Ques. on very old Konigs

[Seagull 170]

I have one exactly the same as these pictures, deflector, crankcase stamped 322, no signs of extra holes under tie bar, single carb, there are pictures on here from 2009 see thread "Konig - know what this is?" .

[Steve Litzell]

Gene, My feet hit the floor for work @ 3:30AM, at my work by 4:30, Just like you when you worked. Smitty the first that i know of B was around 52 I think. The B motor was the first Modular motor as it was made from two 175 motors. It later because of the crank design that Wolfgang spoke of, made the three cylinder as well. With the way the centers were cut, much like the Yamaha Rd motors, you could index the crank for any size and literally make a motor as long as you wanted to. As a Racer, it is very rare to find a race motor in factory condition. A fellow a couple of years ago, contacted me about a new B motor that he bought back in 56. He lost the exhausts and I gave him a pair with the understanding, that if he ever wanted to sell it, he would give me first call. This thing still was in the wood crate from OverSeas Dealers and Konig. needless to say, this low life sold it without even contacting me. At least he could of offered to pay me for the NOS exhausts, but that's life I guess. Any way motors that are used for racing go through constant change in up dates or mechanics
wishes. I was lucky enough to get a unmolested C motor a few years back, and it is one of my pride and joy's. Even the test six cylinder I have has been changed from what the Konig factory made and it was never raced, but used to research for the 850 class. As I said earlier, The B and the C were offered for sale when the 4 cylinder motors hit the market. Same for the Fa and Va. Konig never threw anything away he just reused or made it work for a test idea. I have also a two cylinder test motor from Konig that was used to test opposed over alternate fire motors. The last motor that Dieter made was a square bore and stroke four cylinder A motor. Dan Kirts had/has the first production type, but the first one was a bad B that was made into a A, and the crankshaft discs were cut and welded together to change the stroke. This motor was tested and raced and was the motor Dieters son Peter won a 0250 World title with. It was great times at factory seeing and doing this kind of stuff. Steve

[Steve Litzell]

I Forgot to Add: only the A and B motors had Bosch Mags. The FC and FD had SEM mags as they were better. I use a old SeM mag on my welding bench to start my torch up with.
Add:Another type of mag used on the stock motors and racing was the flywheel mag. These were marginal at best so then cam the Bosch

[Bill Van Steenwyk]

In Steve Litzell's post #32, he mentions the design of the first modular motor.

I had the opportunity to see the A, B, and C version of this motor run at the LR Boat Club in about 1957-59 time frame. Dieter came to the US (believe it was the first trip) to demo his motors. The first race he came to was at our Club on Old River Lake at Scott, Ark., and this is the motor (design) that he brought. Do not remember now whether he brought his own boat or not, but I distinctly remember him adding cylinders, up to three, to start with an A, and then one more for a B, and a final one for a C. He cleaned house and won every heat he ran that day, even though that was his first experience with a clock start. I remember one heat in was in the first turn when the boats crossed the starting line and he won that one also. He would start a half lap behind sometimes and pass everything on the course. I do not know who was with him at our race, but assume it may have been Scott Smith, as I know he had some help. The next weekend he went to a race in Memphis and had the same kind of performance. The last race of the day was the "Free-for-All" which included several inboard runabouts of the Century/ChrisCraft type with big OHV V-8's, and he blew them off too. The other alky motors he competed against were KR's, SR's, PR's, and 4-60's.

I always thought I was very fortunate to see that 1st visit and the performance of the motors he introduced. By the way, the sanctioning body was NOA which was always much easier to get along with introducing new motors than APBA.

[smittythewelder]

Shoot, I knew about the SEM magneto, but forgot. Lee Sutter used to use a SEM on his FA, as I recall. He was, I believe, a buddy of Bob Rautenburg, who was a local Konig dealer in the late '50s-early 60's, and maybe that's where he got a SEM mag.

The year I was particularly curious about was the start of production for the F-series twins.

Also, are you telling us that a factory-stock 1956 deflector B alky Konig had megaphones? I know I've never seen a photo of the C triple of that time that shows anything but open exhaust ports . . .

I have to disagree with you about the flywheel mag. As long as you kept the points clean (very important because of the low current through the points with this type of mag) and your upper crank seal was good and not spewing an oily vapor, that mag worked fine at least by the standards of the day, and was simple and ran and ran, with no phenolic gear teeth to shred.

I think there was a story about that (or another) US visit by Dieter in the 1957 Boat Sport issue I referred to above (I should find that thing and have someone scan a bunch of it and post it here). Are you sure about that modular A motor, Bill? The triple was 30 cu. in., the twin was 20 cu. in., and the single was . . . see what I mean?

[wolfgang]

Phil - you are forgiven.
Like I said, I am by no means a Koenig specialist and just feeling (with the kind help from all partaking in this thread) around what my buddy and I found in his treasure chest.
Can perhaps any of you give me a hint how to insert on this website PFDs as attachments. Checking out the above, it appears I can insert photos, but not opened PFDs?
FWIW, I bought a pre-owned 19ft STV on Sunday and may have an original (hopefully restorable) Mercury Mod VP at my hands. Might as well go back into local racing (next year), while I am still fit enough.

[Bill Van Steenwyk]

Smitty:

I understand your confusion about the Modular motor that was run at the race I referenced in LR, but I stand by what I said.

Either the single cyl A he ran was a full A displacement size, and then that cyl was put aside and a different one substituted in building the B & C, or he ran only 2/3rd's the size in A class.

I did not witness the first version of the motor, prior to running that day, but after hearing that he was then just going to add another cyl and run B, I along with others visited his pit area to look at what he was doing. I do not remember now almost 60 years after the fact whether the one cyl motor he ran in A was only 10 CI, but as bad as he outran everything else that day, it would not surprise me.

Pop Smith used to inspect some of our races in that time frame, and if he was there, I am sure everything was on the up and up, no matter the displacement of the first cyl used in the A race.

Also I did not mean to imply, by omission, that there were not Modified Mercs competing as there were. This was of course prior to the "Loopers" and they were deflectors, but they were not far along in their development and were not winning that much yet. Most of the Mercs had only the open exhaust and a Quicksilver lower unit, and the majority of them were not true Mercs, but Wizards from Western Auto, at least in our area.

[hydroplay]

Shoot, I knew about the SEM magneto, but forgot. Lee Sutter used to use a SEM on his FA, as I recall. He was, I believe, a buddy of Bob Rautenburg, who was a local Konig dealer in the late '50s-early 60's, and maybe that's where he got a SEM mag. The year I was particularly curious about was the start of production for the F-series twins. Also, are you telling us that a factory-stock 1956 deflector B alky Konig had megaphones? I know I've never seen a photo of the C triple of that time that shows anything but open exhaust ports . . .

I have to disagree with you about the flywheel mag. As long as you kept the points clean (and your upper crank seal was good) it worked fine at least by the standards of the day, and was simple and ran and ran, with no phenolic gear teeth to shred.

I remember as a kid going to a race on Lake Mendota or Monona in Madison W I and smelling the horrid smell from someone burning the teeth off one of those phenolic gears!