Part 22 Walter Blankenstein January 1909 - 1977 (68)

[Master Oil Racing Team]

These were taken at the 1974 APBA Nationals at DePue. Back then my Dad and Joe Hendricks were partners of Emmord's Marine. It was the premier Evinrude dealer in Corpus Christi, Texas. Emmord's was also the Honda motorcycle dealer in Corpus. Honda had created a new engine I believe called CZ. The 250cc motor was the hottest thing on the motorcross circuit. My Dad thought we should give it a try on a boat. He shipped this powerhead to Walt and had Walt adapt it to a lower unit but I can't remember if the pipes were Honda or Walt had them made. Nor the exhausts....just don't remember that part. Walt may have used a different carb too as he converted it to alchohol.

It had never been tested. We met up with Walt at DePue where he brought the motor ready to be hooked up to our boat. He had the carbs and electrical ready to mate to our Konig system. Testing didn't turn out too good though. I could not get the boat to plane. It fired up easily but the engine would die when it broke over. I was pretty good at keeping the prop cavitating while getting the speed up enough to break over and get underway. I could not do it with this Honda though. We tried different props, but nothing worked. We finally decided to do one more thing, which we couldn't do during the race, but we just wanted to see if it had any high end potential to see if it was worth pursuing after we got home. We got one of the pickup boats to give us a tow to get the boat planning fast enough to get it going. My Dad fired off the engine and Joe and Jack shoved the boat into the water and the pickup boat took off. This part was a little tricky as the tow rope was looped through the bow handle on one of the forks. It jerked a bit when the boat took the load, but I was able to hold on to the rope. I can't remember if we had a slip knot on the bow handle for me to jerk loose or if it was a couple of wraps around the steering wheel. I kind of remember being concerned about the rope cutting through the top of the thin cowling. Anyway, nothing bad happened and I was able to clear the wake to get outside to clean water, then get loose from the rope. The Honda ran fine, but there was no way it could be improved enough to be competitive with any of the engines out there. That was the end of the project and I don't know what ever happened to the motor. I suppose Walt took it back home. My Dad would do stuff like that. He would pay somebody to build something to try, and if it didn't work, he would let them keep it. Check out the toothpick.

ADD: Looking at the picture now, that carb would have been one Walt rigged up. It's too big and mounted in a way that would not have been Honda original equipment. I'm guessing the heads were also made by Walt.