British Anzani A & B Stock & Alky Racing Engines

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Some bigger pictures to give the efforts a bit more visual justice for readers.

BMPs are not a great format for larger picts.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Whilst sitting here in below zero weather I made another call to Jim Hallum concerning multi-carb (4) carb Anzani loop charged engines and how they set up. Whether it was an A or B Alky version the descritpion of how they got them going in stages of carburation to get them into the 90mph and the 100mph ranges respectively.

From what is understood the single carb port operating the Vacturi between 2 cylinders of transfers plus a rotary valve window port in effect caused the air / fuel flow from the single carb to be split 3 ways with a lot of pulsing and somewhat of a delay at the crank rotary valve window. To overcome this a single HL Tillotson was positioned on the crankcase in front of the Vacturi large bore carb by boring a crankcase port opposite the rotary valve window which took away from 3 streams of flow through the Vacturi to just 2, that is feeding each intake piston port controlled by the pistons skirts. It was then found that mounting 2 more Tillotson HL carbs on reed valve blocks on each crankcase half isolated the Vacturi even more allowing these carbs to provide bottom end for getting on plane before the rotary valve parked over Tillotson HL was cut in bring these engines into the 80+ mile per hour range at which point the Vacturi carb was finally opened that then boosted the class A 250CC engines over 90 miles per hour and the 322CC class B engines over 100 miles per hour and that icing on the cake as a matter of speaking. This equated into 4 separate air-fuel streams at work as per carb numbers at their venturis by carb numnes only but actually 5 streams were actually functional (2 split under the Vacturi to make the actual 5 divided air-fuel streams) when these engines were exceeding 9,000+ rpm on their way to speed records over 90 and 100mph respectively. Jim mentioned that this was during the period where they were using nitromethane percentages of 40% to 45% within the methanol and racing caster oil fuel mix. I asked if they ever did this with a 350CC Anzani as a base block to which Jim responded he had never seen a full 350 block and didn't know the story as to why the engine was restricted to 322CCs and would sure had been interesting to see what the extra CCs to 350CCs would have produced. This was also how they worked these engines using nitromethane as a bottom end power developer that the crankshaft could handle as opposed to using expansion chambers which supercharged the engine via the exhaust port return pulses that the crankshaft could not take without twisting out of phase.

Concerning the flat disk test wheels Bill Tenney invented that Jim Hallum, Ron Anderson and others developed further and were put into use, evidently there was a formula to do with their construction details where at a given rpm and other known factors in use the horsepower output of an Anzani could be determined mathematically fairly accurately without a dynomometer. With an 8 odd inch flat test wheel with its power hold down characteristics Anzanis would still rev into the 9,000+ rpms ranges which translated into 65+ horsepower (4+ horsepower per cubic inch) or more depending if it was a 250cc or 322cc. This is not too shabby for an engine brand that as a stocker running on gasoline and oil started out developing only about 15 horsepower then back in the early 1950s to set records into the 90 and 100 mile ranges by the late 1960s at rpms not envisioned by the makers of the engine originally at source at the time. It was not too long after that when Konig 4 cylinder 250 and 350 (loop charged) engines turned up where using the same test wheels the Anzanis used, the Konigs started pulling 10,500+ rpms and started attacking Anzani (and Harrison) records no different than the Quincy Flatheads (loop charged) were as well. By the time Konigs and Quincy Flathead loop engines started attacking Anzani and its cousin the Harrison's records Anzani had been a leader in loop charged engines since 1952 proving the techology and triggering the entire 2 stroke engine industry in that general direction in result to go loop charged too.

[Sam La Banco]

John, as it appears that you are the resident Anzani expert.

I may have something you may be interested in.

I have an envelope sent to Bill Tenney from APBA dated 1954 with factory blue prints from the Anzani factory with Anzani motor spec's for all their motors, sent for submission I presume.

Well for that matter there is OMC and Konig submissions in there also.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Sam:

No, Sam, I am just one of a few (about 4 of us worldwide) that have the enthusiasm to pursue getting the information on these engines here on BRF for historical significance and view. My exposure to these engines was in my teens when I was a beginning stock outboard racer (DSH) in the mid 1960s and met Bill Tenney off and on through my neighbor Ted Coates in the early 1960s when I was his pitman. I didn't get my own Anzanis and their hybrids from Calgary's Gene Strain and Montana's Roger Wendt until the mid and later 1970s and only got to run them exhibition at that as they had already generally stopped being used for racing anymore by that period. When I did obtain the remainder of Mark 2 Anzani engines and parts that did not perish in the 1967 fire at Tenney's back in the mid 1990s after his death there was no paperwork on any of them to go by, just pictures I had and others had to help me out restoring them.

I would be pleased if I could get a copy of your documentation or originals I that I would return to you as I have a half page size HP scanner (18 inch x 24 inch) to digitize such larger documents and that way they could be setup afterward here on BRF for view for all to see. That would sure be one welcome addition. What do you say for your contribution to the Anzani pages as they would be as a courtesy from you doing so on how they are donated and formatted on this website? If your able to do all that yourself too that would also be wonderful. What do you say?

I would sure like a copy too just to give me some more guidance on how they were described/built.

[Sam La Banco]

John, I have no way to scan documents this large, I believe they are about
11" x 17" , "B" size as they say in engineering departments.

All I need is an address to send them to you.

[Mark75H]

I can scan them and distribute to all

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Sam LaBanco:

I have the big scanner to do those no problem. I can put them all into downloadable format on to a server so anyone else can have a free copy too as well as post them here in a decent size with you creditted as the contributor.

I will return all them to you quickly as soon as done which means a real fast turnaround time anyway.

Mail them to:

John Taylor
111 Reay Crescent
Winnipeg, Manitoba
Canada R2K 3R2

Telephone (24hrs): 1-204-667-3815
Email is: catwerx@hotmail.com

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Enjoying that winter vacation from the UK, BRF's "Twister" and Florida's "RC" have been having some cool times getting a restored older British Anzani class B stock racing engine of Twister's going on RC's B Runabout with RC handling the on-water testing and driving chores. They both attended a Northern Florida Antique Outboard meet where with another raceboat from another participant were the only race entries at the event. From all accounts the Anzani with its wrap around to water level exhaust made enough noise to give everyone the correct impression that it was a racing engine of some stature churning up the water. They tried various props until finally RC's battery went dead on the flywheel nut starter so the rest of the activities at the meet were then relegated to the beach. Being that this may very well be the first video and sound of an Anzani stock racer running for quite a long time hopefully the video with sound can be posted when finally editted on BRF and Youtube for all to see. I am sure some stills can be pulled off of it as well for pictures with some more stories on the effort.

Look forward to it and thanks again to Rod Champkin and RC Hawie for all the effort involved here even if it is only for a few great minutes of our future viewing pleasure later on.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

I did some fast checking on any leads as to who might have run an A or B Stock Anzani racing engine in times past. It turns out so far that there has not been a single Anzani stock racer of A or B size run in North America in virtually decades until Twister and RC did it 2 weekends at RC's place and then on water at the anitique outboard meet just past.

The last time I started and ran a 322cc Anzani Alky version was a single carb version some 12 years ago in St. George, Manitoba, Canada where with the open pipes their town council was ready to lynch me, ban me from the boat launch and other related and assorted punishments for the horrible racket but the old folks at the seniors home just loved it saying they hadn't heard sounds from a raceboat like that since outboard racing was last run in the area back in the early 1970s. Must have been the half dozen or so 20Hs we still had running then making that racket back then as it was a stock club until 1983 here and stopped running by 1984 completely.

[smittythewelder]

Hi, John, and all. I think Sam's right, although I first saw any of this in '65. I THINK the first Anzani bounce pipes out here were on Walin's B, at Lake Lawrence in Sept., '68. These were a more modern shape than the skinny ones on Konig's A motors of the mid-'60s, though I don't THINK they had the straight section in the middle yet, and were probably very peaky. Since Hallum decided to leave the powerhead with the sparkplugs pointing aft, he had to fabricate curving "ram's-horns" (as seen on bighorn sheep). Funny you should be talking about this now, because I just phoned Jim two or three days ago and asked him how he formed those pipes, since I have to form similar shapes for a non-racing project.

The ram's horns were made in a bunch of short sections, maybe 2 1/2 to 3" centerline length. Jim started with various tube sizes and radiuses of standard auto exhaust U-bends. He'd cut a piece of the desired shape, cut four pie-shaped notches out of it (to make the pipe's taper), form the shape to close up the notches, and gas-weld. I should have asked what he formed them over or against! Anyway, it was beautiful work, a LOT of beautiful work!

I forget whether the initial pipes had valves or not, but at least very soon Jim had made a pattern and had somebody make aluminum castings that housed a butterfly valve, driver-actuated. These bolted to the block over each exhaust port, and four pipes plugged into them, two ram's horn bounce-pipes, and two old-style slow-taper megaphones, which pointed straight back. The idea was that with a big Yelm prop or Delake prop bogging the engine down, Walin (sometimes Sutter) would use the megaphones to get on plane and revved up, and then pull the lever to switch to bounce pipes. Walin was also controlling mixture at the Vacturi by this date, although he probably was still contending with the Lucas mag for another year or so.

It was quickly determined that in this operation the megaphones were unneeded or worse, so they were discarded, and the process of getting on plane was done with effectively open ports. I THINK these were 4-carb engines, and had been since '67. Anyway, Walin ran this combination for two or three years, and once the Mercury electronic ignition became part of the package, this engine became admirably reliable, and answered old complaints about Anzanis. Eventually the Konigs showing up at the Nationals were just too fast, so Walin bought a new one. Hallum got it apart, was dismayed by some of the slack tolerances, went through it and hopped it up, and the engine went on to win two BOH Nationals in a row, once for Walin, with his Marchetti copy, and the next year with Dick Rautenburg in a Karelsen, after Walin had got hurt with the Starflite V.

Ron Anderson was doing similar things, but after making a set of the ram's horn pipes he must have decided that there wasn't time enough in life to do any pipe experiments when they were so hard to fabricate. So he turned the powerhead around, plugs foreward, and made curved elbows running into easy-to-make straight bounce pipes. This also made it possible to slide the pipes. Shortly thereafter, Ron moved to the Midwest, and I don't now what luck he had running the old Anzani against all the fast Midwest equipment. See if you can get Sutter to inform you on this, and all the rest, since he knows far more about it than I. Lee had the first or one of the very first Anzanis to run out here and run fast. And he ran this high-powered, top-heavy, cast iron monster on little BU Foti runabouts which most guys thought were a handful as stockers! Phenomenal driver!

John, I still have some old junk to ship, must build a sturdy box when I have time and ambition.