The importer for OMC products at the time were known as Pier 39. I was at the race in question. I thought Jimbo M and Johnny Sanders were at the race but my memory fades. The ex Dick Summerveld Twin Molinari also ran in the race.
Quote Originally Posted by LIQUID NIRVANA View Post
South Africa

The Johnson distributor in South Africa requested we bring the rotaries to his race. It meant leaving the week before Christmas and returning after the 1st of the year. This was the only race I didn’t attend with rotaries running. Johnny Sanders went with one Johnson, winning the race easily. The only competition was old OMC V-4’s and Mercury inline 6’s.

That ended the ’73 racing season. In February ’74, the Iranian gas crisis hit the country and gasoline went from $0.30/gal to $0.75-100/gal if you could get it. It was felt politically, racing would not project a good corporate image when people were waiting in line for hours to get gas; so the racing circuit was put on hold. Development continued in house. The compression ratio was increased from 8.5 to 1 too 10 to1. Transfer passages were enlarged and work started to design a true 4-rotor engine, not two 2’s stacked on top of each other. This meant 3 curvic couplings and 3 center housings. We also designed a turnbuckle (left and right threads) to hold each curvic together. This eliminated the long thru bolt, which still was breaking. By eliminating the large center section in the crank common to twin rotor engines, we were able to add a center main bearing, strengthening the entire assembly and reduce weight. Power increased to 265HP at the prop shaft. @ 7000RPM. We also installed ignition limiters, limiting max engine RPM to 7000. In testing you could hear the drivers running on the limiter most of the straight-aways. This didn’t last too long, as we were afraid of engine damage would result from the high speed missing and the drivers hated them.