Old Looper Pipes

[rumleyfips]

I had an A looper for about a month in the late 70's. This story is not about success but about farce.

One day , out on the scrounge, I found an old A looper at a marina near Kingston Ontario ( close to Porter's museum ). No coils, no carb, seized; but it had a good A stock lower unit and steering bar. This was the time when Quincy's were no longer competitive and not yet valuable collector items. It was scrap to the marina and I bought it for $100.

I put it in my trailer box for storage and at the next race a friend saw it and said he wanted to run an alky race in Waddington NY ( his home) : would I put it together for him. Sure I said. I'm running a stock race somewhere else that weekend but I'll get it ready.

The crank was rusty so I went through my junkpile and found a Mark25 crank and reedcage. I put in new bearings and seals and opened up the cage but the rest of the inside was useable. I scrounged coils and stuff from old cars . The only carb I has was a KA7A so on it went. The thing started ( on gasoline ) first pull and scared the neigbours.

I got the engine to Waddington , complete with an 6x 9 1/4 ASH prop . Andy said he couldn't use the megaphones in town but had borrowed a set of chambers.

When I saw him a couple of weeks later I asked how it went. He said that he borrowed some fuel, it started right up, jumped on plane, felt real good, went eee and seized. " I should have asked for mixed fuel" he said.

Another friend asked me what I was going to do with the powerhead. Nothing. Well can I have it . Sure. That was the end of my looper career. Not well thought out but it featured Larry, Moe and Curley.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

That's funny. Too bad a lot of them went to the junk yard.

Hey Steve, you jogged my memory. Ted Thompson with a Konig and Bobby Olsen with a flathead were the two to beat in 1971.

[smittythewelder]

Thanks for the photo, Juby. ("ASK-uh, and yew shall RECIEVE-uh!!").

[BJuby]

Thanks for the photo, Juby. ("ASK-uh, and yew shall RECIEVE-uh!!").

No problem. Definitely a cool setup, until I saw them at Mark Sutter's AOMCI meet in person, I did not exactly see how they worked. Now I understand.

[smittythewelder]

Hey, we got photos of the motor!

Steve L. (and Champ), look at J Dub's new thread. The elbows that are mounted on the motor are the first-generation narrow-swept elbows, with no splitter inside. The exhaust ports in this motor will each have a sort of triangular divider that tapered to a sharp edge that ended about 3/8 to 1/2" short of the outside edge of the port. And Steve, I am pretty sure that you know this perfectly well, and that you and I have somehow been talking past each other . . . which does happen, alas, LOL.

[smittythewelder]

Too bad a lot of them went to the junk yard.

Wayne, any of us who have "reached a certain age," when medical disasters can strike without warning, probably should get a felt-pen and write some instructions on a big yellow sheet of paper, telling any of our survivors whom they should phone in case of our unexpected early demise, and duct-tape the note in a prominent place on the biggest of our dusty boxes of old racing gear. This stuff should never just get thrown out. Anybody who keeps old racing stuff in something like a commercial mini-storage unit should particularly do this.

[rumleyfips]

The discussion of competitive levels of different engines in the mid 60's triggered a memory. Towards the latter part of the 70's, Bill Villhauer from Ogdensburg NY bought a B alky deflector rig somewhere in Northern Quebec. Deflector engines were a legal stepdown and he wanted it to run A alky . I never saw the outfit, but it was the talk of the pits at some stock races. Apparently Bill could run near the front against some pretty stiff competition. There were 2 cylinder Koening's , 4 cylinder Koeinings, Quincys, and at least one Anzani around.There were some good names racing in Quebec at the time: Simon, Hebert, LaRose and others I forget. I heard that Bill ran pretty well in B alky at times with an engine superceded a decade earlier.

I wish now that I had seen it.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Richard Mercier and Doug Thompson are two more good ones from north of the Border.

[Steve Litzell]

yes Wayne, I was working for Teddie and Bunkie at the Bowson Boat works then, so I was a tag along for testing and was able to bring my stuff as well. Ted was real good at set ups and taught me a lot about this stuff. I then went on to Walt's for more training and then years later, off to Konig for more training. Those were great times for sure.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

I was trying to figure out which thread to post this to, and I decided this one is more about when and where, and J-Dub's FA-1 needs to be more about the restoration. So this is what I found today. This was from the May 1965 edition of PROPELLER Vol. 19 NO.5. It was the back and forth between Smitty, J-Dub and others that I started looking at those dates. Doesn't mean anything regarding when the loopers got there, but just some interesting facts and something J-Dub might be able to cue in on.