Triple Carb 250 Opposed Twin
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Mark Suter
Eric, as far as I know, the 250 opposed is a Konig-built motor. Ed Thirlby told me it was raced by a guy named Harry Hardin out of Port Huron, MI. It has what appears to be a factory serial number on it (RA7080). The crankcase looks like it has been modified to mount 3 carbs in place of two but otherwise looks like it was designed and manufactured for the 250 application. Ed said it was not a very smooth running motor but it was very competitive. I bought it from a collector in Michigan who got it from Dale Robertson. Dale said it never was very competitive. With these two conflicting stories, I am not sure what the real story is on its performance. The pipes are fixed (not sliders).
I tracked down Harry Harden (who is from Linden, MI) and got the real story on this motor. Harry built it himself largely from available Konig parts in 1968 or 1969. Although he had ignition problems early on (hence the high speed miss that Ed Thirlby remembers), it was significantly faster than the Konig alternate firing twins at that time. Harry said he won a lot of races with that one-off motor... particularly after he changed coils and fixed the misfire issue. Apparently he got Deiter's attention because Deiter reportedly did follow up and build some opposed twin A motors. Although the serial number looks somewhat like a factory number and implies that it was a 1970 build, the number was "fabricated" by Harry only because NOA required that each motor be numbered.