Credit to Ove Torkilsen.
Credit to Ove Torkilsen.
Lars Strom
Life is good
Check my own racing history at BRF...http://www.boatracingfacts.com/forum...ead.php?t=6727
My racing web site SVERA.se....http://svera.se/blogg/paris-6-hours/
This is the bottom floor –rigging area- of Renato Molinari’s race boat shop, in Como, Italy during the early 1970s.
At the bow of the race boat in the foreground is Giorgio Molinari (Renato’s younger brother) looking at Steven Ridgell and Dave Brier. The guy looking at the camera, at the race boat behind the foreground boat is Bob Hering. The big guy with his back to the camera, at the other race boat is Rick LaMore.
The other three gents in the photo, I cannot identify, sorry.
Renato in Como last year..(2013)
Picture by Nino Molla
Lars Strom
Life is good
Check my own racing history at BRF...http://www.boatracingfacts.com/forum...ead.php?t=6727
My racing web site SVERA.se....http://svera.se/blogg/paris-6-hours/
Boat racing meeting at Lake Como 2014
Angelo Vassena to the left and Renato Molinari to the right.
Lars Strom
Life is good
Check my own racing history at BRF...http://www.boatracingfacts.com/forum...ead.php?t=6727
My racing web site SVERA.se....http://svera.se/blogg/paris-6-hours/
Mercury debuts the big stuff in Bristol 1979. The F1-T4 for the OZ class.
http://svera.se/blogg/mercury-debuts...-the-oz-class/
Lars Strom
Life is good
Check my own racing history at BRF...http://www.boatracingfacts.com/forum...ead.php?t=6727
My racing web site SVERA.se....http://svera.se/blogg/paris-6-hours/
I believe the boat in the picture was built to be a twin engine rig for Renato to run in special events, I think it was about a 20'er. The brain trust at Merc decided to use a different approach for the 71 Paris race. The year before we ran all sprint type setups, boats were propped out for speed. We learned that as rough as the River Seine gets, we couldn't use all of that speed in the race. For 71 the thinking was good bite, acceleration and stability over top speed. Propshafts were set below the boat bottom rather than above! The big boat was also entered as a single, as you can see Renato added a third transom in the center. We couldn't make it competitive with a Twister I on the tail, but got enough more out of it with the C6 doing the pushing that they put Billy Don Pruett in it for the race. It was the slowest of what we took to Paris, about 85 mph, but was in fact running third deep into the race when the engines coil mount broke and ended it's day. The pieces of lumber you see in front of the original two transoms were added to eliminate the "air brake" effect that the transoms created when it was rigged as a single.
Yes, I think I can give you a timeline .....
Team Mercury started running the Twister in the later part of 1970. The Twister was really just the 1350 direct charge powerhead that they had been running in 69 and 70 with water injected stacks. The "silo" exhaust system not only took the noise away, it got the boats around a course faster because it had better low end punch. The entire team ran them in Paris. Several more were run at Havasu with the full silo log as well as the shorter, open exhaust log nicknamed the "cowbell". The Twister (red decals) was made available to the racing public in 1971 with a McI SSM lower unit.
In 71, engineering added a third transfer port, scalloped reed blocks and made some exhaust log modifications to the Twister. This new combination was called the Twister I, still a 1350 direct charge motor with three Tillotson carbs. The TI (blue decals) was made available to the racing public in 72 as a complete engine or as an update kit for the Twister.
The C6 made it's first appearance in Berlin in 1970. It was used sporatically during 1971. Sometimes it ran with a single pipe exhaust system, sometimes a two pipe system and usually with a closed system. The C6 was the 1400 block with six rectangular carbs. They were referred to as Morgan carbs, named after the engineer responsible for it's development. It got better and better, won first single finishing fourth overall at Havasu, and all team boats were running it at the beginning of 1972.
As good as the C6 ran, the carbs remained a problem as they were very tempermental. Utimately a six Tillotson carb system replaced the Morgan carbs in 1973. The 1400 block received some porting changes and the TII was next in line to be made available to the racing public in 1974.
Hope this answers your question, but I would have thought that you already knew most of this just from reading the decals on the powerheads as they motored on by your Johnrude over the years.
Oh, I should add that I quit ordering soup with extra protein after our "swimming" meal in Spain!
Here is a pic of a C6, a TII and a 'Cowbell' Twister.
I can remember in the 1971 Paris race looking around that large Molinari in the pits before the race and we discussed with Don Pruett about how large it was and showed him round the two Shakespeare outfits my team had brought to race these were grp boats and both were over 19ft but that was the year they stopped the barges running so the race wasn`t as rough as usual I drove one of these outfits it ran a stock Johnson stinger would barely manage 80mph it was so big and heavy but I can remember Georgio Molinari running alongside of me with a 89cu inch Mercury special engine fitted with a silo he was keeping up with me no trouble till my engine expired `that same 89cu engine Georgio used Jackie ran 2 weeks later at the Windemere 3hr race.
This rig sits in the show room at Dockside Marine in Galveston, managed by Keith Scotten who
bought it. He says that Renato brought it here for a race and then left it in the U.S., and that
Tommy Posey drove it afterward. I guess the race could have been Havasu 1979 but don't know.
The boat was later sold to someone in Austin who ran it on Lk. Travis and blew the powerhead,
according to Keith. If it was Tommy's rig then I've seen it run multiple times in Tx.
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