8 cylinder Konig outboard

[Tomtall]

Just got back from "Mark Suters" fall 2007 AOMCI dry meet. Took some pictures and will be posting a link to them later in the week. Had to share this one now though as it was one of my favorite motors in his collecton. Wayne Baldwin also had some input about this motor.It is posted in the following article.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

It's sure nice to see all these monster engines being added to the these historical threads. They sure were something that dropped jaws and twisted necks!

[Master Oil Racing Team]

I'm afraid there were a couple of errors in the article Tom. I guess the info was compiled by Mark. He and I had a good conversation at DePue, but we talked about so much that it would be easy to get a little confused. I still need to send him some pics of the 8 from the Marshall Grant days.

I do not recall the 8 cylinder Konig ever winning a national championship. Charlie Bailey won in 1976 with a bored out D Konig and I won in 1977 with the 4 carb dual rotary valve Konig that we bought from Marshall.

This was the motor that I won with mentioned in the article. It was actually an OE and thus not eligible for the OF World Championships. The opposed 6 cyl. Konig was driven by Hans Krage who won the championship. I have a picture of the three of us at the start. I wish I could remember more about the race, but one thing that amazed me going down the back straight was that I was leading and Dan never caught me. Earlier during testing I remember him going down the same back straight and he was so fast, I recall that being the fastest I had ever see a Pro hydro run. Then when he didn't pass me in the race, I couldn't believe it. I think he broke a piston in the second heat.

That motor was clearly the fastest of the three on a straight, but not around the course. The 4 cyl of mine was fastest of the three around the course, and I think mine was as fast on the straight as the six. At least I was never challenged by Hans at any time and we all had wide, open sponson to sponson starts. Because of the height of the six, it was also at a disadvantage in the turns.

At the 1977 Nationals, Dan Kirts was driving the "stacked" 8 cylinder Yamato. At least as far as it took to get on a plane, then it broke a coupling.

The last time I remember Dan with the 8 was at Alexandria, but I forgot what year. If it was 1979, Jeff Hutchins won with Elmer Grades 4 cylinder Konig.

I have no doubt whatsoever about 130 miles per hour on a Kilo. I believe with the right boat, lower unit, propeller and driver it could do 140 or better.

[Jeff Lytle]

An awsome looking engine nonetheless. I didn't notice the water injection before on the older pics of it on a boat. Perhaps that's something Joe added later?

One thing I did notice though, the logo on the flywheel cover is the logo used by a company that produces custom wheels, not the logo Dieter used. The earlier Konig logos were blue, but didn't look like this.

Even the logo I use on my signature below this post isn't the same. I made it from memory using Windows paint before all the literature and stuff was posted here.

To make it 100 complete in my eyes, loose the orange tubing, replace it with clear, change the logos on the top, and get rid of the flat black on the pipes.
Don't get me wrong, this engine certainly is a gem, I would love to own it.

[F-12]

I remember being in Marshall's pits at Lakeland one year that he pulled someones Caddy down to the water (I think it was Scott Smith's) and used the battery and alternator power to fire his 8 banger. The power that came out of this combination was mind boggling. This is another one of the "My boat's too small" stories. From what I can recall, after it was up and running, when you squeezed the throttle the boat tended to twist around and go a little sideways. Makes perfect sense to me. It sure brought back memories when I saw it at the reunion in DePue. I still think if someone could put it on a boat that could handle the power, there wouldn't be a kilo record safe. (Are you listening Wayne and Tim)

[Mark75H]

I think Paul can nail it down for certain, but I suspect this motor is actually a 1965


The letter from Dick O'Dea is confusing ... it sounds like Crescent was bought by Volvo and dropped out of racing around 1966; that is way too far before the introduction of the Crescent as the C Super Stock Hydro motor. The Stock racing commission would never have approved a motor not in production as a "new" motor. I can look up some more of the details and clarify that story a little bit.

The information about the Evinrude X crankshaft is not 100% accurate as well. It was the intention of Joe Schauer to make a legal 59.999 cubic inch "F" crank ... but what he made (by accident) was a 61 cubic inch "X" crank. A new super motor with additional rotary valve inlets on the crankshaft and different crank bearings was developed for use with Schauer's long stroke crankshaft tooling.

I'd love to see Mark's stuff a bit more accurate ... and the technical info, too

[Matts]

The letter from Dick O'Dea is confusing ... it sounds like Crescent was bought by Volvo and dropped out of racing around 1966; that is way too far before the introduction of the Crescent as the C Super Stock Hydro motor. The Stock racing commission would never have approved a motor not in production as a "new" motor. I can look up some more of the details and clarify that story a little bit.

I think the O'Dea clarification letter is about correct, except for when they quit the 500 work and Volvo got involved (they bought the Crescent company in 1973). Makes sense, right? I'll bet it's tough to remember the exact years when talking about a time frame 40 years old. The same problem concern the swedish "old-boys" of Nymans, those I have talked to all remember a little differently, particulary when it nails down to dates. One single intrview is usually not enough. But I don't blame them, I have big problems remember things that happened 20 years ago

[Mark75H]

I think the O'Dea clarification letter is about correct, except for when they quit the 500 work and Volvo got involved (they bought the Crescent company in 1973). Makes sense, right? I'll bet it's tough to remember the exact years when talking about a time frame 40 years old. The same problem concern the swedish "old-boys" of Nymans, those I have talked to all remember a little differently, particulary when it nails down to dates. One single intrview is usually not enough. But I don't blame them, I have big problems remember things that happened 20 years ago

Exactly

My problem with the letter is it makes things that happened around 1973 seem like they happened around 1966 ... 7 years earlier. Mr O'Dea was the US importer and would seem like the #1 info source in the US. I won't blame his memory in this case, it could be the context of the letter, which is obviously in response to other correspondence or his writing style which I am not accustomed to.

I have a lot of reference material that shows the dates the motors were first used in the various classes in the US and the years the classes were popular. 1965 for the first year in the US sounds right. Mr. O'Dea gave Rich Yost a copy of the letter sent to him advising him that there were no more parts to be had from Sweden and I think Rich passed a photocopy on to me, 1973 sounds like the right year, too.

What I am afraid of is that in the future the letter will be held up as documentation that Crescent was 100% out of racing, no parts available and so forth by 1967. A photocopy of the 1973 letter from Sweden to go with the letter Mark already has would be helpful.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Did I miss something here? I was reading about the 8 Cyl. Konig, then jumped into the middle of posts about Crescent and references to a letter. There is a little box with a red X inside on Sam's first reference to the letter. Is that where it is? I can't get it to open. Would like to read it.

In the meantime, here is the pic of one of the starts of that historic race at Marine Creek Lake near Fort Worth in 1977. I don't know if it is the start of the first or second heat. I think it is the first. As far as I know, no other pictures exist of this meeting of the 4, 6 and 8 cylinder Konigs. I do know that this is the only time these three ever competed in the same heats. AND they were the only motors present. It was a Konig duel.

I don't know why no other OF's turned out to race. The previous year Billy Jack Rucker tied Hans Krage in points and Hans won on time. So he at least should have shown up for a rematch but he didn't. The previous year there were a full field of legal F's so I was not allowed to run my 4 cylinder as it was legally an OE engine. At this race however we needed boats, so I was allowed to run and count it as a Western Division race. After Dan blew a piston, we agreed not to run the final two heats as it would only be a two boat show. So Hans was a back to back OF World Champion. This is probably where Mark's confusion came in. The opposed 6 won the championship, but I actually won the race.

We are just approaching the start and Dan is preparing to nail it as are Hans and I. Dan has the 8 cylinder on an experimental Butts Aerowing that Tim built for us and delivered to Lakeland in 1973. We named it HONCHO. It didn't have enough lift for the motors we were running and around 1974 my Dad gave it to Marshall Grant specifically to run the 8 on. It was still not enough boat, but it was much better for the motor than the Byers that Marshall had it on before. The motor didn't have the water injection at this time, and the rig now belonged to Dan. Marshall had gotten completely out of racing by now.

In the middle, I had the four carb, two rotary valve Konig that we bought from Marshall in 1974. It was much more reliable than it would seem to be with the two rotary valve belts in contact with one another while running. The lower unit was the biggest problem. We had it on our Butts SHADOWFAX which was the first of a winning Aerowing design that Tim built.

On the inside is Hans George Krage with the Konig opposed 6. He would fire it up and drive out to a point on the race course and kill the engine. As the clock ticked down, he would fire it up and make a straight line to the start. The crank in this motor was the big problem. It never made a good rough water motor as the crank would twist and hit the inside of the crank case. I was at Berlin when it made its debut. The day before the race Hans revved it too high on the dock as they were preparing to launch it and twisted the crank. If a lower unit blew, it would rev up and the crank would twist. The crank had 120 degree banking so although the pistons were opposed, they were not 180 degrees from the other two sets of cylinders. (I have incorrectly posted somewhere previously that it was an inline 6, but that was not the case. I guess I was thinking of it being another pair of cylinders stacked higher) Walt Blankenstein was at the shop when all of this was going on and he told Dieter he would forever have problems with this motor. Walt said the configuration was "Statically and dynamically out of balance". I believe the proprider Hans ran was a Konig. I am not sure if Bernie Danisch built the "Konig" boats for Dieter or someone else did. They were not built at the motor factory as far as I ever saw.

[F-12]

You can tell he is ready to pull the trigger on it............I have very seldom seen Dan that far over the steering wheel. Great picture Wayne......Thanks