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Thread: James Diedrich Hallum, 5/18/32 - 7/19/16

  1. #31
    Team Member OldRJexSea's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ron Hill View Post
    At the APBA Nationals, 1956, I think, Lowell Haberman had an Anzani and Eric Molinar drove it. Very unreliable at the time.

    When I saw Jerry Walin "The Phantom" run at the kilos, Modesto, 1963, was the first time I thought those motors migh have some potential. Jerry went like a hundred in a 350....
    Ron; Modesto was quite an attraction back then for the Seattle area folks who were fast enough to try for records. Held early each year, maybe Feb. - March, gave another chance to make the books after DeLake in Sept. The drive was torturous if there was not time off from work. About 600 miles & a patchwork of short early freeway segments. I rode along to Modesto as pit help with someone about then, might have been Entrop but that is really a guess. There were a few rigs from Seattle. Walin was running strong in hydro & runabout too, had a newer hydro hull but not yet the final 100 mph record hull. That weekend had both a long record course and the kilo trials. Gerry ran runabout the first course race heat in the morning which was bothered by wind chop & rollers. It was not long before the day's event was canceled by strong wind. I think the kilo trials were set for early the next two mornings. A few began to set up their rigs but suddenly it was as windy as the previous day and forecast to continue so the Seattle folks had to just pack up and roll home. The one big take-home item was bags of fresh Almonds from roadside sales stands. Most of us had never munched Almonds that were not roasted, salted, and from a can.

    I think it was later that same year or the following year that the Western Outboard Divisionals were run on Lake Merced in San Francisco. A small batch of Seattle drivers figured out how to stuff all sorts of boats onto one big trailer and camper pickup truck (which I think also had a runabout racked on top). Might have been Charles Walter's rig. I rode along as pit guy again, had time. Non stop, driver swap-out grind starting Thursday late afternoon. Truck differential began failing at Mt. Shasta and we made it to an auto wrecking yard on the outskirts of Redding. Lucky that they had a differential but it was geared for an automatic trans. That truck had a differential type that allowed an exchange without gear mating adjustment. Was lucky on that too. Laying on the boiling hot black pavement, wrenching on a still hot differential housing caused a sort of bucket brigade effect. Slide under on the cardboard heat shield, wrench until you couldn't take the burn, hand the tools to the next guy in line as a wet towel went on your back. Rolled the rest of the way to S.F. in second & third gear, (4th downhill), and then back to Seattle. Arrived back Monday morning just in time to drop off one or both Anderson's (someone ?) at their Boeing jobs. Lee Sutter was living in Hayward, CA at the time so there was a little extra fun after some pretty good racing.
    R.R.
    P.S..... Doing a little arithmetic to get the years better set. Those San Francisco Western Divisionals would have been some years after 1963 if we dropped the Anderson's off at Boeing jobs on Monday morning because first we need to let them finish their U of Washington studies which began sometime after 1960.
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  2. #32
    Administrator Ron Hill's Avatar
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    Default Good Story (s)

    From 1963 til 1967, I went to the Modesto (Bud David Kilos) and we broke one record in '63. Wallin may have broke one, but we got "Blown out" until 1967. I broke three records that day driving for Harry Bartolomei....Then, I ran the kilos in 1977 and set the 35 SS H and 35 SS R records...and came close in DSH. I had to average 80 MPH for the record, down wind, we'd go almost 81...up wind, I'd almost blow over. Just before dark they let me have three more tries...Modesto Reservoir was fast water, but usually had lots on wind in the spring.

    These are the record certificates we got from UIM in those days.
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  3. #33
    Team Member OldRJexSea's Avatar
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    Default Modesto Cert's.

    Ron; Nice UIM record certificates. Certainly worth a place behind glass in a frame for a wall display somewhere.
    I think that the Seattle folks became mostly too wary of the Modesto winds to chance the long drive later that decade and maybe longer.
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  4. #34
    Administrator Ron Hill's Avatar
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    Default Times Change, Modesto Reservoir Rules Changed

    Quote Originally Posted by OldRJexSea View Post
    Ron; Nice UIM record certificates. Certainly worth a place behind glass in a frame for a wall display somewhere.
    I think that the Seattle folks became mostly too wary of the Modesto winds to chance the long drive later that decade and maybe longer.
    Even though the Kilos were always before boating season started, the board of Supervisors ruled that the reservoir could not be 100% closed to the public.

    So, one person on a Jet Ski, kept 100 boats off the lake. Hotels, restaurants, gas stations lost business, but the county wanted to be "FAIR".

    So, they moved the kilos to Oroville. I never thought Oroville was fast water, but then again, I never ran there. I only help set up the kilo course.

    My record certificates were on my dad's desk, under glass til he passed, March 1997.
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  5. #35
    Team Member smittythewelder's Avatar
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    Deano asked who ran Anzanis. Local Reg. 10 guys included Duane Wallick, who ran an A that I think he got from Bill Kelly. Duane also bought a new Harrison B engine in 1966 or 67. Buzz Thorsen had the first Harrison out here. You noticed Buzz when he rolled into the pits with his McDonald hydro painted in colors to match his beautiful '56 Nomad wagon. I remember when he first showed his brand new B Harrison, something we had only heard of, in the pits at an Oregon race (Rockaway?), and there were a bunch of guys eyeballing it and asking questions. Also running an A Anzani was Ron Magnusson of Tacoma who was part of the Goff-Hagness crowd and ran a gorgeous little red Goff hydro himself. A couple of later owners included Mike Flynn from Gig Harbor who had two B Anzanis tricked out with four carbs the way Jim and Ron were doing it, Al Vernam from somewhere on the Penninsula I think, who owned an A Anzani, and Roger Wendt who bought an open-pipe 2 carb B from Ron, and regularly drove out here to races with his wife Wanda from their home in Montana.

    The only Anzani owner name I heard of from "back east" (for Reg. 10 guys this is anywhere aft of the Idaho panhandle) was Wally Roman.

  6. #36
    Team Member smittythewelder's Avatar
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    Russ, your comment that the loopers were "noisy," as if they had no other attributes, comes off a triffle snarky (maybe not intended), but remember that you only saw the earliest arrivals of that line of engines. It's true that some of the first Quincy loops seemed to pop a lot of corn with their battery-and-points ignitions. But as with the Anzanis, there was a learning curve. You might not know that Hallum built an A and a B loop for Chuck Walters each of which really hauled the mail, and Ron built what I'd call a second-generation (wide pipes and a couple of other tweaks) B Loop for Gene Laes that Walin said must be the fastest of its kind in the country when he ran against it. John Myers built a very good A, Bob Waite's D was no slouch, nor were any of Andy's engines, prepped as they were by Bill Rankin. Apart from that, Christner's basic concept of a loop-scavenged engine based using Mercury moving parts, which allowed a lot of deflector owners to make a cheap upgrade and do it in their own garages with ordinary home tools, was very clever and fondly remembered by all those who benefitted.

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    Yeah, Smitty, and I loved the sound of loopers! Konigs, in comparison, sounded like a bunch of P-O'd bees, but they were faster, so we went to them.

  8. #38
    Team Member OldRJexSea's Avatar
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    Default Remember the noise....

    Smitty; Please do recall that during the period which we have tried to remember here and afterward, the racing engine noise became a restrictive problem at many Seattle area lakes for racing and even testing. Oddly enough, the major lake residents did not protest the open megaphone & expansion chamber racing motors anywhere near as much as the Merc 20-H conversion kit droning. That noise produced loss of lake access so was a factor of why I bothered with doing the -B- Stock motor design which used a bounce pipe with muffler.

    My comment about the noise of the Q. Loop motors was intended to be as I stated for that period. They were very loud with that particular megaphone pipe and seemed relatively heavy. It was good that the loop scavenged design was produced but the expansion chamber pipe already existed in general by then and any outboard motor with reed valves could make easy use of them but that didn't seem to be of interest. Last time I looked it still did not. No doubt that adding the weight, complexity and durability of expansion chambers compared to the open megaphone must have been a necessary Looper compromise.

    There was a question about the effect on pressure waves of a megaphone divergent cone angle much above 7 degrees. We didn't test any on the little motorcycles. The reports of racing performance with those high angle later megaphone pipes, first used in the siamese configuration I think, was that there was not the strong tuning-in effect of the earlier pipes. We had to assume that something positive had been shown in testing those pipes and their continued use on the Loop motor too. My understanding is that smooth (laminar) gas flow moving from high to lower pressure is traditionally done in expanding chambers with a 3 to 5 degree divergent angle. The shock wave in 2-stroke motor exhaust seemed to be sensitive to breaking away from a "sealing effect" against the pipe wall, something we imaged as "popping the bubble". The double divergent cone in bounce pipes, at 22 degrees for the short final section seemed to help with not popping the bubble. High angle megaphones were in question in both gas flow and pressure wave disturbance as we thought about it at the time. These thoughts are only empirical however. The increased loudness and type of sound from high angle megaphones was certainly noticed.

    In the earlier times of adding megaphones to the Merc's, Entrop was quite concerned about the added aft weight of just the pipes. That turned out to not be a problem but few other of the later current C-D-F cabover hulls were true prop riders so engine weight was not so much of a concern as with Hugo. In his particular application the large added weight of "Loopers" would be a serious, maybe dangerous issue. The comparatively nose up, transom down racing attitude in pictures of the other fast cabover hulls with the earlier motors and then their much more powerful looper motors is a testament to that condition. I will guess that the pickle fork hydros were a better solution to a positive angle of attack, higher speeds, but without the old style foredeck profile which would blow over backwards with no chance of recovery.

    The basic Merc bore stroke ratio was superior to the Anzani; closer to the good motorcycle designs. Hallum was not at all comfortable with the too long stroke of the Anzani but was able to add power over time to an already initially powerful motor and solve other problems. Everything he did later built on solid experience from all earlier efforts. No surprise that you tell of what that expertise (and Ron & Don Anderson's) did when applied to any loop scavenged motor after the Anzani era. I was off to road racing, low budget style, in sports racing and formula cars after 1968 so have much less detail knowledge of the following periods of Region 10 boat racing. Old notable DOH racer from Salem, OR. Paul Woodruff was out there road racing his Porsche S-90 then too. It was good to talk with him about racing times, water & track. He ran a really powerful 55-H on a long Swift hull. Paul would be in front if his motor ran well. All modified 4 cyl. Marc's had unfriendly carb issues back then.

    Good that a better tally of the Region 10 racing folks who ran Anzani is being noted. It was a worthy era as were those following.
    R.R.

  9. #39
    Team Member DeanFHobart's Avatar
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    Phil,

    I think my memory serves me right that Buzz Thorsen showed up with that "B" Harrison at Dexter Dam. And I think he beat Gerry Walin. I never saw him run it again.
    Dean Hobart

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    Team Member smittythewelder's Avatar
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    Russ, and the rest of you old guys, do you have a good recall of when the good aftermarket electronic ignitions started to show up in car magazine ads and on auto parts store shelves? In my memory the early "transistor ignitions," both inductive and capacitor discharge, got popular from maybe about 1967 or so. A lot of companies jumped into this field. At first I believe most of them utilized the existing breaker points, but later on eliminating points maintenance became part of the sales pitch. In alky outboard racing, either with Kettering's sixty-year-old battery-and-points system or with the various magnetos, launching a boat on a cold day with a big prop was a race between whether you could plane-off before plugs fouled.

    Jim, and many others I expect, had addressed the problem of the phenolic drive-gear of the old Lucas magneto shredding its teeth by rubber mounting that gear. But I don't think he was ever in love with that mag. To keep the Anzani from fouling its very cold heat-range plugs (Autolite 203 or Champion L82R, IIRC), necessitated by the heavy load of nitro, Jim first brazed an extension on the Vacturi carb's needle valve. The boat was launched with the mixture leaned-out, and once he planed-off Fantum would scramble to the back of the boat and give the needle valve a twist to richen it up to race. Somewhat later Jim greatly improved this operation with a little cable-operated rack-and-pinion needle valve rotator that gave Gerry a convenient lever next to the throttle. I tell you, next to any other racemotor in the pits, a fully worked up Hallum Anzani with all the carbs and adjusters and exhaust diverter valves and ram's-horn pipes looked like a NASA project!!

    The later (maybe '71-on?) Hallum and Anderson Anzanis all got a modified Mercury "SuperSpark" CD ignition replacing the poor old Luca mag, and with that and an up-graded crank-and-rods combination the era of semi-notorious Anzani unreliability was gone. But it seems to me that there was a period of a few years there when those first "transistor" ignitions were available before the Merc CD ignition came along. So Russ, do you recall any discussion of those possibilities? I remember one of them, called a Delta Mark 4, had quickly got a reputation as a good unit. I had a Sears version in my car.

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