Bill Tenney's Class C Alky Twin Engine Couplers??
took apart and rebuilt 2 of least damaged of the 5 known engine couplers Bill Tenney used to couple 2 Anzani 250s to run C Alky? or D? in the NOA back sometime in the 1960s. I never seen anything like them. They again now run so smooth you can easily rotate them either direction with your thumb and forefinger doing the twisting. There is nothing inside or out indicating who or what company built these twin engine couplers though its obvious they look custom built. What is so cool about them is that you can set the twins to fire cylinders at whatever degree per multiple cylinders you divide by, right around the degree clock by gear measurement meshing points. With Anzanis there is no way to tell if he ran the twins firing each engine 180 degrees part in pairs or set them to fire alternating and firing at every 90 degrees of rotation?
What is really eye popping is the pre-cut and pre-punched for drilling 9/16 inch thick adaptor plate to fit 2 of some size of Merc 4 cylinder between 30 to 40 and 44 cubic inches as twins like the Anzani 2 bangers, but it was never drilled and finished. Eight cylinders of Merc with 8 stacks configued exhausting rearwards? Lifting an Anzani twin block C Alky is one thing! I was told by old hands that they were very heavy and went very fast. What about a 8 cylinder (twin coupled) Merc? Ouch! Class F? or old Class X?
Does anyone out there recall any information on these couplers Bill Tenney used?? Who was the daredevil NOA driver and on what?
Thanks Tim, I would appreciate good information and pictures for final assembly
In my spare time I have been overhauling the 2 coupler transmissions. I have and just dead reconing and some vague advice from some who seen or observed it that have been telling me the layout that I have to be able to mock setup the twin engine C the way it was "supposed" to be back then. Memories dim with age though. It would sure be appreciated if I could get some phone numbers and resulting some pictures copies or something similar done to do the eacting version from back in the early 1960s. I do know that I have all the parts and I have set versions together but the actual picture would setup the exact twin Anzani engine C Alky. I appreciate just how heavy the twin engine used to be.
The coupler transmissions are sure low drag, easy to turn. I wonder if Bill Tenney set the engines to fire a cylinder every 90 or 2 at each 180 degrees. Both are quite possible and would be had to tell apart because its all internal though one might think that the 90 degrees of firing one cylinder would be easier on the gearcases than a 180 setting for both Anzanis? The 180 degree firing order with 2 pistons firing at a time would sound distinctly different than 1 cylinder firing every 90.
I will be some pictures on here quite soon, its just a matter of polishing, painting, assembling but I would prefer to post it as a completed project the way it was as opposed to dead reconing imagination. I would be pleased with any knowlegeable healp and pictures you Tim or anyone else I can contact could give me.
When the twin is final assembled it already has more than 50% NOS Anzani parts and be able to start and run.
I met Dale Kaus, he almost converted me from SO racing
I remember Dale Kaus the most. Both brothers sure could drive like mad. When I met Dale it was to discuss buying his Sidcraft hydro (still got its picture with the runabout stacted over top) and getting a A or B Looper at the time but got talked out of it by alarmed locals who were into stock outboard racing only, who finally turned loose some of their multiples of 30Hs and 55Hs loose so more people couild buy a boat and drive. It was either do it or watch people cross over or loose them. I then got my first 55H and 30H and that was already into the 1970s and the KG9s and 40Hs went to new drivers getting started on student's racing budgets. I still wish I kept 1 Merc KG9, 40H and the Asburn banana D-Alky runabout. There were/are classics.
Those were the formative years alright!
From around 1963 I was E.J. Coates (deceased in 2006), a Selkirk local's pitman at 13 years of age. He was my neighbor and he was a C-Service and C-Racing enthusiast. He ran his Elto against the Merc 30Hs in their combined and his Johnson P-50 racing against the Merc 55Hs in hydro and runabout. He was an excellent hydro and runabout builder in making Ogiers copys and his Banshee series of stock runabouts that looked similar to DeSilvas that ran real well against them and some Hal Kelly designs of that era, It really blew one's mind to see Ted wacking 2nds and 1sts off with the Elto and the P-50 against the Mercs and they didn't like that much!! LOL! It was during those early 1960s that Ted took me around to meet people like Bill Tenney and a whole host of others, greats like yourself and others that raced there like Bill Seebold, Gene Minar and many many more. For all I know we probably met there too at the time. By the later 1960s I was already in D stock with a Coates built Ogier C-D hydro and a KG9(H's) for power and the rest just happened pling on more classes and newer engines by 1984. By 1971 I was taking over running the faltering MORA with a new generation of drivers, pulled her up and kept the club going locally until 1984 where after that lack of Mercury racing parts and the local will because of that saw powerboat racing stop here as well as out west in Calgary, Edmonton and even down into Montana in SO and Alky.
I remember Dave Berg. When that Anzani started it fkew. Its tragic that he died. THere used to be a Dave Berg Memorial trophy, that would be quite a keepsake of history today. Amongst the parts that I inherited there were some, a few Konig magneto parts that are still here that looked like some kind of adapters for shafts or gears but nothing that can come to even start to make another up. People think me weird just hunting down parts for those gawd awful Lucas magnetos (princes of darkness!). I wonder why Mercury ignition parts didn't find their way sooner on Anzanis than they did and those first turned up in the North West along with using OMC fuel pumps and fuel return to tank floatless systems for the Vacturis. The parts I got here included several twin and well as single DelOrto remote fuel bowls so the Vacturis could retain floats with needle and seat with the DelOrto mimicing a gravity flow unit with crankcase pressurizing the fuel tank a bit.
It was said that Selkirk when it came to Anzanis seen the most ever run at one meet and over several years. I can remember there were lots of As and Bs running with their classic crescent shaped and supported pipes. They pretty much ran everyone else down (Konigs and Mercs) until the Quincy Flatheads came along. Even the big inch guys just stared when Anzanis were practice running down the course straights, they were that fast then. The last time I ran an B Anzani there was around 1986 and the local cops were very upset. The last time Anzanis hit the water west of here in places like Calgary and Edmonton as pre 1980 so abscences were great. I ran Roger Wendt's (Montana) 2 carb hybrid Anzani (block/crankcase)/ Harrison (crankshaft & ignition (Phelon) aluminum flywheel and Harrison rope plate)/ Merc (clamps, saddle, co-pilot & Tillotson HL snowmo 2ndary carb) / Konig (connecting rods & lower unit/gearcase) and OMC (fuel pump and Vacturi primary carb) a couple of times in 1987 but its rods were pretty rickety from 40%+ nitro fuel additive loads, so it is also a museum piece. It was reputed to be one of the quickest Anzani hybrids Jim Hallum and his co-conspirators (LOL) engineered outside of their 4 carb versions that set some speeds in the 103 to 107 mph range that also showed boat lengths too short at that point too. All that before 1980 in the North West long after Selkirk and those formative 1960s that saw those engines wack into the 80+ mphs the big inchers necks twisted at! :) Those were interesting years for them. I remember your Alky Deflector Merc and Runabout when I went south to some races, it was very quick and to some unusually so with some real questions on their minds at that as to how much nitro you threw in to club out some larger engines that you did!!! To me KG9s and 40Hs on gasoline were affordable first and foremost and easier to start on gas! You guys were quite the show though, the pipes, smell and speed demoed that real good. :)