British Anzani A & B Stock & Alky Racing Engines

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

You kind of find a first for everything! Another enthusiast doing a racing Anzani restoration asked me if I have any spare Anzani rope plates that came of cast aluminum. I looked expecting to find something with the marque but came up with one that has nothing on it and in a way looks like the top off an older Konig rope plate but clearly this one fit Anzani flywheels to a "T"! Does anyone have any idea how much older this style of rope plate is? So far the Mark 1 and Mark 2 Anzanis I seen have embossed in the casting British Anzani marqued rope plate. Maybe off another model?? A picture will follow shortly to help with a possible more accurate ID.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Jack Hollingsworth was never a racer but he did get to know a quite bit about Bill Tenney through the years. This letter about Bill Tenney is a precious look at how others saw him, Bill Tenney, the engineer character and all from a unique perspective in those heady years of rapid technological development stretching from WWII into the introduction of the Anzani racing engines into the North American racing scene. It all a very candid look indeed. To me Jack Hollingsworth's view is a historical keepsake that all should read and share.

As pasted with some minor editing and additions:

Mr Taylor:

I was playing around on the computer and trying to find some information on Bill Tenney. I stumbled on your comments on Bill and the Anzani along with your email address. I met Bill in 1944 at Albuquerque where he was a Buck Sergeant in the Air Corps at Kirtland Field. I was an OLT, qualified for cadets but waiting for preflight. I was actually a glorified buck private as were a number of others recently sent to Kirtland.

Bill was in charge of the maintaince for the Homelight APU units and the Stewart- Warner gasoline powered heaters installed on the B-24's used for pilot training. Bill was a great person to work for and work with. His knowlege of the twocycle engine was obvious but not expressed except when questioned or when he had to prevent a problem.

I got to know him pretty well and we spoke of some things of mutual interest, primarily model aircraft planes and engines. He told me he and a friend had developed a fuel mixture which they had sold before the war. He also said he had an engine design which he planned to build after the war but said he could not say more because it wasn't patented.

Bill also was working on a coaster wagon mounted device with some heavy iron coils and electrical wiring and instruments. When I asked him what it was he said it was intended to be used to test all the electrical circuitry on the B-24 on site, without the necessity of bringing the plane into the hangar. A short time later he was sent to Wright-Patterson Field in Dayton. He came back about a week later and said he was being transferred to Dayton for development of the device and that was the last I saw of him during the war.

Sometime in the early 1950's I saw a write up in Model Airplane News on the Dynajet Readhead pulse jet model aircraft engine with a picture of Bill, the designer, and a reference to the Aeromarine Company.,
I wrote Bill and asked him what happened to the B-24 test unit. He said the Air Corps, in all its wisdom, placed him as engineer in charge but with no assignment of authority. They then assigned a number of officers to the project. After about six months, and the addition of a number modifications, the unit had to be mounted on a concrete base to prevent vibration from affecting the sensitive instruments added. This destroyed the original intent and Bill managed to get relieved of the project and was discharged, still a Buck Sergeant.

The Aeromarine name meant nothing to me until I saw a write-up in an outboard magazine in about 1959 on the Anzani engine and Bill's name as the American distributor. I was living in Bloomington, IL at the time and a race was scheduled at Springfield for a short time later. I went to the races and saw Bill for the first time since 1944. It was not until the article on the Anzani that I knew he was associated with outboard racing. He was giving the Mercury and Konig's fits. I also remember his white coveralls with red lettering saying "I have not stepped down to a Mercury"., contrary to a very similar whit coverall being worn by the Keikhaufer people.


Bill told me he had just recently stopped as a race driver. When asked why he said he had backed off on the throttle in a turn which he had never done before so he decided it was time to quit.

A couple of years later I met another outboard racer from Alabama whose name I no longer remember. I asked him if he knew Bill and he said yes. I told him of Bill'scomment about quitting. He said Bill was honest with me, that he had learned to race trying to follow Bill around the coarse and it was impossible because Bill never backed off.

I saw Bill about a week or so after the Springfield race at a race at Minden, LA, I had a business trip to Texas and it was on my way. I again enjoyed my visit with Bill but never saw him again. I did keep up with him for a while through the magazine articles. I remember his driver, a young fellow named (Dave) Berg, I believe, was killed in a race accident not long after the Minden race. I think that (Dave) Berg and Bill's step daughter were sweethearts at that time.

Bill must have been about 80 when he died. I am now 82 and feel tht Bill was about ten years older than I. To me Bill Tenney was one of the more interesting people I have ever known He was accomplished enough to have been justifiably impressed with himself but he was confident enough to know he didn't have to be.

I read enough comments in what you said that I am sure you have the same feelings from having known and working with Bill. I am glad that he passed on his Anzani material to you. I was also not surprized that the unique model (Anzani twin block Alky C ) was removed from service and "vanished". It seems like something Bill would have done for reasons of his own.

by Jack H Hollingsworth
Oklamhoma City, OK, USA

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The following picture contributed from overseas UK member , Rod Champkin is a NOS (new) British Anzani Silver Arrow Mark 2 variant from the later 1960s.

Earlier Mark 2s had a wedge shaped flatsided cigar/torpedo front with bottom of the front under the cigar deep water pickup that was very slim, one of the slimest gearcases very built. This newer variant does not have the chisel nose and the water pickup was moved higher just above the nosecone. The softer grade of aluminum these gearcases were made to polish up to near chrome sheen.

These Mark2 Silverarrown gearcases came in 1 gear ratios for course work, one to one and a two tooth differential underdrive for faster accelleration swinging a larger prop. Gear and shafts were built together with leaving the ability to do fast changeout repairs with just a scewdriver and a very small cone wrench to take apart, put together and set clearances. The casting had a lubricant resevour cast into the major housing that held almost 6 ounces of oil that circulates to keep the gears, shafts and bearings well lubricated.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The amount of experimentation that went into Anzani pistons and their relationships to transfer ports was always a hot topic amongst Anzani developers.

The following picture was contributed from UK member, Rod Champkin. Pictured is an Anzani racing outboard with huge windows for transfer ports in relation to the original stock configuration versions so much smaller in the picture.

It has been long known that increasing intake overlap produced more power in 250cc, 322cc and 348cc Anzanis be their running methanol or gasoline. The North American approach has been generally to knotch the bottom of the piston skirt base to increase intake overlap at the crankcase to carb piston port opening instead of the transfer port openings. This decreased intake pulsations of the air/fuel stream resulting in a faster moving column of air/fuel into the crankcase increasing engine power significantly. The amount of piston skirt cutback at the port for 250CC engines was about 1/8th of an inch and on the 322CC engines was about 1/4 of an inch.

clearly developers like Bill Tenney and Jim Hallum for instance had a different approach to get to the same place. The engine pictured as done by a Mr. Harrison one of the last engineers of British Anzani itself in the UK done about the same time in history the USA engine developers took a different approach to the same thing, increasing the engines breathing and therefore its power.

*Note: Another open top cap bearing combined with a oilite bronze bushing, that makes 4 to count so far! They seemed pretty common at one time.

[Donald]

I am pretty sure the man from Alabama that Jack Hollingworth was talking about was Dub Parker. Dub and I were at the NOA nationals in McAlester, Ok. in 1958, and I believe it was Tenney's last race, certainly his last season. Dub and Tenney were both runing PRs, and Dub wanted to beat him so bad. Dub got out front, but I guess he leaned it out too much, and stuck it. Tenney went on to win. Tenney also ran in B hydro with the Anzani, but finished second to Wally Adams, who had Walt Blankenstein's new design pipes. Dub also ran and won B runabout with the new pipes.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

By 1958 they were trying to run some kind of different new design of pipes that were not the standard looking crescent shaped bells seen on Anzanis up to then??

Could you offer some more insight as to these new design pipes you saw?

From what I understand so far, primitive expansion chamber pipes were in their infancy in the 1960s but there was a set of "shifter" type 4 pipe system that were being tried and run earlier. The shifter type pipes had a single inlet with a gate that would shift gas flow from the exhaust port from one type of racing pipe to another on a branch out. That system would appear as a large crescent shaped exhaust but with 4 pipes instead of the two. Back in the earlier pages there are pictures of the branched shifter type Anzani exhaust system to look at if it helps you recollect?

[Mark75H]

I bet the 4 outlet meg/expansion chamber pipes were made much later

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

I wish Smitty as around he was there in the beginning too, he could give a lot of insight. Jim Hallum spoke with Bill Tenney a lot on engine development back in the 1960s. Jim Hallum like Smitty referred to the early expansion chambers as bounce pipes. In the USA Nortwest no different than in the midwest where Tenney was, they both tried combined pipes, that is a megaphone per side with an expansion chamber next to it. It was all terribly heavy by all accounts. Tim Chance recalled seeing Dick Hopenrath using a branched system like that too in midwestern USA races but could not recall what pipe combinations. Jim Hallum explained that the expansion chambers could not be proceeded with because of their supercharging effects bent/moved the piece together Anzani crankshafts out of phase and they were also very hard on the rods making the small ends droop, so they stuck to megaphones and nitro percentages to accomplish what they were doing they could control as opposed to expansion chambers that were not that well understood at that point in time.

There is an Anzani in the works here that will have that shifter system on it but that will only be for show, it would be impossible to replace them if any part got lost now through attempted use.

[twister]

The following picture contributed from overseas UK member , Rod Champkin is a NOS (new) British Anzani Silver Arrow Mark 2 variant from the later 1960s.

Earlier Mark 2s had a wedge shaped flatsided cigar/torpedo front with bottom of the front under the cigar deep water pickup that was very slim, one of the slimest gearcases very built. This newer variant does not have the chisel nose and the water pickup was moved higher just above the nosecone. The softer grade of aluminum these gearcases were made to polish up to near chrome sheen.

Just to add to John's comments above, my thought is that this motor more likely dates from the mid-late 50s rather than 60s. This Silver Arrow gearbox is Mk II throughout except for the nosecone, which is pointy rather than chisel-shaped; the water intake is below, as for Mk II. The motor I'm working on appears to be a sort of Mk I-1/2, with various mods that may have been experimental. It was the personal property of Charles Harrison, owner of British Anzani and designer of the Silver Arrow gearbox and then the racing engine itself as a development of the service Unitwin.

Rod

[twister]

.....
The following picture was contributed from UK member, Rod Champkin. Pictured is an Anzani racing outboard with huge windows for transfer ports in relation to the original stock configuration versions so much smaller in the picture.

.....

*Note: Another open top cap bearing combined with a oilite bronze bushing, that makes 4 to count so far! They seemed pretty common at one time.

This isn't in fact a plain bearing (which was a feature of the Mk I crankcases?) - it's a ball bearing stuffed with grease! I guess shielded bearings weren't so readily available then...

The one-off nature of the bearing carrier adds weight to my theory that this engine was being experimented on by Charles Harrison.

Rod