Photos of engines?

[smittythewelder]

I've greatly enjoyed looking at the extraordinary collection of old photos here from Mr. Baldwin and many others. The shots which seem to get the most response are the candid snapshots of racers and families in the pits, and it's fun to see how young everybody looked then. But in a sport that is not just about people, but specifically about people who are fascinated not only by racing but by machinery, by racing equipment, there aren't all that many close-up shots of that equipment.

Would it appeal to anyone else if there were to be some sort of engine history photographic series, with clear, close-up shots of all of the various racing engines that have come and gone over the decades? Augmenting the photographs could be scans of manufacturers' brochures, when available. And not only production engines, but any photos of custom and one-off projects would be good, too. Some of this can be found if you hunt for it; Charlie Williams found a nice set of Merc 2, 4, and 6-cylinder stock and alky shots for his website, and by searching you can find such oddities as the Italian Soriano engines. But how about gathering shots of as many motors as can be found, in one place, as an historic reference collection? I have a couple of things I can contribute, and surely the membership has no end of goodies.

Maybe a similar stand-alone series of good close-ups of boats would be good, too. A couple of weeks ago I posted a thread asking if anyone had a photo of a DeSilva hydro, and in a few days we had a couple of lovely color photos. Now suppose someone wanted to see what a "bulldog Sid" or a Jones cabover or a Goff or a Swift Big D or a Charleton or a Neal or Jacoby looked like; he could use those terms in a search that specified a sub-forum specifically for "Historic Outboard Raceboats," and get right to what he wanted.

Does this make any sense? Is there a way to organize the submissions (without putting anyone to a lot of work), or should photos just be in the random order of when they're submitted?

[Steve Litzell]

It is a Noble effort Smitty. Problem is Racers are racers. They do not in most cases take pictures as they are "At Work" At the races. As Wayne has said, some of his pictures were taken because of some failure of equipment or injuries that allowed a man of Wayne's abilities to take good pictures of what you seek. I too am very guilty of not taking pictures at races because I go to a race to race, not take pictures. That is why pictures of motors and such are rare. In my mind, I can see every motor I was involved in on making as well as the ones I have made myself. Case in point. This is a question, Can you tell us what motor and who made it with pictures that won more APBA Nationals in a row and over all since 1938? This motor also set all the records in the book with exception of 1 2/3 and kilo. Wayne's candid pictures of " The Gang" show only a little of what was behind the seen's. I have only recently taken pictures of some of the stuff I have done and do from homebuilt race motors to restorations I do for customers. Those of us that do this are not so much into the being reconized as much as we are interested in " The next idea". I'm sure there will be some to give to you pictures of their work. Any pictures or know of the where about's of any of the Blankenstein Home builts? 125 thru 250? I have one, but there where many from the early 70's. How about the many that Bruce Nicolson has made. I know of most from about 1982 and on, but some of the first were from about 76 or so. Harrison also made home builts. And the small fry's like Eldredege, Schmidt. Kugler, Latta, Anderson, Holmum, and many many more. Like I said a Noble quest. Steve

[racingfan1]

Ok Smitty , I can kick off your campaign and since Steve :cool: responded I will post a couple pictures of his creation :confused: .

[Master Oil Racing Team]

I've got a million of them Smitty, and by the way, you know me by now. I'm not Mr. Baldwin...I'm Wayne. I've got other photos I have to scan and print for the next couple of weeks, but I like your idea. There was a thread several years ago you might check out about the most unusual motor. Go to search and type in something about most unusual or most unique motor or my favorite motor, or something like that and you will see a bunch of different motors.

[Mike Schmidt]

Wayne: When your searching for motor photo's, please look extra hard for the following ones:

Bob Rhodes ZAK Konig 500/700

Bill Fales 6 Looper

Jerry Waldman any looper

Jim Hallum Anzani

Rossi's early 250 motor form Lakeland in 1993 (Boat #66 )

Michael

[Powerabout]

whats is that, a rotary valve Merc?

[Steve Litzell]

No It is two Konny 500 motors stacked like the 8 Cylinder Konig 850. Smitty and Wayne, I will try to post some pictures of my 850 Konig 8 cylinder as well as the only 6 cylinder known to be left. Also will give some 6 cylinder information. Steve

[smittythewelder]

What a mind-blower!!!

I'd like to find any photos of the dual-Anzani "D" engine put together by Ron Anderson and Jim Hallum in 1968 for the NOA Nationals at Forest Lake, MN that year (and I understand well your point about why there aren't a whole lot of such photos, Steve). Two open-pipe B powerheads set side-by-side, one facing forward, one facing aft, on a two-into-one gearbox over a single lower unit. In 1968, both APBA and NOA required the alky guys to run "approved" engines, and only NOA had approved "C" and "D" Anzanis. Chuck "Honker" Walters, one of the crowd who was close to Hallum, Ron, Walin, Sutter, and Ron's brother Don ("Dewey," more recently known as a builder of stock hydros), each of whom ran Anzanis, was to race the beast on his big DeSilva. I had the small and unenviable part of being one of the four guys who had to pick up the back of that DeSilva (no lightweight), Charles (ditto!), and that monster engine with it's dual iron-block engines. We weren't advanced enough to have push-off boat-horses in those days! A fifth guy pulled the string. Alas, those were the last years in which Jim and Ron were still suffering with Lucas magnetos. The dual engines fired off, and we launched the boat out into the lake with all our might, but it kept fouling a plug here and there before Honker could get fully on plane so that the engines could rev up and clear. Finally the effort just proved to be too much, too soon. Don't know if anything further was ever attempted, but I doubt it, since it was an NOA-only lash-up, and NOA had no presence back in Reg. 10. A few years ago, Jim Hallum gave me some dusty boxes containing the gearbox and a few other odd bits. At that time, John Taylor appeared to be the keeper of the flame of Anzani history, so I shipped the stuff to him to clean up and display, and John was delighted to have it. Not now sure that was the best idea, but I guess we'll see . . . .

Not sure of the year, maybe 1971 or '72 (??), but it was becoming obvious to some of the alky engine builders and tuners that having APBA and NOA approve engines was a counter-productive practice preventing do-it-yourselfers from adapting the ever-improving 2-stroke motorcycle engines for outboard racing use. We also felt that dropping the old A/B/C/D/F class designations, which meant nothing to anybody but us, and replacing them with the widely recognized metric displacement categories, again familiar to motorcycling, would make more sense to outsiders. I composed a long letter stating the advantages of these changes, and sent copies to various officials and a few other movers and shakers within APBA. I can't begin to claim credit for the rule changes that followed (though it was a good letter, if I say so myself!) because the ideas were surely "in the air" all over the country, but maybe my letter had some slight effect.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Who knows Smitty, your letter could have been the spark. When I got on the PRO commission in the mid 70's we talked about that very thing. After having covered some motorcycle races for Motorsport, and then gotten involved with UIM with my Dad, I was in the same corner you were a few years earlier. At first there were a number of commissioners opposed to the idea. I would have to look back at my notes, but it might have been two annual meetings to get that accomplished, and by then we had more supporters. The key was publicity and the public. All the racers knew the classes but the race oriented public was very familiar by then with motorcross springing up all over the country. Road racing , and flat tracks were were not as easy to get into, but motorcross racing was easy. You could find a set of hills everywhere in nature and it was cheap to set up. This was before all the sophisticated suspensions and such nowadays, but back then any Dad could put his kid on a motorcross track very little money and not have to travel very far. On the other hand, the racing public had been tuned into drag racing for a long time. "A" meant the big boys. "B", "C" and the other classes meant smaller bores and less excitement. There were many in the public for sure that knew what the boat racing classes were, but we were interested in attracting youngsters and people that had never been to a boat race. I was a leading proponent of changing class designations and we got it done.

Anyone who has been following my thread Baldy's might wonder about this because I always use A,B,C, D, etc. That's because I am going by what we went by in those days. When I get to the part where it changed, I will include what happened in the commission meetings. After the change was approved, my story will continue with the new class designations. I took pretty good notes in commission meetings, and generally wrote down who voted for what, or was opposed. I think I still have everything. If I get a chance, maybe I will post when that class designation changed. It would be very cool if you still had your letter to post Smitty. I know that when I got on the commission and the subject very first came up that there were people that had been on it already that were in support.

[smittythewelder]

Well, who knows; the advantage my letter would have had is that in those years Reg. 10 had a lot of representation within APBA. At various times, Mike Jones and Rick Sandstrom were commissioners or even president, and Howard Anderson and Hal Tolford were commissioners. I might have a copy of the letter, but if so it is buried real deep by now!! I've written a few racing-related letters over the years, and one you'd get a kick out of if it turns up was to the Seattle newspaper's Sports department, protesting their overtly scornful attitude toward the annual Unlimited races here. On behalf of Unlimited fans and of motorsports people in general, I fairly tore their staff a new one!! Very satisfying!!

Wayne, I want to send you a PM asking whether I can mail you a couple of old Yamato brochures, and maybe a couple of other items, to possibly scan and submit here. I have no idea how to do any of this, as yet, being computer-clueless (okay, all-around clueless!!). But your PM box is full.

I wish I had not given away, long ago, a big brochure from Konig by way of Scott Smith. This was a transition-era piece from roughly 1964 or '65, and it had nice crisp black-and-white photos of all the two-cylinder engines; the FA with it's skinny little early expansion chambers and 25mm slide-type Bings, the FB with the big can-type muffler/bounce-pipe, the open-pipe FC and FD, and the first 4-carb, open-pipe C and D four-cylinders. I sure hope someone saved their copy of this, and submits it here.

Mike S., I have a number for Bob Rhoades that should be current, and will ask if he has photos to share.

Jim Hallum actually shot quite a bit of movie footage in the day, but is having issues getting it transferred to video. I think he said his film is all Super-8, shot with a fancy professional French movie camera he bought, but it seems that that format ran at an odd speed, like 20 frames per second instead of 16, IIRC. Now that I think about it, maybe he said the big problem was with the sound track along the edge of the film. As you'd expect, he knows a good deal about all this, and maybe can get it worked out.