AOMCI 2007 fall meet

[Mark Suter]

Jeff, I know what you mean about the Porter collection... it was amazing. What a shame that it had to be broken up. I was lucky enough to get four motors from that collection: a stock Anzani "A", a Harrison "A", the Konig "C" that was talked about above and, as you surmized, the Quincy "B" Looper. Unfortunately, with my acute case of CRS, I don't remember much about who got the other motors. I remember looking at the VB but passed on it because it went late in the auction and I'd already drained the wallet qenough. I have no recollection of who got it... sorry I can't help.

[Glenn Coates]

3 cyl Konig

Mark, I remember seeing a picture of this engine along with Deiter Konig testing in Florida in a magazine. I'm thinking an issue of the APBA Propeller from about 1956 and no later than 1961. For me it's too many moves with too many boxes so that I can no longer find my copy of the magazine with this picture. My wife thinks that I have shown her the picture so that it may be in the basement yet. About 1975 or so the engine arrived at Bill Wright's as a collection of parts that he had obtained from John Dertinger. Bill assembled the engine as a display engine and sold it to John Porter.

The engine is a 3 cylinder, 30 cu. in. deflector piston engine. In the 1950's Konig built stock outboard racing engines based upon their fishing motors. We raced them here in Canada in both B and C stock. The engines were 2 cylinder and shared common crank, midshaft and lower unit assemblies. They had different piston, cylinder and head assemblies. The B motor was 20 cu. in. while the first C motor was only 25 cu.in., and later enlarged to 27.4 cu. in. .

I think that the 1956 3 cyl C engine that you now have may be a one-off racing engine that Deiter built so that he could have a 30 cu.in. motor. It was built with many common parts from the existing 2 cyl B stock deflector piston engine. This was just prior to Deiter developing the 2 cylinder loop-scavenged FA,FB and FC engines with which he had much sucess.

I think that this 3 cyl C racing motor may be as significant as the Hans Krage 6 cyl motor or the Marshall Grant 8 cylinder motor. All may be one-off attempts by Deiter to to build larger displacement motors using existing components.

[Mark75H]

Glenn, the 3 cylinder Konig C was a regular production C racer, not a one off prototype, 1956 was the year. You are right, it was replaced with the 25 and later 27 ci twins a couple years later

The magazine you are thinking of was BoatSport. You can refresh your memory by going to the www.boatsport.org site and browsing to your heart's content

[John Schubert T*A*R*T]

3 cyl Konig

Mark, I remember seeing a picture of this engine along with Deiter Konig testing in Florida in a magazine. I'm thinking an issue of the APBA Propeller from about 1956 and no later than 1961. For me it's too many moves with too many boxes so that I can no longer find my copy of the magazine with this picture. My wife thinks that I have shown her the picture so that it may be in the basement yet. About 1975 or so the engine arrived at Bill Wright's as a collection of parts that he had obtained from John Dertinger. Bill assembled the engine as a display engine and sold it to John Porter.

The engine is a 3 cylinder, 30 cu. in. deflector piston engine. In the 1950's Konig built stock outboard racing engines based upon their fishing motors. We raced them here in Canada in both B and C stock. The engines were 2 cylinder and shared common crank, midshaft and lower unit assemblies. They had different piston, cylinder and head assemblies. The B motor was 20 cu. in. while the first C motor was only 25 cu.in., and later enlarged to 27.4 cu. in. .

I think that the 1956 3 cyl C engine that you now have may be a one-off racing engine that Deiter built so that he could have a 30 cu.in. motor. It was built with many common parts from the existing 2 cyl B stock deflector piston engine. This was just prior to Deiter developing the 2 cylinder loop-scavenged FA,FB and FC engines with which he had much sucess.

I think that this 3 cyl C racing motor may be as significant as the Hans Krage 6 cyl motor or the Marshall Grant 8 cylinder motor. All may be one-off attempts by Deiter to to build larger displacement motors using existing components.

The 3 cylinder alky Konig really didn't do well in the US. The 25 then 27 c.i. Konigs ultimately became 30 c.i. 2 cylinder motors. Bill Hoctor finished 3rd in the nationals at Depue with one. But the interesting story is that the C.C., crank, rods etc. from the 27 c.i. "C" with "B" cylinders & pistons was a good running engine even against the early Quincy Loopers & early 4 cylinder Konig "B". Again Bill Hoctor won the "B" hydro championship in Depur in 1967 with 2 second finishes.

[Mark75H]

I started a new thread with some pictures of another 500cc HRE

http://www.boatracingfacts.com/forum...ead.php?t=5557

[Mark Suter]

Eric, as far as I know, the 250 opposed is a Konig-built motor. Ed Thirlby told me it was raced by a guy named Harry Hardin out of Port Huron, MI. It has what appears to be a factory serial number on it (RA7080). The crankcase looks like it has been modified to mount 3 carbs in place of two but otherwise looks like it was designed and manufactured for the 250 application. Ed said it was not a very smooth running motor but it was very competitive. I bought it from a collector in Michigan who got it from Dale Robertson. Dale said it never was very competitive. With these two conflicting stories, I am not sure what the real story is on its performance. The pipes are fixed (not sliders).

I tracked down Harry Harden (who is from Linden, MI) and got the real story on this motor. Harry built it himself largely from available Konig parts in 1968 or 1969. Although he had ignition problems early on (hence the high speed miss that Ed Thirlby remembers), it was significantly faster than the Konig alternate firing twins at that time. Harry said he won a lot of races with that one-off motor... particularly after he changed coils and fixed the misfire issue. Apparently he got Deiter's attention because Deiter reportedly did follow up and build some opposed twin A motors. Although the serial number looks somewhat like a factory number and implies that it was a 1970 build, the number was "fabricated" by Harry only because NOA required that each motor be numbered.

[Mark75H]

Excellent research Mark. Thanks for going thru the effort to fill us in

[Tomtall]

Another picture of the twin opposed Konig that Mark was describing in the above thread.

[Mark Suter]

Thanks Tom for reposting the pic of the 250 motor. I was always wondering why the cylinders looked so butchered. Harry Harden answered that one by explaining that they were carved out of an alternate-firing 250 cylinder block (as evidenced by the "repairs" on the top of one cylinder and on the bottom of the other). The heads and the crankcase look like they were custom-machined (although the heads conceivably could each be half of an alternate-firing head), and the crankcase was subsequently modified to add the 3rd carburetor and reed block. I did ask Harry what crank he used but he didn't remember. The clamp brackets are modified Mercury aluminum forgings. He had spacers welded in to make them much deeper. The tower and LU were standard Konig items. It is a rather ugly piece but Harry said it really was quite a motor... and an interesting piece of history.