The Harrison Racing Outboards - Legendary Birmingham Metal Products Alky Outboards

[Bill Van Steenwyk]

John:

If you are assuming that the ignition assembly pictured was originaly furnished with the Harrison engine, I am almost sure that was not the case. Not absolutely positive, but 95% sure the ignition pictured did not make its appearance until after Kay and his father were past the Anzani/Harrison adventure. I may be wrong but I don't think so. Following is my information/knowledge about the ignition pictured.

At a race in Florida in the mid to late 70's I believe, one of the Small brothers was badly injured when a self excited ignition being furnished on the Konigs had the magnet portion of the flywheel disintegrate while the motor was being started and reved on the bank. The pieces struck him in the top of the shoulder, close to the neck area as I remember and severely injured him. The PRO commission at the time had an immediate meeting to address the issue and came up with a mandated guard around the rotating parts of the ignition so as to capture or attempt to contain any loose parts, if it happened again. To the best of my knowledge it never did, or at least I never heard of another occurance, but as a result of the accident several motor manufacturers/tuners came out with guards that could be retrofitted to the ignitions already in use. This IS NOT to say the ignition pictured never was used on an Anzani or the Harrison derivitive, only that it was not, I don't believe, designed for the motor to start with. The ignition components were manufactured by Phelan I believe, and I heard were originally used on a chain saw or other small engine and were not really designed to withstand the higher RPM duty of the Konig racing engine. I have at least two if these ignitions that were used on Yamato 80's in the RB class. Each ignition module or "porkchop" as it was called fired two coils on the Konig, one each for both the top and bottom cylinders and four coils were used. Only two porkchops were needed as the top two and bottom two cylinders on the Konig fire at the same time as I am sure you are aware.

Kay of course could be the final source of information on the ignition, but as I stated previously, I believe the first time these were used was after the accident in Florida. The ignition itself was quite satisfactory, although there were some of the "porkchops" that were supposedly better for higher RPM than others. I think they had a mark of some sort on them but I don't remember now what it was.

Your photos are great and I look forward to more on these engines.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

That is a given that the Anzanis, Harrisons, Quincy Flatheads, Quincy Mercs and Konigs were all fueler type engines mean't for and built for racing where todays Super Es are race adapted Modified from stock engines still on gasoline being raced. Sure, It was an unfair comparisson. I was shooting at the time periods between and how small displacement wise these old Alkys and how high their speeds were by comparison to some of the wine bottle bores things are running today on gas and going real fast too.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The porkchop ignition may have been on a Harrison crankcase which I do not have to compare to but it would not fit the normal Anzani crankcase without some kind of adapting. What throws me is that Mercury belt drive ignitions like Fairbanks Morse FM and Mercury P4Ds were very plentiful and could have been easily adapted. That caught on in the North West USA in the late 1960s and 1970s once everyone really got tired of no parts Lucas mags or got tired of the Lucas prince of darkness period when they stripped too many bakelite gears then they realistically went to Merc belt drives right up to the Merc CDI making the engine and ignitions very reliable. What I never heard and maybe was not done was hanging the Anzani gear drive machined on Merc ignition systems shafts. The odd Konig gear drive 2 cylinder magneto did make it on to some but how widespread? Seems very few.

In the North West they got tired of pressurized fuel tanks and went over to the remote OMC fuel pumps found on 30 and up horsepower Evinrude and Johnsons versions that were and still are very good and parts plentiful even today.

[Bill Van Steenwyk]

John:

After reading my post about the ignition, and your reply, I wanted to clarify one part that may be slightly confusing. The ignition components themselves such as the flywheel, porkchops, etc., were furnished as OEM on the Konig engines of the times direct from Germany as a replacement for the previous battery, points, condenser ignition. It was after the accident previously mentioned that a large number of them were converted for safety with the aluminum guard made by Harrison so as to contain the parts in case of disentegration of the flywheel. The Konigs also were furnished from that point on with an aluminum guard from the factory, and other racers made their own of various design.

Did not mean to imply that the components themselves were not furnished on the Konig if that is what you meant.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Don't forget Bill, that someone discovered that the magneto and coils and porkchops were made in Massachusetts I think. And you are right. They were made to fit on another type of two cycle engine rather than an outboard. I was thinking chainsaw also but it could have been a snowblower or something else. I am thinking the original flywheel was full circle and Dieter cut half moons out on either side of the magnet to reduce the weight. Other than that, everything else was the same.

What happened that caused the flywheel to disentigrate and injure Tim Small was that the flywheel was modified to fit a Yamato and that left three holes on each side of the flywheel in perfect alignment with minimal spacing between each hole. As soon as the engine fired up, there was not enough meat left on the flywheel and the centrifugal force caused the heavy magnets to break off at those weak points.

It was Ray Hardy who found out for us where to buy the replacement pork chops. They were significantly cheaper when you cut out the shipping back and forth to and from Berlin, less two middlemen, less exchange rate (which the dollar VS D-Mark was not good then), less tariffs.

I have an extra guard made by Harrison along with coils and I think porkchops that came with my old D motor that I bought. I'll dig them out and see if I can find any clues. I'm thinking all this new ignition started popping up around 1978.

[Original Looper 1]

Wayne & Bill,

I think the porkchop flywheel coils you are referring to originally came on a Poulan chainsaw. It was made by Phelon in Lomira, WI. The part # I have for my extras is 10436SOA, which has the red ignition ground wire for which I was told insures it is a higher RPM capacity coil. They are getting extremely difficult to find since they are no longer manufactured, but some are still out there in parts inventories if you take the time to do some searching.

thanks,

Paul A Christner

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The two posts clarifies things a lot. Because Lucas mangnetos are very scarce and hard to come by for the Anzani and Harrison made ones for what I want to do here I have obtained a number of Fairbanks Morse FMs. In discussions with Steven Roskowski it seems the easiest way to go to get some of the original look to them I am going to try to adapt a belt cog under the flywheel and run the Mercury belt drive to the magneto and just ground out 2 of the spark discharge wires to ground and use the other 2 to sparkplugs and use them that way. The FM mags bear some resemblence to the Lucas but are one lot more hardy, uncomplicated and reliable. I was thinking of re-machining the output shaft of the FM mag to accept the Anzani gear drive but I am not sure you can spin the FM magneto in reverse to what the belt drive would do successfully as it seems that is not the design of that FM magento to spin backwards and work any good? When a Lucas magneto spins on a gear it spins opposite to what a belt system does. But the Lucas magneto was designed that way which is opposite to a Mercury FM or P4D magneto. Its all a tongue twister.

[Mike Schmidt]

The Harrison Igniton in the photo was built to fit the Yamato 350-500 motors. In the early to mid 80's Kay was very heavy in to Yamato's. His casting and they bought the igniton parts form Phelon, just like Konig. When Kay went to Motoplat on all his engines, I bought all the castings and parts for use on customers Konigs. There are several Harrison ignitons around that have been welded up and machined to clear the Konig belt drive.

Lodite is the name of the foundry that did all Kay's castings.

Harrison engine # 001 is still owned by the original buyer and not for sale.

Michael D-1

[David Weaver]

The Harrison Igniton in the photo was built to fit the Yamato 350-500 motors. In the early to mid 80's Kay was very heavy in to Yamato's. His casting and they bought the igniton parts form Phelon, just like Konig. When Kay went to Motoplat on all his engines, I bought all the castings and parts for use on customers Konigs. There are several Harrison ignitons around that have been welded up and machined to clear the Konig belt drive.

Lodite is the name of the foundry that did all Kay's castings.

Harrison engine # 001 is still owned by the original buyer and not for sale.

Michael D-1

Following up on Mike's quote, the first yar that I went to Constantine Kay lost a fly wheel while testing a 350 or a 500. It stopped near our pit space in the water. I walked out, picked-it up and returned it to Kay. The photo above could have been taken at this same race, as it appears that the fly wheel left this crank.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

This picture was taken right here a day or 2 ago and sure it does look like something Alky Konig or Yamato that lifted and broke away. It came to me as part of a package with Anzani and Harrison components. I thought it was Konig or something familiar right away but you know the way racers are, they are the mothers of invention when the need suits them. They will try anything at least once.

If anything it will make a nice framed wallhanger behind them as a backdrop when the A and B Harrisons are reconstructed/restored here.