Ted Zahorski: Tuner, Boat Racer, Father and Great Guy

[Ron Hill]

I'm not sure really, when I first met Ted. But it seems I've always known him. He and I are on Facebook and he send me like 100 great pictures. I feel I don't have the time to post them, I am trying to get him to do it.

I have some great things to say about Ted, I honestly can't think of anything negative, ever, about him. If you ask him, "What time is it?" He may tell you how clocks work before he answers.

I've always assumed he had an IQ of 2000.

I once sold Ted a Mark 30-H, he's told me at least 50 times it wasn't as fast as his good motor. I keep telling him, I probably never ran the motor. My dad build all my motors, we sometimes sold them before we ever ran them.

Point in fact, I once sold a motor to Mike Wetmore's friend, (Jimm Fallon I think). Jim sold it to to Wetmore then Mickey Schwarzenbach got it. I later got it from Mickey. That MArk 30-H newver lost a race no matter who owned it. I sold it to Lloyd Mize.

[TRZ750]

Actually I concentrated on D and used the 30H on the D boat to fill in CU classes and on my hydro which wasn't a great boat. So no reason to really complain. It just didn't sing like the 55H did and may be that was normal for the 30H. Like the 55H could gain by high timing over 0.300" to the 0.500" I used, but the 30H didn't gain anything with the high timing.

[Ron Hill]

Well, probably the motor was too tight for high timing. My Old Man like H)-3's with high timing (Platnum tips) and later made the bottom two ring out of aluminum. The rule said, "Any ring".

So, the Old Man made his own, they hugged the piston...

Ted, tell us: Are you the guy that took everyone other needle bearing out of the retained so the engine would not burn a rod? I have given you credit for this "CONCEPT" for more than twenty years. I have ofter felt someone would do a Google search and prove me wrong.

One thing, on 30-H's and 55-H's you had to have the throttle butterflys full open with NO mag, so you could play with the advance (throttle) off the corners.

Want me to tell the story of BLOWING UP Henry's Bass Boat motor????

Or how about you guys "LEAVING" Yamaha's radar gun on the dock???

[TRZ750]

Kevin Cameron is a great motorcycle tuner. He made his Kawasaki's run faster and more dependable than the factory ones. He also wrote a number of great technical articles for some motorcycle magazines. He was the first one that I know of that took every other big end bearing out (and explained why). I can, but don't want to build a clock. Anyone that wants to learn about engines should search for his writings.

[TRZ750]

Also I did something different for my bottom piston rings. I ground the back away to both kill the tension (so like the Al rings your dad did) and to make the piston assemblies exactly maatch in weight. (More grinding on the rings used in the heavy assemblies.)