An Amazing Story

[Fred Hauenstein]

I looked in my testing logs to see when, and I ran one for a while in 1976. Came from ZAK. There must have been a few around??? It wasn't the "silver bullet" and it was touchy, so when it broke I shelved it. But that was about when I went "factory racing," anyway. (I should have stayed in PRO. )

Fred

[Mike Schmidt]

Dave: Danny was one of the very best. I learned so much from racing against him. He was the complete package, motor guy, set up guy and one hell of a driver.

Fred: Yes you should have........Please come visit nest time your at Mike's.

Michael D-1

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Now its starting to remind me about that old B&W silent movie when somebody fired a shotgun in the alley behind a two story boarding house and a man bailed out of every window holding his pants.

Hey Fred, how about posting a page of that log. I'm curious about how others went about recording their testing. and comments.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

.....to see what he thought about posting pics. He said only one man could answer that and he's not around. But since it was more widely known than we originally thought, maybe a pic or two of the original design that was so erratic would be O.K. Whaddaya think Bill Van and Bill Kurps? Tim wouldn't mind, Mike's is welded up, and Fred broke his. Steve Jones!....wherever you are...I don't want to hear what you did with yours. Just kidding. (Trying to smoke him out. I know he's out there somewhere.}

[Master Oil Racing Team]

These pics are from the test session in December of 1975. It was between Christmas and New Years. Ray Hardy testing some new ZAK pipes. Tim came down a couple of days later with some new boats and also had a Formula 350 that his wife Ruth tested on New Years Day.

L-R Baldy Baldwin, Jack Chance, Bill Van Steenwyk. Harry Pasturczak may not have made this trip. We had to do an overhaul on our C and we were making adjustments on the CAVIV (probably Bill Kurps').

[Master Oil Racing Team]

....and the pics didn't make the trip. I tried to redo them, but it wouldn't let me, so here's another try.

[Dan M]

Wayne,

The pipes on Ray's "C" were the first in a very short series that Harry was working on. If you look, they had a very long straight section. The converging cone was adjustable. It slid within the straight section. It was not, however adjustable while underway. There was a rod coming out the back with cross holes and a hitch pin secured the rod which held the cone in place. The straight section had a cover on the back that had a number of holes through it. The surface area of the holes matched the area of the stinger to make the proper backpressure. The motor was extremely quiet because of this. It was right after this that Dieter made the changes to his castings, and Harry's pipes became obsolete. I've always wondered how the pipes would have worked if Harry had set them up to be adjustable underway.

Thanks for all the great pics.

Dan

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Dan---You described the pipes perfectly. I didn't know about Harry calling Bill Kurps in the middle of the night to send his Do-Fram-Us right away, but I am now completely convinced that this test session was the reason why. It makes sense. Harry has an internal sliding system, but it won't work underway. We had been experimenting with what we called CAV for a year. Ours is working erractically. Ray is in South Texas working with us and we have 3 more generations of the CAV behind us. Bill Kurps has one that has been working well. So Harry has him send (to who I don't know) it for the testing. What you have remembered Dan has answered a lot of questions. And I for one had forgotten about the changes Dieter made that affected Harry's work.

[Bill Van Steenwyk]

Wayne and Billy K.

Sorry to not chime in right away about divulging the details on the "gadget" but I was out of town for a week visiting, catching fish, and slaughtering some "turd birds". Wayne, I'm sure you remember what they are, dont you?

Anyway on a long drive back from S. Florida I had a chance to think about David Weaver's comments re: "keeping a secret" like that was somehow not a proper thing to do, and that all knowledge should be shared and put public for the betterment of the sport. My real quick answer to that is when all the National Champions for the last 30 years share all their speed secrets, prop numbers, boat setups, etc., that will be the day..... It is a nice thought but it will never happen. All those folks worked too hard to get what Mark Donahue called the "unfair advantage" to spill their guts so someone could take that information and beat them with it. In this particular case although, that had no bearing on the keeping of this secret. It was kept because of the respect and affection for the person who took the basic idea and turned it into reality, and an item that definately inproved performance of the Konig of that day and time. As Wayne mentioned, not top speed particularly but the time around the course which is what it is all about anyway.

So here is what I propose:

I am very sure knowing Ray like I did, that he would get a real kick seeing what someone else might be able to do with something he hatched from an idea. How about I post on this thread the same basic conversation I had with him regards the idea of what I thought could be accomplished and a real sketchy idea of how it might work, because I suggested a very widely used part of an automobile ignition system as the basic way to actuate the device, and then he took it and made it in metal and made it work through several generations. I will post those thoughts and see if anyone else can think as well or even better than he could and make a better one with the benefit of 33 years of progress. It might even as Weaver suggested bring a few old Konigs out of the basement, and if so that would be great. It also might promote some of the basement work shop, run what you brung, mentality that more is needed of.


Let me know what you think.

[ProHydroRacer]

Wayne and Billy K.

Sorry to not chime in right away .....................
So here is what I propose:

I am very sure knowing Ray like I did, that he would get a real kick seeing what someone else might be able to do with something he hatched from an idea. How about I post on this thread the same basic conversation I had with him regards the idea of what I thought could be accomplished and a real sketchy idea of how it might work, because I suggested a very widely used part of an automobile ignition system as the basic way to actuate the device, and then he took it and made it in metal and made it work through several generations. I will post those thoughts and see if anyone else can think as well or even better than he could and make a better one with the benefit of 33 years of progress. It might even as Weaver suggested bring a few old Konigs out of the basement, and if so that would be great. It also might promote some of the basement work shop, run what you brung, mentality that more is needed of.


Let me know what you think.

Bill I think it a good idea, it would be interesting to see how it would be worked out with the modern Konig/Konney.

The other Bill