Bill Tenney's Class C Alky Twin Engine Couplers??

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

took apart and rebuilt 2 of least damaged of the 5 known engine couplers Bill Tenney used to couple 2 Anzani 250s to run C Alky? or D? in the NOA back sometime in the 1960s. I never seen anything like them. They again now run so smooth you can easily rotate them either direction with your thumb and forefinger doing the twisting. There is nothing inside or out indicating who or what company built these twin engine couplers though its obvious they look custom built. What is so cool about them is that you can set the twins to fire cylinders at whatever degree per multiple cylinders you divide by, right around the degree clock by gear measurement meshing points. With Anzanis there is no way to tell if he ran the twins firing each engine 180 degrees part in pairs or set them to fire alternating and firing at every 90 degrees of rotation?

What is really eye popping is the pre-cut and pre-punched for drilling 9/16 inch thick adaptor plate to fit 2 of some size of Merc 4 cylinder between 30 to 40 and 44 cubic inches as twins like the Anzani 2 bangers, but it was never drilled and finished. Eight cylinders of Merc with 8 stacks configued exhausting rearwards? Lifting an Anzani twin block C Alky is one thing! I was told by old hands that they were very heavy and went very fast. What about a 8 cylinder (twin coupled) Merc? Ouch! Class F? or old Class X?

Does anyone out there recall any information on these couplers Bill Tenney used?? Who was the daredevil NOA driver and on what?

[Fast Fred]

how about a shot of it. is it like a two into one, sidebyside or stack.

[Tim Chance]

Floyd Harris of Minneapolis ran the doubled up C motor around 1962, '63, or '64. I don't clearly remember it on a hydro but Floyd ran it on a 13' Desilva runabout. If it ever ran on a hydro Dick Pond of Keokuk, Iowa ran it. Floyd won US-1 as NOA National High Point a couple of times and I know I have a photo of the Runabout somewhere, but I think it has a Mercury on it not the Anzani(s). I also have a photo that I got from Bill Tenney of the twin engine somewhere. I remember that they used to take a lot of time getting the motors timed together, but later found it didn't make any difference and just put them on the lower unit. Jim Kolosky (eventually he became my pit man) was the only person who could crank the damn thing). Floyd would be about 70 years old now and I assume he still is in the Twin City area if you are interested in looking him up. And I saw Dick at the Memorial race for O. F. Christner a couple of years ago in Quincy and I think he still lives in Keokuk. I also don't think there was a D, and the C turned back into two A's. I think the Kaus brothers from Austin, Minn. ended up with one and I don't know about the other.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

In my spare time I have been overhauling the 2 coupler transmissions. I have and just dead reconing and some vague advice from some who seen or observed it that have been telling me the layout that I have to be able to mock setup the twin engine C the way it was "supposed" to be back then. Memories dim with age though. It would sure be appreciated if I could get some phone numbers and resulting some pictures copies or something similar done to do the eacting version from back in the early 1960s. I do know that I have all the parts and I have set versions together but the actual picture would setup the exact twin Anzani engine C Alky. I appreciate just how heavy the twin engine used to be.

The coupler transmissions are sure low drag, easy to turn. I wonder if Bill Tenney set the engines to fire a cylinder every 90 or 2 at each 180 degrees. Both are quite possible and would be had to tell apart because its all internal though one might think that the 90 degrees of firing one cylinder would be easier on the gearcases than a 180 setting for both Anzanis? The 180 degree firing order with 2 pistons firing at a time would sound distinctly different than 1 cylinder firing every 90.

I will be some pictures on here quite soon, its just a matter of polishing, painting, assembling but I would prefer to post it as a completed project the way it was as opposed to dead reconing imagination. I would be pleased with any knowlegeable healp and pictures you Tim or anyone else I can contact could give me.

When the twin is final assembled it already has more than 50% NOS Anzani parts and be able to start and run.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

I remember Dale Kaus the most. Both brothers sure could drive like mad. When I met Dale it was to discuss buying his Sidcraft hydro (still got its picture with the runabout stacted over top) and getting a A or B Looper at the time but got talked out of it by alarmed locals who were into stock outboard racing only, who finally turned loose some of their multiples of 30Hs and 55Hs loose so more people couild buy a boat and drive. It was either do it or watch people cross over or loose them. I then got my first 55H and 30H and that was already into the 1970s and the KG9s and 40Hs went to new drivers getting started on student's racing budgets. I still wish I kept 1 Merc KG9, 40H and the Asburn banana D-Alky runabout. There were/are classics.

[Tim Chance]

I remember Dale Kaus the most. Both brothers sure could drive like mad. When I met Dale it was to discuss buying his Sidcraft hydro (still got its picture with the runabout stacted over top) and getting a A or B Looper at the time but got talked out of it by alarmed locals who were into stock outboard racing only, who finally turned loose some of their multiples of 30Hs and 55Hs loose so more people couild buy a boat and drive. It was either do it or watch people cross over or loose them. I then got my first 55H and 30H and that was already into the 1970s and the KG9s and 40Hs went to new drivers getting started on student's racing budgets. I still wish I kept 1 Merc KG9, 40H and the Asburn banana D-Alky runabout. There were/are classics.

Yes those brothers could drive. I had a C runabout with a real good Quincy deflector. The schedule worked out that I could run C and then leave the motor on the boat and later I would have Loren step up and run F. He used to win on a regular basis. Would just smoke the 44's. That Sid Craft. It was John Wood's old D Mod boat and Dale ran A and B flatheads on it (Loren ran runabouts). A co-worker of mine bought it when the Kaus' quit, for me to run. I can't remember where it went after that. And the Ashburn runabouts. I was 11 years old when I saw my first race. I still remember 2 Ashburn's going at it side-by-side with 4-cyl Mercs. Thinking back it had to be Stan Doseth of Minneapolis and Bruce Kline the Fire Chief of LaPorte City, Iowa. As to the photo of the 4-cyl Anzani that I got from Bill Tenney. I have it in a box marked "Boat Racing Memroabilia". The box is in a safe place. So safe, I can't find it. But I will and when I do I'll send it to you if you'll send me your address. My e-mail is timchanceracing@yahoo.com To Fast Fred: the motors were side-by-side.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

To be able to scan some Anzani twin and single picts you have would flesh out the display and some history of the 3 Anzani collection waiting to be completed by the Anzani twin C here.

I used to have a brand new Anzani B Stock Gas racer that now would have been a nice part of what a gaser was with the engines transition to what Bill Tenney and some others in the North West did to them to get some runs into the 107 mile per hour range. My intent with all this is purely alturistic, to see the collection of engines put on public display in the evolving small boat museum section of the Selkirk, Mb. Park Marine Museum. Some day, I won't be on this earth and those engines in the museum will perisist for the public to see and approeciate them. Those Anzanis and some Harrisons sure made some impressions on the crowds of 10/12,000+ per day that came out yearly to see the annual races with sometimes Alky versus Stock Can-Ams in B and D hydro that went on at the time.

When you find that box, give me a phone call at (204) 667-3815 so we can go over arrangements and return of the pictures collection once I have it scanned for reproduction and display work.

My Address is: John Taylor, 111 Reay Crescent, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R2K3R2. I am only 50 miles north if the Can/USA border 400 miles north of Minneapolis in this town of 670,000 people. Selkirk is my hometown.

The stuff is really hard to find and much appreciated in your offer to share in this way.

We had quite a few Sidcraft hydros here from A through D stock of which many were former Alky boats bought by stock outboard drivers. Some had the older long cowl and others the newer shorter versions. Sids were sure known for high but level flight as stock racers and kinda scared the beeejeezuz out of some of us just how high they could be flown as Alkys that sure qualified for lower flights as stocks! We had a smattering of Swifts, Marchettis and other local or eastern Canadian designed hydros like the Ogiers (my favorite). With runabouts it was Coppers, DeSilvas, Banshees and some Hal Kelly designs. I was one that ran the lone Asburn and then a Banshee. I preferred the Asburn, you could turn it on a dime full throttle around anything, never spin out or broach after I lightened and "stockized" the bottom to marine grade plywood away from the planking and thick coat of fiberglass it used to have.

I suppose your not quessing anymore that I inherited the remainder of Bill Tenney's stock of Anzani fire damaged, used as well as NOS parts to build a few more for posterity. There is a large section and pictorial on this site featuring the many parts and assemblies I am using to build at least a couple more after the twin block version is built. You can search for those easily here. Those 2 more, an A and B alky, I may take out for displays and some runs elsewhere, but those will require adaptive parts non-Anzani to complete them to run again though I am trying to keep the look the same. Like using Fairbanks Morse magnetos on them as they are kind of near look alike to the Lucas units Anzani normally had and so on. It is all one long spare time process in the evenings and weekends for me and the results have been good. I have been posting here as things go along from time to time. Its neat and interesting history.

[Tim Chance]

I think Dave Berg's A had a Bosch mag on it. It could have been retrofit as his motor didn't have an Anzani lower unit, it had a Merc. I know the Konig's of that era first had a Bosch and then a SEM. When I find that box of stuff there is a photo of Dick Hoppenrath driving Tenney's C Neal with a B Anzani on it. Ray Ogier. I think I met him. I remember Selkirk, I ran there in '62 and '63. One year I was pitted way upriver, South, towards the first turn past the end of the loudspeakers. I had no idea what was going on. So I got quite a start when the Canadian version of the Blue Angles came eyeball high off the water right in front of me at 600 some mph. Selkirk: What a great race site - what a great town.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

From around 1963 I was E.J. Coates (deceased in 2006), a Selkirk local's pitman at 13 years of age. He was my neighbor and he was a C-Service and C-Racing enthusiast. He ran his Elto against the Merc 30Hs in their combined and his Johnson P-50 racing against the Merc 55Hs in hydro and runabout. He was an excellent hydro and runabout builder in making Ogiers copys and his Banshee series of stock runabouts that looked similar to DeSilvas that ran real well against them and some Hal Kelly designs of that era, It really blew one's mind to see Ted wacking 2nds and 1sts off with the Elto and the P-50 against the Mercs and they didn't like that much!! LOL! It was during those early 1960s that Ted took me around to meet people like Bill Tenney and a whole host of others, greats like yourself and others that raced there like Bill Seebold, Gene Minar and many many more. For all I know we probably met there too at the time. By the later 1960s I was already in D stock with a Coates built Ogier C-D hydro and a KG9(H's) for power and the rest just happened pling on more classes and newer engines by 1984. By 1971 I was taking over running the faltering MORA with a new generation of drivers, pulled her up and kept the club going locally until 1984 where after that lack of Mercury racing parts and the local will because of that saw powerboat racing stop here as well as out west in Calgary, Edmonton and even down into Montana in SO and Alky.

I remember Dave Berg. When that Anzani started it fkew. Its tragic that he died. THere used to be a Dave Berg Memorial trophy, that would be quite a keepsake of history today. Amongst the parts that I inherited there were some, a few Konig magneto parts that are still here that looked like some kind of adapters for shafts or gears but nothing that can come to even start to make another up. People think me weird just hunting down parts for those gawd awful Lucas magnetos (princes of darkness!). I wonder why Mercury ignition parts didn't find their way sooner on Anzanis than they did and those first turned up in the North West along with using OMC fuel pumps and fuel return to tank floatless systems for the Vacturis. The parts I got here included several twin and well as single DelOrto remote fuel bowls so the Vacturis could retain floats with needle and seat with the DelOrto mimicing a gravity flow unit with crankcase pressurizing the fuel tank a bit.

It was said that Selkirk when it came to Anzanis seen the most ever run at one meet and over several years. I can remember there were lots of As and Bs running with their classic crescent shaped and supported pipes. They pretty much ran everyone else down (Konigs and Mercs) until the Quincy Flatheads came along. Even the big inch guys just stared when Anzanis were practice running down the course straights, they were that fast then. The last time I ran an B Anzani there was around 1986 and the local cops were very upset. The last time Anzanis hit the water west of here in places like Calgary and Edmonton as pre 1980 so abscences were great. I ran Roger Wendt's (Montana) 2 carb hybrid Anzani (block/crankcase)/ Harrison (crankshaft & ignition (Phelon) aluminum flywheel and Harrison rope plate)/ Merc (clamps, saddle, co-pilot & Tillotson HL snowmo 2ndary carb) / Konig (connecting rods & lower unit/gearcase) and OMC (fuel pump and Vacturi primary carb) a couple of times in 1987 but its rods were pretty rickety from 40%+ nitro fuel additive loads, so it is also a museum piece. It was reputed to be one of the quickest Anzani hybrids Jim Hallum and his co-conspirators (LOL) engineered outside of their 4 carb versions that set some speeds in the 103 to 107 mph range that also showed boat lengths too short at that point too. All that before 1980 in the North West long after Selkirk and those formative 1960s that saw those engines wack into the 80+ mphs the big inchers necks twisted at! Those were interesting years for them. I remember your Alky Deflector Merc and Runabout when I went south to some races, it was very quick and to some unusually so with some real questions on their minds at that as to how much nitro you threw in to club out some larger engines that you did!!! To me KG9s and 40Hs on gasoline were affordable first and foremost and easier to start on gas! You guys were quite the show though, the pipes, smell and speed demoed that real good.

[Tim Chance]

John - I never throw anything away, that's probably why I can't find the box with the photo - too much junk. I did find a small printed copy of it. It is printed in light blue and didn't scan well. I did the best I could in Photoshop. It will have to do until I locate the Original. About Dave Berg. I was suppose to be in that heat but my Konig wouldn't start. I always wondered if one more boat milling and making a run to the first turn would have made a difference.