on Diesel or methanol fuel. One of them is the Hvilsom Pulling Team from Hobro in Denmark with their Light Modified Tractor called ``Elkaer Metal Boy´´, who finished in runner-up position in the 2018 Euro Cup points. The Italian powerplants were also sold under the Iveco brand name, because Iveco is a subsidiary company of the Fiat group. The Fiat / Iveco 8280 engine was developed and built between 1979 and 1993 for the Fiat 300 and Iveco 330 Truck series and had an excellent reputation for robustness and reliability. On diesel fuel, the engine had a power of 352-420hp with a torque of 2050Nm at 1100rpm.
The pulling power plant will have a stock Fiat 8280 cast iron engine block with stock Fiat 8280 sleeves, a reground stock crankshaft, Fiat stock rods and machined Fiat pistons, modified 8280 cylinder heads with 4 valves per cylinder, stock valves and valve springs, the stock cam, a homemade stainless steel exhaust manifold, a homemade aluminium intake manifold with modified Fiat intake parts, 2 copies of Borg Warner S400 turbochargers with billet 88mm compressor wheels, an Enderle fuel pump, a modified Megasquirt EFI system (controlling two 2200cc injectors per cylinder), a self-built sheet metal methanol fuel tank, a modified stock oil pan, a external 3 stage oil pump, based on a hydraulic excavator pump, automotive individual ignition coils (coil near plug) and a homemade 20 channel data logger system with the possibility to communicate with the EFI system over CAN. 
The Fiat pistons are modified to reduce the engine’s compression ratio, the stock crankshaft was reground in house to have a higher main bearing clearance and the diesel injectors in the cylinder heads were replace by spark plugs. With all those changes the twin turbocharged V8 engine on methanol should make around 2500hp.
The stock camshaft will probably be one of the first parts on the power plant to be changed by the team when the tractor has made its first pulls. The original cam then be replace by a reground version or a new billet one..
Currently they have no big plans with the new Limited Mod for the future. There is a lot on the tractor, which so far only works on paper. ``If everything works and performs as expected, and we have gained enough experience, there is certainly room for improvements´´, said Frank Medinger.
The The Bear Pulling Team will compete with the new Fiat V8 turbocharged tractor in the German Championship this year
The maiden run of the new 7700lbs / 3.5t Limited Modified machine is planned for the 2nd of June 2019 in Volkmarst, Germany. 

for further information, check: http://www.the-bear.lu/

or: https://www.facebook.com/The-Bear-Modified-Pulling-Team-Luxembourg-2134670190196764/