British Anzani A & B Stock & Alky Racing Engines

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

This engine post is going to be one large one when done. (some 30 pages) I wish to thank Smitty-The-Welder, the late and great Bill Tenney (Mid-West) and Gene Strain (Calgary, AB Racing Assn.) for all the materials concerning these engines that will date all the way back to 1959. By 1965 these engines as Alkys (Todays Pro Class engines) were already going in excess of 80 miles per hour and by 1981 were going in excess of 100 miles per hour, setting records where some runs were going up to 107 miles per hour hitting raceboat, prop and other technological barriers in the process.

The first feature will be some introductory materials to the British Anzani racing outboards that will shortly be followed by the complete type written 1959 manual produced by Bill Tenney himself in 1959 for racers purchasing his engines and modifying them for Alky themselves if that is what they wanted to do. Enjoy one of the first "cast iron" blocked loop charged engines that was part of that technological revolution that also produced the Quincy Flathead Loop, The Harrison Loop, The Konig Loop and other hybrid racing engines producing amazing horsepower before there was really the props and raceboats to handle that kind of output.

Enjoy the start to this thread, the entire 1959 Bill Tenney British Anzani manual will follow this opener in a short few days. :)

In the meantime if there are some posts of pictures and stories you may want to add into this thread, please do. Everyone will be pleased to share your pictures and your experiences.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Putting this together for BRF readers and writers was no mean feat. Mark 75H mentioned that I had to get larger but then 50kb size is the limit. To do this with generation re-copied status was quite trying. Thanks to the late and great Gene Strain (Calgary, AB. division of the Alberta Racing Powerboat Assn. of the day) made this possible. Not only did he sell me his well run B - Alky Anzani way back in the early 1980s, it came with this 1959 Bill Tenney's Special Instructions For British Anzani Motors too. When I got them they were terribly faded so there have been so many enhancements done to bring them to their resent hard copy state, I suffer from severe eyestrain! :)

In any case keeping in mind that there is a 50kb limit to each posted Jpeg, remember they are downloadable from this site and you too can enhance them some more to make them even more readable or get some steno with good googly eyes an old typewriter to redo them fresh save for the wavy lines that are so original.

Enjoy the late and great Bill Tenney's works now following this narrative. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Next Ba Batch

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

More Of Bill's Manual

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

And More Of Bill Tenney's Ba Manual

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The Last Pages Of Bill Tenney's Manual

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

BILL TENNEY'S LAST PAGE OF SPECIAL BRITISH ANZANI INSTRUCTIONS 1959.


:) With any luck and gone really cross eyed with enhancements AGAIN! In about a week or less, there will be featured the British instructions typed on British Anzani office paper on the engines plus a parts and price list from way back then, scanned, ENHANCED and poster here on BRF. Please don't ask me what those British money figures mean when you see them! I know nothing! Since then even they have changed!

[Mark75H]

In any case keeping in mind that there is a 50kb limit to each posted Jpeg, remember they are downloadable from this site and you too can enhance them some more to make them even more readable

Not true. While you may have run into those restrictions on another website we have never limited the file size that small on BRF. 150+kb and 1300pixels by 1300pixels have always been welcome on BRF (I'm not going to say what the limits are set on right now, but it is "adequate"). Your images are being posted at 500 by 500 and 72dpi and cannot be upgraded with anything short of NSA/NRO software

Try giving us 1000 X 1000 at 150 to 200dpi :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

It is something else when it comes to black and white scanning. I will give your suggestions a go that way and see what will do the trick. The Anzani maual was a virtual bleach job from the age it was done, printed and copied and I am getting better at desktop publishing, some much can be done these days than even a couple years ago. Thanks Sam. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The following series of posts are a large attempt to identify these engines by powerheads and major components through out the engine. You can see there is some of Bill Tenney's written manual in some of the parts seen here from both A and B Stock and Alky racing in single carb format but in a variety of barrel sizes for the class applied too. Just think? You may have some of these parts getting dusty under your work bench and this can help to identify quite a few components for the readers and writers to this board. If you have some pictures and stories of your own for this section, please add them.

In the meantime, enjoy these picture batches of British Anzani engines and their components. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Batch 2

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Batch 3

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Batch 4

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Batch 5

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Batch 6

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Batch 7

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The Mikuni Carb does not belong in the Anzani's history. Done and submitted in orror. Please disregard the Mikuni pics. Sorry.

Batch 8

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Batch 9

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Batch 10

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Batch 11

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Batch 12

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Batch 13

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

There will be some more picture batches of Anzani components posted shortly to add to all the previous pages to round out everything possible. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Pics 1-5

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Pics 6 - 11

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Pictures 12 - 16

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Pictures 17 -

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Pictures 22 - 26

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Pictures 27 - 31

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Pictures 32 -

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

I know there are things I missed like 2 carb crankcase, other carbs and other things here and there that would still need unwrapping and storage de-greasing (what looks rusty isn't, it the dirty grease and farbric coverings mess left behind prior to cleaning). At some point I might add things that come up from time to time as they happen in the future.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

This British Anzani B- Stock gasoline racer may be the only one if the world left that has never been started. I hope it it never will be! for its value is just that.........never been started.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

It might turn out small from the print it was taken from.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The clarity may not be too good as they were scanned from a Polariod instant print.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

These two pictures are from another part of this website and are an excellent representation of what was going on withe these engines. Pictures courtesy of this BRF site (Jeff Lytle and the late Ron Collins (I understand)). They show the DelOrto fuel bowls raised high above the flywheel is the exact way Bill Tenney spec'd his engines. His did not use the remote fuel pumps and return spill over systems back to the fuel tank like the later Hallum and Anderson versions seen out West. They came mostly one or two bowled required to still use the single float gravity needle and seat float system in the Vacturi carbs. Why one or two and sometimes three DelOrto remote bowls?? They were simply to give the engine the fuel it needed gravity fed without overflowing and they ate it, methanol and more than 20% nitro fuel drinks voraciously as an A or B versions with the like wise number of DeOrtos feeding them gravity fuel.

I heard some time ago that stinger pipes were being tested by the late and great Bill Tenney as well as the movers and shakers out west too but when you compare todays computerized formulas that bag off a set of pipes specs and manufacturing specs off your PC or laptop, these people were already thinking far in advance of where this was all going. The amazing part was that they were hitting the century mark of 100 mph by the 1980s without stinger pipes/expansion chambers. What would computer designed chambers do for their design now? They had some CD ignitions by the 1980s but had not strayed into the flat slide or round slide carbs at that point yet the original carb for these engines was a round slide carb called an Amal Monoblock that you find a whole host of on British motorcycles. Obviously the technology to take slide carbs to the next level using methanol and nitro mixes was far behind volumetric and butterfly throttle opening technologies. :)

[Mark75H]

John, where did that picture come from?

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Both of these engines, the one with the DelOrto bowls held high and the one with the stinger expansion chambers are already on this site, under "coolest racing egnines of our time", So I copied them to this section to honor their contributors with the alignment of those pictures on this thread too to give readers the most perspective possible of their evolutions as part of the British Anzani thread. I hope nobody minded?? They fit real well as does this 4 carb version that came through Charlie Williams of CORE website. :)

I have some older pictures of the DelOrto high mounted bowls somewhere in storage here until all the renovations are complete to get them and post those as well. I had a picture book full of these beasts running against Quincy Flatheads, Harrisons and Konigs at races here when I was a teenager, pitman and DSH driver, but, a friend of mine in a marital splitup lost the whole thing negatives and all were sleved in with it. That is one loss to me and would have been great for this site too.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Prior to 1980 Roger Wendt campaigned this true hybrid Anzani based Hallum - Anderson version in Flathead Lake and North West Alky competitions. Though it was a 2 carb with one small carb over the rotary valve (Tillotson HL) and one real big one (Vacturi) it was simple in terms of overall form and remarkably fast and reliable with running 40% nitro in the methanol fuel mix.

*Described fully it was: Anzani cast iron loop block, crankcase & pistons.
*Next generation crankshaft and rods where the earlier used bronze bushings in the small end of the rod, this was had caged needle rollers. The big end crank pins where straight instead of tapered into the top and bottom crank components to crank component alignment.
*Phelon flywheel ignition.
*Harrison rope plate.
*Mercury clamps and saddle.
*Konig gearcase.
*Fabricated pipe tower housing.
*OMC high volume fuel pump for return to tank fuel system.
*Well proven bell exhaust system.
*Mercury steering adapter and steering bar system.

[smittythewelder]

After Ron built it for him, Roger (previously a BSH driver from Montana) (I think), ran it on a very pretty Goff hydro with which Ralph Thede had previously set a CSH competition record. All of Larry Goff's boats were beautifully-made.

The picture with the ram's-horn bounce-pipes (expansion chambers) is of one of Ron's own engines. Since it is on a runabout, the likely driver would be Ron's brother Don (who also built a number of successful Dart-Craft boats, and made pipes, too), or Chuck Walters, or maybe Lee Sutter.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

This crankcase I understand is typical of the Anzani Alkys developed in the North West by/for Hallum, Anderson, Sutter and for people like Roger Wendt and The Strains (Gene & Bill) where 2 carbs were applied. The Primary Carb, A Vacturi not seen here sits on the cast iron block's piston ports and where there is a torturous S passage from a block port to the crankcase cranshaft rotary tunnel, the block rotary valve passage was left to work too and also a Tillotson HL (quite small for velocity reasons) self pumping carb was positioned on the Crankcase outer wall directly across from the crankshaft rotary valve opening area as well. This created multiple major streams of air fuel, one original via the big Vacturi carb and the others bent from the vacturi through that tunnel and from the HL carb direct on, to the crankshaft rotary valves making for such air/fuel feeding that included the piston ports with modified piston skirts too, there was virtually no part of the engines single revolution where some port was opening and some closing with all the overlaps that the pulsations at the intake normally associated with piston port and then also piston port and rotary valve combo engines became near steady streams of high velocity air/fuel that really power packed the engines to do the speeds they did. These engines were breathing and more was to come!

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Of all things awful in this world of boat racing is an ignition system that refuses to work consistently to keep the power on! Ever hear of the term known to many of the British engine enthusiasts as "Lucas, That Prince of Darkness"? They most surely are referring to Lucas electronics of that era where simple was made complex and there was no guarantee after it was together your would even get a jolt! On the British Anzani its Funny how it looks like a Fairbanks Morse FM magnetos found on early Merc Mark 55s and Mark 30s! Even the FM discharge coil drops right in and bolts down too!! and improves the Lucas the first time you fire it! I am always on the search for Lucas magnetos, so from this picture of what I received it isn't any wonder why he gave up, put it away and only remembered something when some one spoke of some eccentric looking for something Lucas that didn't work. The picture is what I got...........and they put that on a race engine??? Give me an old USA built FM anytime! :)

[Mark75H]

John, could I get you to redo one of the pictures? I think one of the crankcase halves is upside down. I think the best representation would be as on the right side of this ... showing the passages to the rotor inlet next to each other.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

I never gave it a thought as to crankcase orientation so proper perspective was assumed on the part of the viewer by me in error. Given nice light conditions in the morning as this gnome does not wish to awaken sleepers too early in the house, on a Saturday morning, I will be out in the garage workshop early after first light to get some more pictures done on things including your request before they nab me to do something cultured like having coffee!! :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Lucas magneto ignitions were a troublesome lot as a whole so some one got real enterprising out in the North West and with Roger Wendt's Anzani "cross" some carefull remachining was done to add on the Harrison basis platform for lighter weight ignition. The case was a water spray resistant clam shell kind of housing that sported an aluminum lightweight flywheel with the cast in flywheel magnets and cast in crankshaft core adapter with crankshaft key spline, a Harrison lettered flywheel on top and all Phelon ignition with 20H type points and condenser systems to fire 2 cy;inders underneath. Good setup? You bet! Consistently reliable, that could fire the 40% nitro in methanol mixes the engine would be called upon to use. Not bad, considering it was not a CD system but it could still burn water by any standard and get the job done. Some components are featured in the next pictures.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Sam-75H requested I repost or in this case add to the posts on crankcases used on Anzanis. There was the single carb version that was unbelievably strong running by itself. Then up in the Nrotwest, Sutter, Anderson and Hallum started adding carbs too who was also joined by Bill Tenney too in these mutliple carb adventures that went from one, to two, to 4 and to 6 carbs even feeding 2 cylinders. The most successful Anzanis or which a picture here mounted on a Karlesen hydro is representative of the 4 carb. Bill Tenney was the first to hit the century mark of just over 100 miles per hour iby 1981 and then followed by others running 103 to 107 miles per hour and these hulls were not all pickelfork hydros at this point!

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

These next pictures should help complete the orientation to the differences between a Stock gas/alky crankcase with 1 carb, a Vacturi and then adding the single small barrel HL Series self pumping Tillotson carb on the crankcase directly opposite and in line with the rotary valve inlet face itself. At this point the engine was breathing through dual piston ports on the castiron block being fed air/fuel by the Vacturi and in front of that the HL carb augmented the Vacturi's split stream with its own stream at the face of crank rotary. A very compact an arrangement with excellent results.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

In the old NOA (National Outboard Association) there was room for quite some individualism when it came to Alky classes and engines. Not happy with one powerhead powering up tower and gearcase, Bill Tenney was one of the first or was the first to have a dual powerhead methanol/ntiro burning dual complete engines coupled to one coupler transmission, stacked on one Anzani tower housing, driving a single gearcase with a singular prop. You started one engine with a rope, in effect you started both! Not only was these 2 - 15 cubic inch A Alky motors together to make a dual C Alky engine they had the engines facing opposite and across from each other and had bell exhausts both behing and a second set 90 degrees to those too and the sound was said to be incredible, along with the back breaking weight of the motor and it was real fast! At some point in time Bill Tenney had a minor garage fire hot enough to melt some metals but some couplers survived, some were not so fortunate. 2 however are excellent so I pictured the after garage fire one, the other is appart and being polished to recreate the engine as a dual for later postings.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The following pictures are that of two carbs for an Anzani dual carb setup that were assembled for use, but never got there to fruitition. The smaller carb is a Tillotson "HL" series self pumping floatless carb with full adjustable jetting to sit on the crankase outside directly opposite the crank rotary valve opening. The larger, A Tillotson "HD" sitting on the cast iron blocks opposite the piston ports and separate rotary valve tunnel had to use a separate pump OMC fuel pump assisted floatless setup with a return to the fuel tank but accellorator pump added the high speed jet circuit to assist in dealing with wide open carb requests that would cause some flatspotting, would be eliminated. Both carbs are jetted to run Methanol based fuels. Both had extended velocity stacks to deal with ram effects. Interesting carb setup that weighed less than the Vacturi and did away with some more of its potential problems??? :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

With out a doubt these were and to some, still are one of the most inovative racing gearcases ever desgined and built.

The casting itself was one piece by all accounts and then they sliced off the skeg and nose cone/wedge as one piece and machined its innards upward to the driveshaft stub that used fully sealed and bearing-ed one piece driveshaft and gear setip. Then they machined the remaining part of the large housing to locate a bearing carrier and seal system to carry the propshaft assembly which was also one piece with shaft and gear same as the driveshaft. Micrometer setting of gear lash from above and behind each gearhead on its shaft was sooo easy this way, there was nothing blind in doing so. So what about the one piece cut off nose/wedge cone and attached sked? They trued up the cut off sections and located a dowl pin and an Allen screw tightening setup to mount it back on using a good non hardening aeromotive glue at the long joint for water proofing and she was complete. One major difference with this gearcase you don't find on others is that she was and still is the most slimline gearcase ever built and she wore well when burning heavy methanol and nitro loads on the Anzanis, so where was the oil to keep her lubed??? It was part of the casting to build a resevoir as part of the casting that circulated the oil to the components and around again because the the extreme tight fit, and it worked very well. It lubed everything completely so all you did was drain her after a meet and refill her. Reports of water leaks were supposedly NIL as there was ram feed incorporated that was sealed secure, there were no pumps involved here.

Quite and still is a marvellous and streamlined gearcase. :)

[smittythewelder]

Whoa, John, up above you state that Bill Tenny was "the first to hit the century mark, in 1981." Actually, Gerry "Fantum" Walin did it about ten years earlier with a Hallum-built B Anzani on a Karelsen hydro, the exact outfit you have in a color photo a few pages back. Walin/Hallum had taken the B kilo record at least a couple of times in the late '60s in the high 80 and low 90mph range. In 1970, a Japanese team working for Fuji (one of the companies that built engines for the gambling races, and which might have been absorbed by World Outboard/Yamato) put the record up to about 98mph.
I think it was '71 that Walin got the 100mph record. This was a marvel at the time, getting into the 100mph Club with a little BOH at a time when the C and DOH records were still in the low 90s, and it was a few years more before the C and D records went above 100mph. By that time, Walin had made his last attempt with a B Anzani, running 106 one-way, but sticking a piston on the return run. I wonder what they could have done with today's props.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The three following pictures is a vintage of one kind of wide clamping system Anzani had. I have no way of knowing whether it was newer or older but it was used as they stripped the original clamping threads in the aluminum castings, so they inserted a threaded brass tube/pipe and rethreaded that to use a Mercs clampdown, handles and washers to do it all over again. This unit is a mixure of cast aluminum and brass that would make it heavier but not too significantly so.

Never the less, the way they build cockpits now and how they used to build some way back when was to fit the drivers width forward and then pull the cockpit in to make it narrow at the back to deal with the mounting space given the motor. Contemporary users of the Anzanis you have seen here earlier would indicated that the narrow mounting with wise of the clamping system was in heavy use and there were situations where the engine would shif loose from pounding and vibrating setting it at a dangerous angle with even one clamp coming off the transom causing some accidents,like I have an old picture somewhere showing Dick Pond having that problem with his Anzani (will find that soon enough for posting). These engines with their heavy duty crankshafts and cast iron loop block were also known for cracking the cast and machined engine mounting torque tube tower at the neck that broke the block loose from the pounding back and forth it took. Some later owner/drivers even reversed the engine mountint to put less loading over the transom putting the cast iron loop block cylinders facing the drivers butt and putting the carb on the right side of the raceboat mount making the block a natural spray shield. Pipes were re-configured and mounted to match the reversal that look some of the strain of the neck to block mount cutting down on the cracking. Some owner drivers did find that the only thing left holding the entire engine to the boat was by its steering bar and ropes with the most recent happening in UK (England) to whom I sent a new tower/tube to replace his broken one as welding proved itself not too reliable leaving the tube okay for displays but that is all. In Roger Wendt's case of his hybrid Anzani they used a fabricated steel tube, Mercury saddle, co-pilot brake and clamps but went to a Konig gearcase to deal with that issue. I have such a cracked tube here, there is now way but for displays after welding for that one.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

You may very well be right about that one as I was relying on an advertisement for the British Anzani engines from Bill Tenney that showed a 2 carb version (Vacturi and Tillotson HL) pictured shadowed into the advertisementment. That is the problem from renovating here as thinks are put away that will be posted. It could very well that Bill Tenney those accomplishments by the other driver in advertising his own business. I sure stand to be corrected as that advert is all I got and I was doing this more from memory. My understanding was the advert and accomplishment were 1981 but it would not surprise me if if was earlier in the 1970s. I have a VHS tape showing Bill Tenney walking around and talking about the Anzani in the pictures as being the made up version with Merc CD ignition and all as being what broke records along with motion pictures showing the driver on good runs as well as those that lifted real bad requiring correction before it blew over and that was the supposed 106-107 mile per hour runs. That may very well be the driver and runs you mention in your post. It will become quite clear as we assemble more for this thread.

Its all quite amazing considering the hulls, props, carbs and pipe technologies of the timess could have, probably did limit the runs. That is why its concievable that that engine equipped in these contemporary times technologies could do something yet to raise that ever higher to where modern made 350s of other makes would be giving their heads a shake at what these old castiron blocked loopers would do. Far ahead of their times they were.

When I was a early teen I remember watching Anzanis line up for singular test runs down the middle of the river through the race course going so fast it was making drivers with big engines, Konigs, Flatheads and padded block deflectors, stop, watch and give their heads a shake, reverting to doing what they were before the started watching that run. I remember Dave Berg's one run in particular that really showed the speed and power of his Anzani. Half the run was watching them start and heave ho throwing them forward as they started up reving to the roof so fast, people looked worrried because they might blow up and hurt some one.

Those were sure the times! Having a Merc KG9 on a DSH-hydro was not so bad watching those things go bizzare nutz! :)

[Mark75H]

a Japanese team working for Fuji (one of the companies that built engines for the gambling races, and which might have been absorbed by World Outboard/Yamato) Correct! Fuji made the motors that became the Yamato alky motors. They looked almost identical to Konig 4 carb piston port motors.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

I can remember an old Road and Track magazine where they were mkaing fun of a proposed Japanese car in Formula 1! Bamboo suspension and rice paper covering and all, a real spoof! Look at they now at Indy and in F-1 - Honda's & Toyotas and then Ferraris! My how times change. Many things you see from Japan were thought of elsewhere and at times they even paid for just that because for some reason sociologists and the such like might know they, the Japanese people think different. Some say more linear, more task oriented but not inventive. They are the greatest copiers and simulators, so they look at a Konig 4 banger and they build the Yamato 350 and 500s and other piston porters that go like blazes. Then they get here into North America or into Europe and before you know it they have disk rotary valves mounted on them too just like a Konig and go ever faster. I remember Carl's Laverenz's Yamato 500. Five carbs!! One for each piston port and one more for some kind of rotary valve and what a wild engine that made! And it started easy and took off! The Japanese are good at what they do because they work hard and with discipline at what they do. I had Japanese Karate instructors, they sounded like Yoda!! There is no try! There is only DO! :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Its a strange crankshaft center section - NOS (New Old Stock) just like its counterpart was still covered with storage grease but still 100 percent Anzani! I looked at these two new ones and they "are heavy" and cleaned off the rotary valve centermain section of the crankshaft where the top and bottom big end tapered pins plug in and I really don't know which one is newer or older but one has the rotary valve tunnel machined in and the other doesn't.

That makes the one version without the rotary valve tunnel a pure piston port Anzani! But why when we already know rotary valves works well to help transfer air/fuel effectively to the crankcase with the piston ports, its modern day use? Did some one also play with some reed valves in addition to the piston ports without using a rotary valve? Was this part a precursor engine to the rotary valved engine that showed itself later as the most successful later design with the rotary valve in? I have only the one and I know its not Harrison via measurement and its use of the Anzani big end tapered pins.

If anyone can shed some light on this unique crankshaft center section without the rotary valve put in, please do. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

These following pictures are of the last series of Anzani 15 cubic inch (250 CC) in cast iron. Previous series already pictures in posts had the real wide rectangular exhausts that Bill Tenney developed trimable blocking plugs for the left and right side of the old rectangular port to keep the exhaust gases from expanding, other than changing the exhaust shape in area from square to round when it hit the external pipe elbo and continued on the the choosen megaphone flare thereafter to give that wacky sound!

With this new style "A" block, no more exhaust port/outlet in the block, blocking plugs. It was round into the pipe elbo right away though still bridged in half to support the piston rings better. Some say for future exhaust systems, others saying natural evolution as exhausts are based on round and not square pipe systems.

What ever the thinking Harrison (Birmingham Metal Products) had cast aluminum elbos with flages that you could drill and fit the round exhaust outlet fit to the Anzani right way.

Similarly their HRP aluminum megaphone castings worked hand in glove with the Anzani as well as their own Harrisons to make for a very light weight system that allowed Anzani owners to spring mount them to float on the connection and high tension springs doing away with "strutting or supporting" the Anzani stacks as they had been. This was a great improvement to the cast iron and steel everything else overhanging from rear that already needed supports running to the front of the crankcase with the resulting crankcase to tower necks cracking, requiring replacement.

Harrison's HRP aluminum stacks came in some differenet lengths and tapers too be custom cut and fitted to the Anzani engines owner's/driver's experiences coupled to the style/length of course they were running to optimize performance through easy pipes changes now made available. (See BRF's section on the Harrision Racing Outboards) Some earlier Anzani Alky engines are seen in pictures as being silver colored earlier on and without the pipe strut supports.

Back to the block. The block featured here has been completely readied in all manner for its final cast iron operations being the actual porting of the intake and exhaust ports and then the bore only finished honed. Ports then closed over, water jacket plugs installed and she was ready shortly for engine installation.

Questions come up about why Anzani was a cast iron blocked loop engine, why not aluminum? A reader from the UK (England) commented to me that at one point all castings there were predominately "gutter iron" a cast iron of very good quality that was used for everything until aluminum came along and along with that were moulders and casters to made it almost an artform in terms of use and applications. Heavy? Yes. Durable? Yes. Heat Trasfer Qualities? Excellent. Casting Flaw Prone? No. No one there ever thought that theses cast iron beauties cast iron blocks could withstand the high nitromethane loads in methanol based racing fuels that would go on to set speed records for what some thought was "old technology" casting. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

final block view of this Anzani A castiron block.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

I just got an amail from the UK where there is a 350 Anzani with a Amal Monobloc round slide carb also claiming the over 100 miles per hour speeds too but it did not fully explain that either. Your right about Bill not setting the record, that is my mistake, it was Bill Tenney promoting the engine that did these things and set those records. Like Bill Tenney who sold and worked the engine here in North America where others like Walin and others set records on them the ghist was that it was the brand of engine doing so, not the sellers and servicers thou what can you say about Hallum, Anderson, Walin and the Sutters. They were the known movers and shakers though not all those having and using those crazy engines in competitions. In conclusion, even the engine in the UK Marine Museum makes the claim but it was geared to the engine brand and not the idividuals that accomplished those records themselves.

* I wished I had more on Harrison racing outboards for posting here as their close links to the Anzanis and their likewise performances were outstanding then and still a wonder now. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The following pictures have been re-aligned/copied from the "coolest engines of all time" to give more views of this enlarging thread covering the Brtiish Anzani engines. Feel free to add your own pictures and stories too, to really flesh out what was going on with these castiron blocked loop charged engines. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Another re-aligned and copied picture batch.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Harrison race products also included making parts and equipment that would fit British Anzanis. In fact Harrison produced a variety of light weight spring loaded exhausts for Alky that took off a lot of the heavy loading conventional steel pipes added to the overhanging cast iron engine block would then break the mounting flange on the crankcase to torque tube/tower aluminum mount. This was a cheaper alternative. Loose the odd pipe to spring failure or have the whole engine block shear off at the mounting neck and do what?

There is still a lot of pro-con concerning steel versus aluminum megaphone tipped exhausts systems. I wish a knowledgable writer on that subject would give that a go for people like me that remain quite confused when they hear that steel is better than aluminum? Anyone?? :)

[smittythewelder]

Is a cast aluminum pipe really any lighter than the same pipe made of 20ga sheet steel?

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

When you compare the Harrison aluminum elbo, megaphone stack castings and its mounting spring steel 2 springs to hold the setup together against an Anzani hand made welded megaphone, its steel elbo, steel flange to cast iron block plate, all welded together, add more brazing to help shape the change of opening from square to round at the elbo and flange plate and then you add the stack strut system to support each one and then bolt up a good steel or thick aluminum mounting system under the middle head studs to hold/support and encircle (the stack struts) and complete stacks, that whole system is one lot heavier. I am not sure if the Harrison's required a wrap around or top rod stabilizing clamping from the front of the crankcase ( the Anzani rods start off the magneto mounts) to plates across head bolts to have these rods run though, threaded at the end to spread the load from those steel overhanging and struted stacks (and cast iron loop block). If the Harrison didn't, that was extra weight taken off there too? I wished I had more of the Harrison elbos, the ones I had were pretty damaged (rather ugly re-melted) from Bill Tenney's garage fire years ago and un-usable, but you could see the weight saving non the less. As you can see, I have 4 aluminum Harrison pipes for different tunning applications but no elbos.

The other point I am seeking is some input why some Alky owner/preparer/drivers prefered steel over aluminum stacks to do tuning and power development? Steel contributed more resonance, harmonics or something that aluminum can't or won't as there are so many different steels and aluminums too??? Smitty or anyone else?

[smittythewelder]

Okay. You know a lot of physics (and you don't need to know much for this); think about thermodynamics/heat-transfer and acoustics . . . .

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The exhaust roar from a square exhaust ported 2 cylinder like that is sure unique but I always thought it was the nitro loading in the methanol had more to do with the horsepower that those pipes.

Some humor - Acoustic means? A stick Newfies chase cooos with for morning milking in Newfoundland! :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Okay. You know a lot of physics (and you don't need to know much for this); think about thermodynamics/heat-transfer and acoustics . . . .

I kind of scratched my head for a moment, you mentioned those. I took out the Lazer 128 old note book IBM compatible from many years ago that has some modern pipe formulas in its hard drive and poked around the B-Anzani Alky there and plugged some figures in and tossed that around 3 different ways. Use those results with nitromethane loaded in methanol base and lube to the extent they used to at 20% to 40%, something would have to give way with a bang! A good racing engine is only as good as it can last the distance and do so reliably for a reasonable period of time (in some years) so to get there, there seems little doubt some compromising is required or your engines life is so extreme it has no virtual life at all when it could do way better than that. The minute you think away from megaphones to tuned expansion chambers, you pretty much write a new chapter to your engine book that also inlcludes a quieter engine! No! No! We can't have that!! LOL! :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

How hot did that fire at Bill Tenney's garage not far from his home at the lake front get?? Those pictures are for tommorows posts. I will have a followup post on some Anzani porting theories that were tried but what they were trying out and for what effect is lost on me but perhaps some other readers with some background on these engines will recognize what those weird "holes" added to the cast iron block were all about? :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The following pictures are going to be interesting from many perspectives of just what the late and great Bill Tenney and his crew were thinking? and doing to A and B Anzani Alky blocks. They ran them as well with the strange modifications but it seems to be halted with the garage fire back in that era. Have a good look and help me stop scratching my head? :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Does anyone know why they would drill ports right through a cast iron block right through to the cylinders? This A - Alky was run with those extra dual ports per cylinder next to the exhaust ports, but how did they act??

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

When they broke the mounting flange on a castiron block right through to the cylinder, they did not toss the block, they fixed it right into the cylinder. That seemed very important to that experimental added ports project, so nothing was tossed. They modified and kept right on testing. The barzing becoming part of the bore where it was not critical to the rings was quite alright.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

From these previous pictures is a Red class A Alky block that had the extra 2 ports added to one cylinder only and not the other. Clearly it was run that way for a longish time and for some benefit as other blocks had 2 extra ports per cylinder added and that was for the Anzani A. The Anzani B Alky block seems even more extreme with added ports.

The fire clearly got hot when the castiron Anzani loop block with its exhaust plugs to keep the exhaust square going into the megaphone exhaust pipe melted and spread out into more of the exhaust port.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

This perfectly otherwise servicable class B Alky block shows a different port of one extra hole on each corner the castiron block. If one could commen on the quaility of the cast iron block loop castingings cutaways was the flawless castiron castings that they were of an iron called at the time I understand as "gutter iron)", done very precisley and they even cast in flow angles of attack for later port machinng after casting. Between the air/fuel cooling of the ports, the water jacket penetration was also excellent for a cooler running engine even on gasoline, so the last word in cooling was not always lauminum alloys of the day either.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Making a 125CC Anzani from a damaged block and crankcase section from the worst of the damaged part was the original intent until a machinist lost his mechanical grip on the aluminum crankcase part being macine cutaway, tossing it on the floor and cracking it near irrepairably so. Still a good example of casting technologies.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

This half of the pipe set were both garage fire over heated and warped similary with the aluminum from a melted cylinder head dripping on to the pipe brace support collar and staying there. That fire must have been heartbreak for some many ideas, engines and parts of which considerable was saved.

[smittythewelder]

I wasn't pulling your leg, John. You asked why some tuners preferred steel pipes over aluminum. I don't know their thinking, but here's my guess:

Heat transfer: aluminum has, what, twice the thermal conductivity of steel (I don't have my Machinery's Handbook here)? Anyway, an aluminum pipe will draw heat out of the exhaust gasses faster than a steel pipe. Acoustics: What happens to the speed of the acoustic waves when the medium they pass through is cooled? It gets slower. To the slower-moving waves, the pipe then looks longer. To what effect? It moves the tuning of the pipe to lower rpm ranges. This is why some guys have water injection into the pipe; it makes power at a much lower rpm for getting on-plane, or coming out of a corner. The upshot is that, theoretically anyway, if you want an aluminum pipe to act like a given steel pipe, it needs to be a little shorter and maybe smaller diameter. And if it gets splashed with water, an aluminum pipe might change the wavespeed dramatically.

Sled racers think it's important to keep their pipes at a fairly constant temperature, and experiment with thermal wraps. Car guys believe that keeping the exhaust system hot means that the exhaust gasses have more energy and are more quickly cleared out of the system, lowering back-pressure, so they use thermal wrappings, too. I wrapped the headers in an old van just to keep the engine compartment cooler. But these wraps don't like to get wet, so I don't think they'd work on raceboats, unless there is something new available.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

I asked them at TSR why they did not make pipe formulas for powerboat racing loopers, as they say they don't, but really they do for Loop Charged engines its just that they want or provide software for pipes that warm up and remain constant too for the very reasons you are citing. Makes a good pipe run all over the place like spaghetti because of the water splashing on to the pipe throws the tuning all over the place as it is based on a number of factors that can't be changed on the run from water splashing or hosing on different parts of pipe surface and that to them means any and all. Otherwise their formulas by reputation seem first rate.

When I was in Florida I saw what was either a Yamato 350 or 500 Alky 4 cylinder early version with dual and wrapped expansion/stinger pipes. Were they, the pipes heavier than normal from the wappings? You bet they were and that kind of overhang feels heavy handling too boot. The other key is how to angle them away from the engine like Konig plus so if you spin the Anzani cast iron block side forward that is extra length and weight considerations perhaps would be taken up and easier dealt with too?

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

By Sunday this week, I will be streaming a whole load of Jpegs pictures of finer parts, variations of some others, steering systems etc. to fill in a lot of gaps. Is there anything readers may specifically want to see in particular that so far has not been shown and I am working my way towards them?

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

One picture shows the original steering bars for British Anzani, I don't know if they ever got beyond those originals, they were pretty basic! :confused:

It was not long before adapters came along the use that nice chromed and custom bent/angled Mercury Outboards Steering Bar we see or own on all the Mercurys from KG throught to H series engines. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

From the pictures the pistons come up very high. The circumference dome to skirt edge comes dead even with the top of the cast iron engine block. The slightly hemi-domed piston crown actually penetrates to the combustion chamber where it compresses the air/fuel/lube mix from the cylinder, to lesser combustion chamber to the major chamber where a cold racing Champion or Autolite would ignite the by then very turnbulent mix.

Original Anzani piston rings were good cast iron, there being 2 of them from the factory. Later with a concern that the top ring of the 2 rings installed and not the piston crown was actually controlling the timing, so a new modification came out where a single "Dykes or "L" ring groove as added above the 2 original rings further down the skirt and that Dykes - L ring was installed so that its top lip was dead even level with the outside edge of the hemi piston crown to ensure the piston crown was doing/meeting the actual exhaust port timing.

That 3 ring (1 Dykes L ring and 2 standard rings) system was overkill and perhaps even adding too much friction heat to the engines, so custom blanl pistons were machined with a single top ring grove for the installation of that single Dykes or L ring by itself, with a ring gap near to 0 inches as far as ring gaps were concerned. These were a very successful new piston ring application with a couple of caveats. One was that you had to make sure your exhaust ports were nicely radiused to prevent ring shear. The other was to ensure you knew how much time was put on the rings through engine operation as Dykes or L rings upon combustion force their out edge against the combustion chamber doing one real tight seal. Let one or both caveats go and the rings would get thin and even sharp enough to catch on the exhaust port and out the engine through the megaphone a section of that ring would go, sometimes with surprising little damage but there were times that it was cylinder and port re-conditioning, a new piston and new ring. Those that kept a keen eye, and logged their engine books had engines that went the distance on wear and tear with hardly an incident. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Where Bill Tenney retained the installed Vacturi's coated cork float with fuel inlet needle and seat that was fed the methanol/lube/nitromethane fuel mix from one to three over flywheel offset mounted DelOrto remote fuel bowls pressure fed fuel via a crankcase pressurized raceboat in hull near transom methanol racing fuel tank - Racers like Hallum, Anderson and Sutter used a very simple OMC remote fuel pump that took its pressure pulses from the crankcase, fed a revised Vacturi that no longer had the float, needle and seat to where fuel was raised in the fuel bowl proper and spilled over through a height bleed off system back to the non-pressurized fuel tank.

Both floated and floatless systems were popular but the later floatless were found less troublesome and more reliable that also allowed Messers Hallum, Anderson and Sutter to add as few as one extra carb to the Anzan for a total of 2 to where as many as si5 Tillotson HL self pumping carbs were added strategically to that one big Vacturi for a total of 6 carbs feeding just 2 cylinders! The picture depicted is still a single carb floatless system, very simple and very reliable.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

It was pointed out to me that the clamps/tower on the right side that seems near twice (2X) the width of its brother on the left side is the older one. The right being older has been that identified so from some brass cast components that only came on earlier engines. Compact is one thing, but, that real narrow engine mount proved at times to be very hard to keep there in one place with the engine given its heavy rotating internals and castiron block and components weights being held up that high at what we call standard height was no help and almost like waving a top heavy metal club when in operation. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The Gene Strain racing family of Calgary, Alberta, Canada had this very straight forward British Anzani "B" Alky (an another one he didn't talk much about and was not hung up for view at this boathouse on Chestermere Lake, AB) running out west, into the North Western USA (Montana, Washington and Oregon) and Central and Northern Alberta, Canada prior to 1980.

In exhibition racing, just to show the other racers and the public what an Alky could do, Billy would just sit comfortably upright in the 12 ft MacDonald conventional hydro and more than lap a full field of D-Stock Hydros, running on the extreme outside of all of them, not much different than an odd visiting Super C Crescent 500 Stock racing engined boats would do in their increasing lonliness. In fact that at times was the lonely a competition when those two were around. Everything was either stock racing or tunnel at that period.

Calgary, Alberta based, Gene Strain was well known for his C-Service and stock Mercury racing outboards (from B through D) and son Billy drove the stockers, the Alky boats and later on very successfully as well as the very fast and ay bigger OPCs of that era in that area.

When all the racing pretty much ended and the engines just sat. By 1981 Gene decided to sell me the engine pictured here. A typlical Anzani Alky B, from Bill Tenney of Crystal Bay, Minnesota. It originally came with its twin overhead remote DelOrto gavity feed fuel bowls. It was not that long that the influences from either Hallum, Anderson or Sutter down South at some point changed the Anzani from DelOrto gravity feed to the OMC pump with floatless Vacturi the flow through back to fuel tank styles that were used by those three leaders previously mentioned.

In 1985 he told me he still had that another one??? He told me that he didn't think it would be of much interest to me because it was the one that was blown up at that race, that saw the engine scatter itself, even parts hit people and could not be fixed! He sold it to me anyway, in parts, in the several sections. It was that the spare tower housing or gearcase would be the only things of much use and priced them accordingly. By then Gene was over 80 years old he would still take the odd ride by himself when he decided to do it in Billy's D -Stock Giles pickelfork hydro. He loved that new pickelfork techoology he sure did! A remarkable man with a remarkable family they were. Through this engine they are remembered by many others like us who knew him and whose endearing term for old Gene (the late and great Gene) as its seems for the many other senior racers of that era most beloved and endeared was the nick name of "Pap" or in his case, "Pappy Strain". :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

It is with great expectations now with enough spare parts now, that the second British Anzani of the late and great "Pappy" Gene Strains from Calgary, AB. whose powerhead and crankcase were badly blown up at a race that there are now enough parts to recreate it back to where it was in one piece all over again. It was a Hallum, Anderson, Sutter inspired to some degree Anzani with 2 carbs and fuel pumping system setup the same way as seen on Roger Wendt's hybrid but retaining the older Lucas gear driven magneto ignition, 1st generation crankshaft with tapered big end pins and general appearance as most Anzani class B Alkys would otherwise, right down to the heavier all steel crescent shaped megaphone pipes with supports.

It does have a quirky crankshaft though. To squeeze the crankcase volumes even tighter/higher the crankshaft had carnkshaft enclosing cans machine screwed to the hardened crankshaft plates they wrapped around and covered it/them to mimic it being full circle.

All crankshaft extreneuos holes in the various plates where filled in and cemented/coverd (otherrthan the rotary valve outlet holes in the crankshaft center body) to reduce crankcase volume subtantially again and this is how she ran with her one Vacturi (main block and crankcase carb) and one Tillotson HL directly aimed at the crankshaft rotary valve opening ran until she blew up that day. She was plenty fast and tangled with Roger Wendt's hybrid 2 carb and the others when she did run in those parts, West and Northwest. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The Gene Strain owned at that time single carbed Anzani pictured here of the pre 1981 racing era had other quirks. It too had a Fairbanks Morse FM magneto discharge coil in it to make it run better instead of its original "hand wound like unit". Part of it was the FMs increased voltage and it had an internal grounding show disconnecting a spark plug wire would not burn and short holes directly through windings nearest ground, burning out the original Lucas coil and the fact that it fell right into the Lucas magneto housing as if it was made for just that. Gene was convinced he discovered that coil interchangability first? Maybe he did.

During that period Roger Wendt also had a 2 carb Anzani. An ignition change was done there too. The Lucas magento was retained but those points were removed and some kind of Ford Model "T" type points, thank goodness with spares were installed. Lucas points of that pre-1981 era were notorius for point bounce from the high rpms of an engine that was not supposed to do that on gasoline! It wasn't gas though. It was not uncommon to run into Lucas magnetos with their arm springs doubled from another Lucas point kit to stop that point bounce causing high speed misfires.

[David_L6]

It would be interesting to see someone try to run one of those motors on a short tower. :rolleyes:

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

It could be done on a custom built tower, that I have but too. The concern was then as is now about getting water up the lower pipe and into the cylinder hydralicing or wetting the cylinder for another start using the stacks that were popularly configured at the time. I have seen that happen. but there are differing ways of configuring the exhausts to even setting up expansion chambers configured to avoid/minimize that at any time is quite possible.

The way for getting these water ram feed specials is to have prop out of the water to start rev and kida throw it forward at the same time with driver far forward over the steering to get on plain real fast and that worked well.

Coming is was very much get off plane fast and near the pits keeping your body forward of the steering so as not to ingest the backwash into and up the bottom pipe to keep the cylinder dry for the next heat or just to bring her up and pack up for home after you have run a rich gas/oil mix through them to take away any residual methanol/lube/nitro in the engine that could oxidize the engine parts if residues are left in contaminating the metal innards.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

When Gene Strain's Anzani blew up at the race site, just starting it and reving before drop, it went off like a grenade exploding. The pictures of its block with a major port/cylinder wall blown out and it is a cast iron block that is repairable with a cast iron sleve machined and installed tells the reader little of what happened to the rest of the complete engine.

The blast broke both connecting rods, bending over and destroying the crank parts of of which exited for parts unknown, both crowns came off both pistons destroying the cylinder head. The crankcase broke in two major parts (it was 2 to start with, that made it four sections) with all kinds of pieces of crankcase alumium spraying people with schrap 30 feet around it. The crankshaft stuffing cans that were screwed to to crankshaft bob weights got mangled like so much thick tin and there was a momentary fire from its fuel load to go with the grenading!

Am I going to repair this block to re-create this second engine of Gene Strain's? No, people that see it pretty much realize the strength of the cast iron block when you tell them they were and could take on big nitro loads in the methanol and still take more suffering next week, next month or next year. Amazing metal, Amazing racing outboard.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

There are several perfectly good cast iron Anzani blocks with similar welding here, braze welded no different than this, where the flanges and even part of a cylinder next to the brazed on flange is the braze welding material so clean amd flaw free a weld there are no bubbles in the metal pool and perfectly good for more use over and over again. Compliments to the welder who did the work. All the welds all look like they held up and are still holding up with time on them and more to go. They were even line bored for re-use as was the original bore when the engine was new. The block with its bore destroyed you would think would have broken that weld when the engine blasted but obviously did not and no sign of any damage to that weld showing any hint of letting go.

Smitty-the-Welder??? Just how did they do such block repairs by brazing? It could not have been simple? :confused:

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

They apparently braze welded on a new chunk of metal to then finish it off to previous specs or if needed, milled the block down to a shorter size and installed an aluminum gasket like spacer to the machined down bloc to retain port height relativities before the breakage occurred.

Some of the Anzanis used head gaskets in Alky but not the original gasoline composites that would leak. Instead they made copper sheet gaskets and used CopperCoat *tm to coat the head gaskets for installation for Alky use. At some point there was some leakage near 40% nitro loads in the methanol so some real fine machine work was done, plus some trick added pressure boltins to equalize pressures around the cylinder head to block compression contact points around on the block and head and the engine just used CopperCoat *tm as a sealant buy itself and like Konigs went headgasketless with little problem and great success.

Good sealants those CopperCoat *tm products. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

It seems from all the pictures of these heads they tried a number things with them. The used them with a composite gasket on methanol, they leaked. They used them with copper sheet gaskets and CopperCoat *tm and that was good to over 25-30% nitro in the methanol. Needing something better and knowing that Konigs didn't use head gaskets just sealant, they carefully re-machined the heads dead accurate. They took out the water jackets casting plugs/caps, threaded the casting holes with a blocking plug and centered them with a fine thread 1/4 inch for Allen bolts. They would coat the cylinder to head/combustion chamber mating surfaces with CopperCoat *tm, install and torque head bolts and then install the Allen bolts and torque to press against the aluminum mating surfaces below between the head bolts from above equalizing the seal between the head bolts. You had head bolts pulling and between them Allan bolts pushing to attain a better sealed gasketless head to block seal. It worked well with the highes nitro loads in the methanol fuel mix.

Some pictures show the blank casting of for making high compression Alky heads. Still another head show that they tested using lower compression with high nitro loads with increasing ignition timing, more BTDC. The head of a pure stock B Anzani 350 gasoline burner had a belled head quite different from all these racing heads, but they all looked the same from the top changing all over the place when you fipped them for final machining.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

These heads lower the Anzani's compression to just about 6 to 1 off the top of the exhaust port. Clearly they were used to test some theory more than likely lots more of nitromethane in the methanol base with higher BTDC ignition timings. From combustion staining, it was tested but the results, good question???

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Anzani engines came from England with nice hard chromed but not balanced steel flywheels with gear type magneto drives screwed on the underside and the marque rope plate on top. You combined their stock weight with what the crankshaft was made of with its heavy center full circe rotary valved cranshaft midsection and you had one bery, very heavy assembly centered in that crankcase, that needed lightening to manage the revs though the powerband easier. Its interesting that only when they took two thirds of the weight off was the first time these flywheels would see a re-balancing and from the drill out points to do so, they were very carefull at that with some very fine rebalancing done.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

It seemed quite reasonable on Roger Wendt's Anzani hybrid that a stronger tower would need to be made up to use a Konig gearcase (earlier version Kong). A complete Anzani powerhead with everything surrounding that case iron loop block, crankcase, crank, rods, flywheel etc. outweighed a Merc 4 cylinder complere with pipes by nearly 2 pounds. Not so with the lighter Harrisons. I has both Anzani and Harrison crankcase nut down stud pattern too. Why on earth they kept all that weight on such narrow clamping systems as original equipment or even when a steel tower with Merc saddle, clamps and co-pilot brake was built and at standard height left you scratching your head? You would think them wide for reasons of weight and the engines power deliveries.

The picture is a real strong, well made thicker wall moly steel pipe tower with Merc peripherals setup for a later model Konig gearcase.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The aluminum castings done by British Anzani for tower clamps are of a size and quality of large castings found on outboard engines with 100 horsepower ratings. to this period, this poster has never heard or seen a broken transom clamp casting. Stripped clamping bolt threads, lost clamping washers, cracked/broken torque aluminum tower/torque tubes, a few but not a fractured clamp casting. :)

[bill boyes]

I remember drivng a Anzani B runabout for Lowell Haberman. While testing took a very hard spill. The Tower broke. Lowell got a replacement from Kay H that was a Bronze casting if I remember correctly.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

When it came to the parts for the whole engine, that tower neck was it Achillie's Tendon for cracking/breaking. Funny though some old towers show no signs of ever letting go still and they were heavy run too.

Any pictures of your boat, race or anything related to add to this thread. Please Do??? :)

[Modhydro Steve]

Here are some photos of an earlier Anzani 350 I have. I have found OS pistons for it and will bore it out and get it going in the near future. Note the different gearcase design. This one has the removeable skeg like a Johnson SR/PR foot.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

It sure is wonderful older factory stock version 350 "B". :)

I wonder if it is an actual near 350CC block or a 322CC block? It is my understanding that there was the larger bore for stock outboard gasoline racing and the smaller bore for "B" Alky.

The gearcase on yours already shows signs of where it was going to evolve and they sure did just that not much later and turned into a unbelievable hydrodynamic wedge design.

The older wider transom clamp set I have here, very much looks like yours in your pictures so I am assuming they must be of that earlier era. I wonder why they went to a narrower transom mounting width as by then they must have already seen increases in power and speed as A and B Alkys on this continent that needed a wider stance to stay put on the transoms.

I hope you get her rolling again as with the thread, the interest in these engines is bringing them out. I am hoping for some action pictures. I have some understanding of where I might get to examine "negatives" film that has been archived for the marine museum people here to develop their displays with. They would not know what to look for where I can and will. Do you have any action photos you can post Steve???

Your submission is great! :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

There were some major differences between the "A" and "B" Alky versions of British Anzani(s). Even with those changes, they remained heavy duty changed products.

*One, was the actual cylinder block. It was a different "A" casting from the "B" that still fit directly to the crankcase in common use for "A" or "B" classes but the bore was thinner with the "A" versions maintaining the distances relationships of cylinder to water jacket distances of the larger "B" blocks to similarly disipate heat through water cooling. There are at least 2 generations of "A" class block castiron castings where they are both square exhaust ported at the cylinder wall but the older one goes rectangular outward to the outer flange that would fit Steve's early engine's factory stock exhaust system boltup dead on. Later generations had a square cylinder opening turning round between the cylinder wall to outer flange boltup face best suited for tuned pipes immediatrely but the flange was still 4 bolt rectangle that would fit the stock exhaust manifolds with little or no change to its performance as a stock gasoline fueled engine.

*Another difference was that the piston displacement and smaller but fit a common A and B connecting rod with a shorter wrist pin matching the smaller piston & bore. Both A and B pistons saw "skirt notching" as a third port to create intake overlap increasing the As power in the same way the B engine's power also increased. Two to Four mini drilled added boost ports were also run with success. Original A pistons were two ring but they did everything in terms of numbers and ring variations as they did to the Bs and got corresponding performance increases.

* The cylinders head was a smaller direct match to the "A" block casting and reduced in CCs to match the 250CC bore originally sized to run gasoline but planed off to raise compression to burn methanol based & nitromethane additived fuels wonderfully.

*When it came to the displacement of the gasoline based and jetted Amal Monoblock slide carb which also came in 2 barrel casting sizes for A and B gasoline running, in favour of the high fuel flowing Vacturi butterfly controlled carb for methanol based racing fuels. The carbs huge barrel/venturi that was used on OMCs C-Service engines, you had to machine a smaller sleve to lock into the way larger Vacturin stock barrel/venturi to match the "A"'s block opening resized for the bigger carb which also used a spacer/adapter between carb and block to accomodate the factory's shaped opening that included a consideration for how air/fuel entered the block flowed to the torturous S shaped port from the cast iron block to the crankcase proper and finally to the crankshaft rotary valve.

*The pictures following show some of differences and especially so the evolved gearcase. The props for these engines are absurdly tiny for A and B Stock and later for Alky engines in brass or stainless steels. They will be posted shortly for views. Two differeht gearcase gear ratios were available to make proping the engine interesting between hydros and runabouts and course lengths.

*Exhausts elboes and bells between the A and B Alky versions were all within come common parameters that in relative terms the A versions were slightly smaller and shorter dimensioned than the B Alky versions.

*How much horsepower was dynoed out of a 250CC "A" or 15 cubic inch Alky? About 375-400 horsepower per liter depending on nitro percentage loads increased to the methanol base fuel and lube mixes. On the high end of nitro loads of over 20% is where things started to reach some limits. On gasoline? Steve? Do you have any dynoed, reported or educated guess horsepower figures???

Enjoy some more Jpegs of an "A" Anzani, Alky. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Final picture - Anzani - Alky A

[Modhydro Steve]

John,

The only action that has taken place so far was to dissassemble it to see what all I had. It all looks great other than taperd bores. It looks like this thing has put in some serious hours! The photos were when it was still covered with who knows how many years of storage goo. There is some light corrosion on some of the parts, but it should all clean up nicely and be a fine example of the first generation Anzani. I plan to run it occasionally at antique meets and try to give the 20-H guys some fits.

This one is a true 350 and not the imported B. That made finding the oversized pistons a bit of a challenge, but I've got them now. The transom clamp thing does seem a mystery as the direction seems wrong, but I'm sure that they had a reason.

One good thing about all this posting is that it has rekindled the fire under my butt to get some antique stuff done. Current racing has kept me too busy, but I've just got to make the time somehow.



Steve Roskowski

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

I had a brand new, never fired Anzani B Stock and it was a late model version. Because it was new, beautiful and un-fired it too. It was a true 350 and the gasoline heads on it were also different from the 322CC imported versions for Alky via the late and great, Bill Tenney. It was sold to a collector who to my knowlege never fired it up either. Its value was great because it was truly NOS and still had its origninal crate where it came to the USA via Montreal, Canada.

When I inherited all the remaining parts for and to build these engines, I found a "std" stamped, bore piston that fit nothing here block wise without some serious boring and there was only one piston. It never dawned on me it was for the gasoline burning B Stock 350cc blocks and I didn't know much about the 322CC being the imported Alky block either at that stage.

It was good that you got some oversized pistons for her, hope you got the rings too? They were low tension cast iron and should not be much problem to make if need be. If you need a new "Lucas" set of points, condenser and rotor, I have some extra brand new boxed Lucas replacements. These Lucas magnetos are terrible (they call them the Princes of Darkness! lol! for good reasons) and need a lot of attention to keep them producing decent spark. I also have NOS composite head gaskets for these engines but Bill Tenney never liked them even thouigh for gasoline they were adequate when installed glued on. He for very good reasons cut his own head gaskets from sheet copper and used with CopperCoat *tm gasket glue and had little problems with that to over 20% nitro added in methanol but your staying gasoline so the copper sheet type would be downright superior to any NOS composite. I won't use a composite at all, so they sit.

You get that engine overhauled and with a decent prop you will give 20Hs something worse than heartburn and some bigger gas loopers heart attacks! When I saw one like yours run back some 40 years ago, there was no contest then and put a more recent prop under it now and then what? I ran an Alky version on gasoline with a Tillotson HR snowmo carb wtih timing backed right off with stacks. No 20H popper could even come close to that setup! Your going to loose friends! lol! Cover your carb with a clamped on stainless steel section of bug screen over the velocity stack, I hear mosquitoes in some locations look like Merc big end rod bearings and do real mean things in wrong places! lol! :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

These little beauties are the stainless steel wonder propellers from about 1978 that motor a class A and Class B Alky (methanol/nitro/lube fueled) British Anzani around a long course with top speeds in the high 80 mile per hour range around the course at times lapping things in the process at times 2 and 3 times the displacement the A and B Anzanis are. This is where one asks, what about a 3 or 4 blade hydro props today? a flat slide carb? CDI ignition? and tuned expansion chambered sliding exhausts?? There was no evolution left by the 1980s with them and there are only a few things now much more improved that would make a difference, almost like nite and day different. How much different is the question?

The following pictures are these stainless steel racing propellers, one is a "Hopkins: and the other is a "Smith" Alky Prop/Wheel. Enjoy. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

These props were marked out in large black for the purposes of these pictures for the information they have etched on their hubs. Both of these props put Anzanis into the over 80 miles per hour while on the course brackets and at the time the As were in the low to intermediate 80s while the Bs were in the mid to high 80s+ miles per hour ranges. Back then Gene told me that they were quick but that he had seen many quicker too, so they in all likelihood represent the average good prop for an Alky A or B Anzani in their class. The ones pulling centry speed marks from the USA Northwest all look like cats of another color in terms of prop types. I wished there were some more pictures of those advanced engines and raceboats from that era in here? :)

If anyone has something to scan and send with a story or has pictures and stories, they can enter or I can scan, enter here and return, it would be a pleasure for me to do so in helping. These amazing engines were the earliest racing kickers of their type that help push the Loop Charged revolution into powerboat racing and in pleasure engines we take for granted today when we go fishing, skiing or just driving. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Modhydro Steve as well as any and all British Anzani enthusiasts should get a kick out of this one! This first page of Anzani Stock B gasoline Competition Unitwin back from all manner of print recovery enhancements to make it readable again and even in this case a Jpeg downloadable for your own copy for posterity. The copies of the 4 pages I had were done on some kind of earlier photocopier whose results faded nearly completely over the years even though they were hole punched and covered in a book that was given to me by Calgary, Alberta, Canada's late and great racer and enthusiast "Pappy" Gene Strain. As they come in I will post them. Enjoy! :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

MAINTENANCE INSTRUCTIONS FOR MARK 2 SILVER ARROW GEAR HOUSINGS.

General comments and included are Lubrication instructions, Construction, Cooling Water, Driving Depth and lots of print in between these headings to fill in details all about the Mark 2 Silver Arrow gearcase.

Page 2 of 4 Februrary 1959 British Anzani Engineering Co. Ltd. Hampton Hill, Middlesex, England, UK.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

This is page 3 of 4 General

Contains information about Water Circulation, Propeller Gears, Motor on Transom Slippage Sideways Prevention, The best jet sizes for the gasoline version Amal Monobloc round slide Carburetter, Magneto, Sparkplugs and Ignition Timing. Lots of explanation in between these headings to flesh out this page 3. of 4.

From February 1959.

More Address and telephone:

British Anzani Engineering Co. Ltd.
Hampton Hill, Middlesex
"Phone Molesey 2690"

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The British Anzani Engineering Co. Ltd.
Hampton Hill, Middlesex
Phone: Molesey 2690.


Page 4 of 4

Competition Unitwin - Mark 2 Silver Arrow Underwater Unit - Spare Parts List

List by Part No. - Descritpion - No. Off - Price Each etc. with Tools and Props.

The parts and price list are in UK denominations of currency as of February 1959. Since that time UK - England denominations of currency have changed and even more simplified so some of the units of currency here no longer are used.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Note to readers enjoying these pictures and document pictures donated to this archive thread.

Most of these pictures and pages of typed material are in Jpeg high density format on another dedicated desktop publishing unit and are approximately 650,000 Kb each which equates to half a 1.4 IMB compatible floppy disk.

I am on commercial DSL, for some wanting the bigger files but I may be requested to upload to some situation small, INSECURE and slow on the other end and that would also put the desktop publishing Unit with its multi-printers and scanners etc. on the Internet and subject to its Dodge City Rules and Electronic Gunfights environment, which I will not do.

The only options available is either download what ever you can off BRF as files and enhance them yourself with what ever program you wish to use.

or

Contact me so these files can be done on floppys by some arrangement and mailed out to the party requesting them and willing to bear the cost.

THERE IS STILL MORE TO COME CONCERNING THESE BRITISH ANZANI ENGINES AND THERE ARE MORE THAN 30 SCREENS NOW! MORE ADDITIONS AND STORYS ARE WELCOME AND PLEASE DO DOANTE YOUR PICTURES AND STORYS TO THIS THREAD FROM WHERE EVER THAT MAY BE! :)

[Mark75H]

Oooof, John you are right, these are pretty rough :( Even the most expensive professional software can't do much with them.



Do you know who might have the originals? Maybe we can find them and make proper images for posting.

In the mean time, here is a "Word" document text version of the first 3 pages or so ... Compliments of Rod Champkin across the pond in England. We should get him on here too, to add the wisdom he has accumulated from the source side of this marque

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The copies I had are the old liquid photo copy type that Gene Strain had and gave to me, because that is all he had from Bill Tenney. He had no others so those copies go back into the 1970s but they could be "Memeo" Gestetner graphics liquid drum printer from earlier than the 1970s, where you would type on a waxed sheet perforating it then separating the layers with one going on the drum that you generously flooded the drum with black carbonized ink you did not want to get on your "liesure suit" ala disco duck days. I am beigining to sound ancient here!! :)

It would be nice to get Rod and Charles from the UK and another Anzani onwer we can find there to post their stuff on here to fill it all out. I have helped Rod out in the past with his Anzanis and he sent me a complete Crescent 500 Super C powerhead when I mentioned I could sure use the other being the top third of that engine. Rod and Charles are both engine/race enthusiasts there and well known.

Thanks for the MS word conversions. I would like to download and save them, BUT!!! MS WORD is wicked when it comes to macro-viri and that such rubbage and spy junk like that, so what version is yours???? so I can make sure all the doors, windows and drains are closed before I download your work into my MS-Word version to work it??? There is too much weird stuff out there not to do so. :)

[Mark75H]

Word 2000 9.0.6926 with service pack 3

The document has been scanned many times for infection, and you might notice the small file size ..... way too small to carry any malicious script anyway. 17.0 kb ;)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Oooof, John you are right, these are pretty rough :( Even the most expensive professional software can't do much with them.



Do you know who might have the originals? Maybe we can find them and make proper images for posting.

In the mean time, here is a "Word" document text version of the first 3 pages or so ... Compliments of Rod Champkin across the pond in England. We should get him on here too, to add the wisdom he has accumulated from the source side of this marque

I have them as each being 650K files both Tenney's and Gene Strains copies per page and I reduce them with a Jpeg reducer program to fit the needs of this sites maximums. Thing is that these files could take a larger page space that 1100 X 500 which they are now to a larger re-size but I don't want to use space just to test sizes in case something goes really wrong. You can't treat pages of black on white text the same as you do a regular black and white picture because the densities are wrong and could cut off print you would otherwise see. I could email you a 1/2 meg file and then with what you have you could give me some better resizing peremeters without test posting in webspace otherwise to continue with better seen things on this thread. Want to do some testing on a file to see if you can work it any better large???? Then I could redo the whole batch again for reposting larger.

Believe me when I tell you that the fade of the print was unreal. You had to hold it to a light to see it even being there!! They have been washed through and tested here through Adobe products etc. before I ran them off to my friends copy and art shop and he comments were laughable but that he would try so these are those results. Where there was near zippo there is actually print now. I can see anyone's frustration trying to do anymore with any enhancesments unless they have unlimited hours to do so??? I don't! :confused: :) :) ;)

[Mark75H]

Sure, email them ...I have a high speed cable connection and pretty good image software

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Sure, email them ...I have a high speed cable connection and pretty good image software

I will send a long file of the first page of Anzani Unitwin Competition motor to see what parameters you can experiemnt with to get a decent sizing set for me to re-process the size again for all files to that standard file size I can put all the print pages back on in a chain. Will upload to you shortly for your tests. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Had any time to give that half meg file a try?? :) More like 900K actually wasn't it? Got some revised specs?

I found it very curious that when I downloaded your micro-soft word done pages, you claimed were too small a file to contain any bug of any sort, that my computer here isolated the file and is treating it as an infected one. I love taking that stuff apart to see what malicious code writers are doing these days. Its amazing what a couple of lines can do.

*I am in the process of dismantling and cleaning the transmission for the twin block Anzani C for putting here on BRF soon. It is amazing how being in a garage fire a bit warmed really seals the gaskets to their cement to everything else. Doing that, it seems fitting to polish it too, as it seems to polish a little surface test area quite well. :)

[David_L6]

John,

You can e-mail pictures to me also. I have cable internet connection so size is no problem. I doubt seriously that I know as much as Sam does about the software side of things, but we have some pretty good IT folks where I work. Just trying to help us all by getting your pics on here in a size that we can see.


David Woodell

[Mark75H]

Thanks, John. The text is the same as my document ... there is no reason for me to try to clean it up visually, when we already have the text version

If anyone else finds the text version to show a virus alert, please contact me immediately.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Thanks for the offer, I will email you a file copy but first I just picked up another spywear intrusion that monitors every keystroke. BRF is very secure so I can post now without injecting here but to anyone else, I got to clean the stacks first before I will send anyone anything. Be with you shortly. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

HRP - "Lodite" Castings - Harrison Products For Anzani

In examining all the Anzani pistons both used, new ready and new unfinished, fully half the pistons have the casting marks "HRP" (aka Harrison Racing Products) and "Lodite" on the underside of the pistons skirts. Is "Lodite" the casting company? If so? Does anyone know where they were located and if they are still operating?

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Link to page 4 of Anzani History (http://www.britishanzani.co.uk/HISTORY4.htm) Scroll down to the grey box for mention of Bill Tenney, navigate back to page 3 for a little more about the origins of the Anzani outboards :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Link to British Anzani History pages (http://www.britishanzani.co.uk/History.htm)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The following items make up a British Anzani for Lucas magneto adapter to engine platform incorporating magneto swivel for ignition timing and bolt friction lock. The magneto's adapter plate was quater inch soft grade aluminum and the rest of the friction swivel parts were even thinner aluminum that failed a lot from my understanding. Racers either made their own repairs, replacements. or did some other more durable mousetrap of their own to replace that swivel lock.

The pictures show lots of old storage grunge left there by smoke damage to the part in Bill Tenney's garage fire way back when and I have yet to treat and shine those parts amongst others that happened to as well.

Enjoy the Jpegs. I have full size tracing for those that could use them, but getting them are by fax and pre-arrangements that are quite limiting time and cost wise.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Final pictures of magneto swivel plate and friction lock Jpegs.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Featured in these two photos are typical British Anzani one piece connecting rod and the assembly that ties it to the built up / replaceable parts crankshaft. Nothing low tech about this assembly to the crankshaft. The rod is typically the one piece with a un-remarkable but hardy bronze and with oil slotted slotted "bushing" at the small end for real solid support at the small piston pin end.

The remarkable big end of the rod uses wide rollers with the bearings running in a extremely light and well fitting alloy, one piece bearing retainer. The big end crankpin is replaceable with tapered ends for maximum adjustment and alignments when constructing or reconstructing the crankshaft from its many sections. Holding together remarkably well as a gas stock racing engine, things got a little dicey as RPM and horsepower went up when methanol with percentages of nitromethane incorporated into the methanol and caster oil got over the 12-14% range causing misalignment problems from the sheer power or when you simply dumped the boat/engine on the racecourse.

These were times the rods themselves too would and could suffer, being that the rod small end would look like it is "drooping" that is bending over about 1/3 the way down from the small end, either necessitating straightening on a jig or replacement. Their snap off the small end seems to occur when the rod gets a 45-50 degree droop, loosing all kinds of power ending the usefullness of the engine until salvaged and repaired if possible. It was possible for a separating connecting rod to end the life of a crankcase but a cast iron block as you see from some previous pictures is quite another matter with the cast iron block repairable after quite a blast!

Putting too much starting fluid could have the same effect as well as not using a strap wrench on the flywheel to counter taking off or putting on the flyhwheel nut. It was easy to tell alignement simply by rotating the motor looking for "binding" as that is what a piece together crankshaft, connecting rod to pistons alignments exhibits when it is out of alignment.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The typical and different "A" and "B" piston pin lengths of same thickness that came if open ended fairly thick walled hardened steel, if one end closed the pin would be thinner walled, so you have lighter and heavier versions of piston pin for "A" (250CC) and "B" (322(Alky) &-same as for 322cc for the 344CC(Gasoline racing B stock). The bronze busings had a slight taper begining for rod installation and absolutely square for piston pin to piston wrist pin boss/hole alignments. There was no difference in the bronze busing bearings arrangements of Anzani "A" or "B" engines, they were the same from big end to small end.

One remarkable thing about these engines is that though built with very close tolerances and made from castings, forgings and machinings of components, there was an absence of the "balancing" of race engine components you would think you would find on a outboard racing engine. Many of the Alkys later on were similar in this without balancing state you would think would have been there, but wasn't until the development of major power, sky high rpms and high speeds never expected that high brought on very careful and precision balancing of components not seen when they first entered Alky classes in North America, where everyone else had to play catch up from their appearance for quite a while. No one was really sure where all this would have went, had not Anzani come to a production end and went out of business and disappeared not long afterward with Harrison (Burmingham Metal Products) extending the Anzani racing life a little while longer after that.

From about 1959 to 1970 were remarkable years in loop race engines in outboard racing of which British Anzani was just one of the earliest ones.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Originally British Anzani(s) came to the market as factory built stock racing engines produced by the company no different than Mercury and others of that era. Once the powerful Anzani stock racing gasoline engines where excluded from factory produced racing stock and aligned with into the Alky ranks, you could sure see where the engine was going by its driveshaft thickenesses to deliver the power to the Mark I and later the Mark II gearcases with selected props to do the pushing. The following are comparrison pictures of the Gasoline version of the a-typical Anzani Driveshafts and with them the change for Alky (methanol/nitromethane fueled). For keeping the driveshafts cost down as with the crankshaft and lower gearcase connecting stubs, all connectors and stubs were kept squared as opposed to splined, splined would have increased component costs considerably higher.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Previous pictures on various other areas of the board showed the British Anzani B Stock racing and also British Tenney spec'd A and B Alky Anzani(s) using crankcase pressure feed pressurizing the fuel tank forcing the fuel in the stock racing outboards case to a round slide Amal Monoblock carb which through its needle vale and float system would cut fuel and allow more in as needed as a pressure feed carb. Bill Tenney and others found that there was no way to fuel a very fuel hungry Anzani with methanol, so a lot of carbs were tested coming down to a suitably sleved Vacturi as those used on "C Service" racing engines from the 1930s became the prozed candidate for A and B Class Alky Anzanis as well. Vacturi(s) being a gravity feed carburator that fed from and overhead tank was way too touchy pump fed slamming components shut and being too sensitive to change Bill Tenney and his engineers figured out how to use 1 to 3 Italian DelOrto remote fuel bowls to accept the pressure from tank fuel mix then transfering the fuel lix to the Vacturi as if an overhead tank was still there, with large flow and very low pressure. Other than sleveing and stud adapter plating the Vacturi suitably to suit the Anzani's cast iron blocks on board carb inlet port. This was fine for a while until the Vacturi's cork floatbowl float sunk causing ever manner of flooding misery, which you either dried and recoated or changed out.

Around this period the racers and preparers of Anzani(s) out in the North West USA got very tired of the whole DelOrto float bowl and Vacturi with a sinking floatbowl cork affair and decided that a much simpler system? would be to have a high volume OMC remote pulse type fuel pump found on a whole host of OMC bigger cubic inch applications had the fuel capacity and fuel pressure to keep that Vacturi overfull so a simple spill over system was developed in the Vacturi, dispensing with the fuel inlet, needle, seat andfloat having excess fuel in excess returning to the fuel tank for a constant flowing non-pressure at the tank fuel system without the pain of having sinking corks and flooding conditions that plagued the previous system. It was fond soon after that this pump also allowed for extra carbs to get fuel feed like the Tillotson HLs that also had an onbroad fuel pump to take its fuel from the stream the OMC pump facilitated, that also started sprouting off Anzanis like their exhaust near look alike Harrisons with two, then four, plus add the Vacturi as the main! It helped to feed them all.

The following, that workhorse, the common OMC (Johnson/Evirude) remote, diaphramed with fuel bowl and extra filter, fuel pump.

They are a great replacement pump for use on a lot of other engines in fuel pressure feeds from pump to the fuel floatless spill over return to fuel tank fuel pumping and distribution systems.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

In the 1950s a lot of engines in many catagories had gear drives for timing and ignition rotation. In outboards, during the early formative 1950s Mercury Outboards had its KF and KG 4 cylinder engines with gear driven magnetos. So too were engines like British Anzani Unitwin racing outboards in 250CC, 322CC and 344CC. Under their heavy steel and chromed over flywheels and polished aluminum rope plates was this big ring gear from alloy steel and on the matching outside on its Lucas magneto and platform was the magneto fiber product a type of bakelite gear of equal size and same mesh as the flywheel gear. Fact was then as it is still now, you want very exacting ignition timing from a mechanical magneto, you most certainly want a timing gear set for racing at high rpms that many loop engines go to and certainly not a cogged belt system, that some engineers frowned upon but they were proving to be not too shabby either as engines that would come to use them were also very competitive in the racing classes they entered validating high speed belt technology no different than timing gears, cogged belts being somewhat not as dangerous as a rotating high speed and exposed timing gear! To be on the safe side people payed attention to their ignition drives and in Anzani's case they cast what most call the Anzani "Cod Piece" as it very much shields the users of the engine from a spinning timing gear that could very well eat a fit of flesh, should it come in contact with your body, with their eat and spit sides of the dual gear drive for that Lucas magneto! Earlier pictures showed the flywheel and magneto drive gears and here now is its detailed picture of its thick cast aluminum gear drive shield aka the cod piece! Enjoy the pictures of protection!

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Anzani using the common front crankcase used 2 different cast iron block castings to enter 4 different classes, 2 Stock racing and 2 for Alky A and B racing, with a slight twist.

This was apparent when Anzani made its B stock racers at 344cc displacement or otherwise shipped Bill Tenney of Crystal Bay, Minnesota the B Alky racing block bored to 322cc.

At the carb mounting plate that served that also served as the retaining plate for half of the opposite side of cylinder air/fuel transfer ports also used the carb bore port studs for some extra support that also carried the barrel shape, diameter and attention to the air fuel flow that not only went to the piston ports but also a hard 90 degree passage left, to the opening of the crankshaft rotary valve.

The red painted plate is typically for the Anzani 344cc B Stock gasoline racing outboard with the perfectly round opening for the Amal Monobloc carb to sit on. The metal grey plate was specifically shaped to feed differently the 322cc bored B Allky block to facilitate the mounting of an aluminium adapter plate on top with machining done to adapt the Vacturi AO500 (OMC C-Service racing used carb) with a custom machined sleaved venturi to that aluminum adapter plate to the steel late in these pictures to the Anzani bored 322cc Alky version export block.

Quite complex for a thin steel plate that was similarly used on 250cc and 344cc Gasoline fueled Anzani Unitwin Stock racers and then there was the Anzani Alky (methanol + ) fueled engines with 250cc, 322cc. Some 344cc engines seen Alky action as well but reports are few of how much better than the 322cc they were?

For a simple plates that these look the part, their parts were much more critical than is apparent.

Enjoy the pictures. :)

[Mark75H]

Jump back to post #10 & look at the middle 2 pictures to see where those plates fit: Link to post #10 (http://www.boatracingfacts.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8595&postcount=10)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Doing what you did is something I will get into once all the items to the engines are posted in picture form as in hind sight each part should have been packaged with its story but then this board is a when you can find time to do it to make it interesting with hopefully there might be posts of pictures from racers or pitcrew there taking some when they were racing back from the time they came on stream.

Some racers or pitcrew or anyone from this era have some pictures to scan and post or could send me same for return to you later, to scan with a story and post here??? :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The following pictures are the looks and shapes of the 2 Carburettor version of the British Anzani "A" but primarliy "B" Alky version of the 322-344CC Unitwin Alky racing engines as were converted by Bill Tenney in the midwestern USA and the northwesterners in both USA and Canada who used 2 and even more of these on these engines.

This adapter was meant to not replace but act as a second an air/fuel source to the crankcase side of the engine opposite and a straight path to the rotary valve crankshaft/main flaoting bearing opening in the center chest of the crankcase. The old opening a torturous "S" like shape that was in the cast iron block 90 degrees to the flow of airfuel from the Vacturi to the piston ports controlled by the piston skirts was also retained.

I am uncertain if anyone flow benched the engine too see if the Tillotson HL self pumping carb at some point velocity wise flowed all the air/fuel to the crankschaft rotary valve opening directly or there was some residual flow still taking the original torturos "S" flow path from the single Vacturi primary side through the tunnel to that same rotary valve opening area served by the single Tillotoson "HL" carb found on a lot of large CC North American made/sold chainsaws.

This adapter was handcrafted and hand fitted, bolted and glued to the outside of the Anzani crankcase where a suitable hole opposite the crankshaft rotary valve would open and close in alternating sequence the top or bottom half of the crankcase that was charging the crankcase with fresh air/fuel/lube racing mixes.

Because the Tilltotson HL was self pumping it took its pulse though a suitable crankcase pulse hole through the adapter into the same area the air/fuel mix was thrown through by the HL carb setup, so there was a actual "pulse" to make the HLs internal fuel pump diaphram to pulse and vacumm in fuel from a a "Tee" in the main fuel line from the OMC pump that was giving fuel to the return line fuel system Vacturi carb over the main cast iron block main piston ports intake barrel tunnel.

If readers think this complex, so back top earlier pages and see the "simplicity" of the 2 carb setup on Roger Wendt's (previous owner) of a hybrid Anzani from the Montana racing region at the Flathead Lake county and then on another page here is a hybrid Anzani picture with it sporting 1 Vacturi and 3 Tillotson HL carbs! There were others with even 5 Tillotson HL carbs added to the single Vacturi to really make it more complicated than the very simple twin setup this adapter was meant for.

Enjoy the pictures and post your story on these carbs springing up all over these engines, just to feed 2 cylinders producing amazing horsepower. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

I have been getting more and more British Anzani, Quincy Merc Padded Deflector and Quincy Flathead specifications requests, not unlike those Harrison race engines by Burmingham Metal Products put out. Most people know that these engines are a serious hobby for me and very much especially so when I remained badly re-injured for nearly a decade of major surgeries. Being that they are a serious hobby I am getting requests for very specific engineering measurements and weights and going that way requires major time doing the hobby that just is not available on demand. Once I get through posting engine parts and pictures, I will then take the time to make up the engineering specs like the Harrison engine and other racing type technical inspection manuals have, to post on here too for all to have and use the way they want to. Until I get to that point everything is still going on "as is", I will be declining detailed engineering specs for some time until I arrive at the times needed to do so as a hobby, which to me is just that, a serious hobby, that also needs time. I have tons of patience. Please be patient too, its virtuous! :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

These brackets are made of steel angle stock and suitable flat stock to make the platform the swivelable magneto bracket bolts too. I have duplicated them here easily. Too tell the difference between them is very hard and the fit very good where the British ovaled the long bolt holes for a little more adjustment. The pictures are as follows. Enjoy.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Sure nothing mysterious where the exhaust pipe stock was used to make the elbos for Anzani megaphoned exhaust bells/system. The main difference between these and others as they are mandrell bent meaning there are no ripples in the curves whatso ever, so undesirable, in making 2 stroke exhausts in general. These samples are constant in diameter without a rippled through their entire length. Cost? at the time I got them back around 1980 was $8.00 a complete bend to do two pipes, a complete set. Prices now? Good Question as it seems suppliers are selling some like these at even 4 times the price. Check out the competition in the automotive exhaust parts industry. That is where these came from. Enjoy the pictures.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The Anzani Mark I gearcase was already into production and out in the racing world when the Mark II was just behind it. The Mark II Anzani gearcase was unique in that it was a compact and extremely hydrodynamic shape that had basically 3 pieces to build the outer shell. The Main Body that held the support bearings, shafts/gears , the Nose Cone with Skeg as a unit and finally its tail cone which served as a sealed screw on cover and little more. To work on the unit as a whole, all that was required was a screwdriver, a soft faced mallet to tap gently, a pair of suitable needlenose pliers, a suitable Allen wrench for the nose cone/skeg and a "singular Anzani specialty wrench" used for one thing, to set the one piece propshaft with gear in situ with its bearings suppport collars to the one piece drivehaft with gear and that was it. No torquing of tail cone nuts, just turn it on by hand and screw in its setscrew. Put on the nose cone with skeg with an Allen wrench and joint sealing compound. Put on the caps and screw them down. Install to the towerhousing with upper driveshafting to the engine block and its a ready to go gearcase. Wonderfully simple and only one simple Anzani Mark 2 gearcase specific wrench anyone could duplicate. One wrench is for the Mark I gearcase and its the larger one, the smaller one being for the later model Mark II gearcase. From this picture you can get an appreciation as to how hydro dynamic and slimline the gearcases became under the Mark II.

Enjoy the picture.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

As a given the Anzani had 3 different ideas for supporting the twin bell exhausts they used in Alky racing. All 3 systems are shown on previous pages both on and off engine.

One was simply a thick connecting flange with a thick wall elbo with bells dual spring mouted so the pipes shook with the engines vibration with the pipes floating plugged into the elbo with springs providing the adhesion and the float. Loose the springs and you loose the pipe.

Another was the all in one pipe and pipes support struted collars that made your pipes seem like a "pacman" symbol of sorts in the same crescent shape of having one exhaust port on top and one on bottom for each unitwin cast iron block very much like the number 1. These how ever really loaded and added to the dead weight of the cast iron block in one place that added the probability of slowly cracking from the vibration the cast iron block to crankcase cast iron mounting flanges.

The last type envolved moving the pipe support collars and straps to the the Anzani's aluminum head so the head bolts could take some of the loading, distributing that load wider over the larger cast iron block casting as a whole.

Did any of the methods really do that much to improve things? Yes, the first one did. There is some proof that floating the pipes off flanges and with high tension springs allowing the pipes some limited float, cut down on the stresses and strains that caused blocks with their heavy cast iron block overhang to crack at the block to crankcase mounting flanges. Interesting enough that this was used with some Harrisons too and was the adoptive way of hanging aluminum bell pipes from all aluminum flange and elbos of the later famous Quincy Flathead engines of which their A and B Alky engines competed and traded in the same classes as the Anzanis, Harrisons and Konigs.

Enjoy the picture of the pipes support to cylinder head bracket of one of the popular exhaust systems of the A and B Anzani Alkys, both home built at the shop.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

I will not be posting for some time for doing a part for a charity as voluntary help due to the hurricane Katrina event taking away a lot of my spare time. I will be monitoring this site about once a week, but not posting at all, until my use is no longer required, just to see and monitor the chatter as I am doing same with other sites. Anyone wanting something specific to this subject of this engine can drop me an email anytime but be prepared for a slowness in response.

[BBaron]

Grahan Holmes and his son Bobby had some of the first A&B Anz.in Tex.
They were from Lubbock
Glad I found this page have raced for a long time
Benny Bob Baron

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Greetings!! :) It is very nice to hear from a kindred spirit on these engines from the other side of near Highway 59 concerning these engines. Seems that at least 3 corners of the continent are identifying with these amazingly early engines into the Loop Charged world of outboard racing we take for granted today. All my XXXXs live in Texas! (my wife of 33 years might say something about that! LOL!)

When I was little in the late 1950s these engines really came on strong and by the mid 1960s if you didn't have a A or B Anzani, Harrison, Quincy Flathead or Konig loop engines and most were, by then in Alky you were in deep deep trouble. I woud sure like to see some postings here of pictures from that era where engines were developing gobs of power with prop, raceboat and safety racing to change futuristically to what the engines were producing power wise.

If anyone does not have the scan equipment to post pictures here from albums etc. I do and can do that will be returned by mail to the holder once scanning and posting with your story and picture are done. Anyone with pictures and stories for posting Anzani engines at work??? :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Here is a novel approach a racer at some point took to control 2 banes of the Anzani B Alky engine with their heavy cast iron blocks and traditional problems of weight added from the overhanging exhausts systems.

One bane was to get water in the bottom pipe from the backwash as a racer would come back into the pits. Water would come up the bottom pipe and frequently wet down the cylinder unless the driver almost vaulted over the cowl keeping weight as far forward as possible to prevent this condition that would require purging and a fresh sparkplug to do anything more. There were some reports of water getting into the cylinder from the backwash causing hydralic damage to the engine that would require engine teardown and repair.

The second bane was the overhanging weight othe exhaust system with its pipe support struts added to this overhang that could break the top off the cast aluminum and machined midsection tower and could and frequently did case cast iron block mounting flange cracking. The midsection tower no one could re-weld successfully and were replaced. Cast iron block brazed back on block to crankcase mounting flanges seemed quite common and proved reliable.

The following class B Alky Anzani pictures following shows a simple exhaust system instead of sweeping back in the classic crescent shape were made to fire 90 degrees opposite piston travel throwing the exhaust to the "crowd side", so spectators could literally hear it blasting at them as it came by on the race course. Because the pipes were set to 90 degrees off piston travel the extra weight to the overhang was largely eliminated and in fact concentrated forward and on the opposite side to the big Vacturi carb, extra exhaust pipe bracing was eliminated and the pipes in the pictures never had any vibration cracking requiring extra welding to show repairs. Truly a step in the right direction.

Enjoy the pictures. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The Anzani B Alky with offset exhausts.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Looking at the Anzani engines it seems quite normal to use a near 350CC cast iron engine block for B Stock gasoline racing, so why were the B Alkys only 322CCs? as opposed to using the near 350s used by the gassers?? In looking at the large bore of the 350 stock racing block, you would think with its bigger bore making the engine geometry near oversquare operating condition as that of having more revs and more power? Were the speed record engines of the 1970s the 350s or the 322s?

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The odd email still come in concerning these cast iron blocked engines from Great Britan asking for information or pictures and sometimes the odd bit of engineering information comes in already seen on them when they had some prominence. What came in one mail was a old creased section of drafting that showed an addition of twin ports right below the exhaust port to what seems to be an effort to blow boost of intake gases to blow residual exhaust gases out. Checking the old blocks here found that Bill Tenney seen those and tried that in one "A" and one "B" Alky block but they went through the garage fire he had and if that was a success or failure is hard to judge as the engines bores are already worn and bored to oversizes.

Another hand sketch from a deceased Anzani engineer came my way from a family relative that shows a rear wall set of 2 squarish boost ports directly opposite the bridges exhaust port and these ports lay lower down and open lower than the main cylinder side intake loop ports that are ninety degrees off the exhaust port. The same sketch shows the exhaust port a little wider at the top than lower down with the circular block outlet found on the latest cast iron A class block. There are no dates on any of these fragments but taken against what is known today as modern porting shows they were going towards more intake ports and wider ports on both the intake and exhaust side as direct crankcase fed "boost ports" and there were examples of this thinking already turning up in what Bill Tenney and his associate engineers were doing from the old blocks on hand. One can only wonder if the crankshafts could be up to these extras when some racers were running up to 40% nitromethane in their methanol fuel mixes? I wonder what the effects if that garage fire has on that kind of cast iron even though the bores check out straight with melted aluminum from engine parts still melted into block ports and crevices remains there even now?

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Recently from Region 10 USA NorthWest, a "T" exhaust ported British Anzani 322cc Class B Alky block turned up that mirrored the kind of 2 stroke port(s) work Quincy Welding led in the development of to improve the performance of their Quincy Flathead loop engines in later years of refinements. Seems that Quincy's ideas were infectious to other race engine builders as a result? That block is being cleaned up for future pictorial sumission on this Anzani portion of this website.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

From fables to realities X 2!

From 1961 to 1964 Bill Tenney (Crystal Bay, Minnesota, USA) of British Anzani fame built and had campaigned successfully an Anzani twin block coupled (250cc X 2) Class C Alky runabout engine that just disappeared at the end of the 1964 season and from what information is available, the engine was never beaten when it was raced taking championships time after time until it disappeared. As of Christmas 2006 and with the technical and pictorial help coming from veteran racer Tim Chance that engine has again come into being from the same bank of components that produced it. It will be shortly featured here as a historical and pictorial submission to BRF.

Similarly in 1968, according to veteran enthusiast Smitty the Welder just recently, Bill Tenney back then in 1968 supplied some major components to North Western racers/engine builders (Region 10) Jim Hallum and Ron Anderson who cooperated in producing a British Anzani coupled twin block Class D Alky engine (322cc X 2) for racing runabout. This monster effort required no less than 6 pitment including 2 starters (4 pitmen to lift the raceboat and one starting pitman on each engine's flywheel ropeplate) to lift the raceboat and get the monster with its combined horsepower (reputed to be over 200+ horsepower) for its time engine going! So far details of this effort are coming in for its re-creation as a whole engine again. Unlike the sucessful Anzani twin block Alky C of 1961 to 1964 , this NW USA 1968 effort in producing a Class D Alky version caused numerous components failures due to the horrendous horsepower outputs that eventually led to the abandonment of the project. Never the less the class D British Anzani engine was a reality and its pictorial and actual re-creation will be featured here as a historical submssion to BRF as it develops.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The intake and exhaust porting on this cast iron Anzani engine block that survived the garage fire at Bill Tenney's back in the late 1960s leaves one scratching your head as to what they were thinking?

It took a while to separate this block from the other sludge of what was a complete powerhead that melted together in the fire that was hot enough to melt all the aluminum, steel innards and cast iron block of the powerhead into a kind of an irregular blob. It took some forge heating to extricate what there was into separate parts for this picture.

This engine block of 322ccs (Class B Alky) has all the appearances of having been run extensively with 6 ports within the cylinder walls. To add to that there is a class A (250cc) Alky Anzani cast iron block with these SAME 6 ports in one cylinder only that could have been for testing the theories behind that kind of porting that then resulted in the 322cc block being produced and then also run later, seems logical but will we ever know? What power in terms of rpm and horsepower is also unknown.

Enjoy the pictures.

[Jerry Combs]

John,

That porting looks like what was done to my dad's A in 1968 or 1969. We were only running 10% nitro and never did get it to run as fast as it had before the port work. Wish I knew where that engine was today.

Jerry

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The engine in the picture is the 322cc Class B. The class A block I have features it done, the trick porting to only 1 cylinder but not the other, I suspect must be a test block, so there is a 3rd one, your Anzani and maybe other ones too with this porting update somewhere out there? The key to that porting apparently is using a whopping increase in nitromethane in the fuel mix to make it all work and by the wear on the cylinders of the block in the pictures and as well in the A block the porting must have worked. Question is why didn't you or your Dad not know about increasing the nitromethane content in the fuel mix? Some might say it was a racer's secret not to tell but to experiment yourself to find the right combo? Some might say the porting was useless without the nitro compensating and maybe just increasing the nitro without the porting would have been okay? None of the North West Anzani engines I have feature this revised porting. I do not know if Anderson or Hallum ever tried adding more ports to Anzani cylinders like this? Lots more carbs? Yes! but extra ports, Smitty??

[Jerry Combs]

John,

At that time I was only 21 and trust me dad did not like any "helpful" information from someone who he felt was wet behind the ears. <grin> I don't know if Tenny had told my dad what percentage of nitro to use but I suspect not. Prior to the porting change dad's Anzani had been a very strong runner winning most of it's races. I ran it a couple of times on my boat and liked it but dad wouldn't let me borrow his motor after that. Dad prefered smaller hulls than I did, he liked the 9' 9" size and I prefered the 11' 6" size.

Until I got my Koenig and big Bellcraft I was probably not really a very good driver and dad could usually beat me. Once I got a rig that I was comfortable with things fell into place for me and I started winning a few races.

Jerry

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The smallest hydro I have ever seen an Anzani parked on and run was a Swift Atomic A hydro from the mid 1960s. The Anzani engine parked on that little boat with the standard size transom made the motor look half the length of the raceboat. Put a skinny 140-150 driver into it and it, the Swift looked overwhelmed entirely by both the engine and the occupant. The little boat just flew! The bottom really carried it as the tops aerodynamics where compromised by the driver and then the engine anyway at that point. After seening a few more Atomic As tripping around turns a plywood right side sponson deflector anti-trip plate was screwed and glued on that overlapped the top by a couple inches and trailed rear of the sponson by another couple that threw one hosing spray off to the right drowning anyone trying to turn on your rightside outside. There is one of those little Swift Atomic As still here in storage with its owner from way back then. It seems that racing retired the Alky Swift Atomic As to B stock hydro later and they ran real great in their time powered by Popper Merc 20Hs. Its still hard to get used to that DSHs, like my Swift Big D then were only 10 ft 6 or a little longer and Alky As generally were at 11+ ft. already at that point.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Everywhere else but the North West USA Anzanis generally if not all relied on the Vacturi A0 500 carburator used commonly on Johnson, Evinrude, Elto and other related engines with custom machined varied throat sizes sleeved in for class A or B Alky mounted on the side of the Anzani's cast iron block facing the opening to the piston ports. A tortuous S turning chamber leading to the crankcase rotary valve started in the ast iron block to the pistons ports started 90 degrees off the direct directional flow of the Vacturi's carb barrel was carved diagonally through the center of the crankshaft using a floating bushing surrounding the center of the crankshaft to support it (not unlike a floating turbocharger shaft sleeve bearing of today in principle) with a window in one side providing timing to the rotary valve's opening window going through the crankshaft itself.

Unlike a disk rotary seen on Konigs where the timing of the disk could be custom cut that would result in engine performance programming differences, the Anzanis crankshaft rotary timing was very fixed and only aimed overall that the engine would get its air/fuel charge in block and in the crankcase through the pistons ports and rotary valve supposedly at the same time filling the pumping chamber to the maximum to transfer it all to the appropriate cylinder.

The theory more or less worked. But the engine's breathing was far from perfection. Early on it was found that cutting back the piston skirts by varying amounts at the piston ports significantly increased power by dealing with the piston ports ability to bring down the pulsations at the piston ports making air/fuel smooth out through creating actual piston port overlap. In short when one piston port was on its way to close the other one was opening making the air/fuel stream more continuous.

In the North West in the hands of racers Hallum and Anderson, they took one extra step by parking a self pumping Tillotson HL carb directly on an adapter right on the crankcase directly opposite the crankshaft rotary valve to enhance the air/fuel flow this way directly into its opening face at the rotary valve. There was no attempt to cut out the tortuous S bend between the crankcase and block, just to add that direct opening and HL carb directly opposite it smoothing out and quickening the air/fuel flow velocities to the crankcase area significantly with the result that the engines power went up significantly from the small added carb and passage change.

Anzanis in the North Western USA and far Western Canada (Alberta) were soon seen sporting this 2 carb combination being fed their fuel streams by the OMC fuel pump and spill over return to tank fuel feed systems.

There were more additions and refinements yet to come involving reed valves, pistons, crankshaft modifications ignitions and pipes taking several more years in the making in the North West but down east (the USA midwest to the eastern seaboard further development had slowed with Anzani winding down parts production overseas and the introduction of the HRP (Birmingham Metal Products) product lines to support Anzani in aftermarket parts and services, the development of the Harrison loop engines parrallel to that period.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Pictures following. The first three are of (Montana's) Roger Wendt's 350 hybrid Anzani's engine block as it was disassembled for museum restoration.

The engine was a Hallum and Anderson type hybrid. Anzani crankcase with machining to fit the smaller Tillotson HL carb, cast iron main block, later generation crankshaft with Konig connecting rods, Harrison ignition, Harrison aluminum flywheel & rope plate, Vacturi primary carb with on the fly adjustable high speed needle rack and pinion, Tillotson HL secondary carb, OMC fuel pump, typical west coast style supported Anzani stacks, Mercury clamps and saddle, steel tower and Konig gearcase.

The carb inlet hole was immense by Anzani standards nearing the borders of the casting allowing the larger opening. Similarly were the interior piston ports, transfer ports, inlet and exhaust ports of standard number. Of interest is the cylinder in one case is brass metal from the block being repaired after some incident that broke off major pieces. Its a testament to the skill of the repairer that this engine went on with these brazed repairs to keep on competing successfully. It was run on 40% nitro Alky fuels and was very successful dealing with the Konigs and other contemporaries of its day.

The 4th picture is the typical North West style of fuel systems that pumped fuel to Vacturi primary and small Tillotson HL secondary carbs with its rack and pinion slider mounted on top the big Vacturi for driver facing forward adjusting the high speed needle jet for optimum richened performance.

The last picture of the 2 Anzani pistons is typical of the cut back/notched skirt at the piston ports allowing for intake overlap smoothing out intake pulsing resulting in more power.

There were some more profound changes to pistons later that made a difference for racers again later.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

These are the first Anzani expansion chamber exhausts I ever seen on any Anzani. They are from the USA's North West Region 10 area and I understand a product of Ron Anerson's team. (courtesy of outboardracing.com)

Bill Tenney also got into the expansion chamber exhausts that were quite different both block mounted and fixed like the North West's but trailed farther behind a distance instead of curling back and forth like the North West's. Tenney seen to the development of 2 stage types where a little short fat megaphone per cylinder was switched between them and a pair of long and trailing expansion chambers. Tenney's had an extensive metal frame to hang the weight of these overhanging 2 pairs of 2 clustered pipes. The exhausts manifolds were a heavy steel cast product had an exhaust gate the driver switched back and forth on the go.

[smittythewelder]

Hallum had exhaust cut-outs, too; I'd bet on him having made the first ones. He made a pattern and had the housings cast in aluminum, then fabricated shafts, valves and linkages. The idea was to plane off and get going on standard megaphones, then pull a lever and switch to the bounce-pipes, which is what they called expansion chambers in those days. Pretty quickly it was decided that the megaphones were just excess weight, so they were omitted, and when the boat left the pits it was using what were basically open exhaust ports. I don't think Ron ever bothered with the valves. This was about the time that they had the mixture control working well, and it wasn't as hard to get on plane without fouling as previously. That could be a Ron engine in the photo, but I think it might be Hallum holding the flashlight.

I have a feeling I told this story earlier. This thread is a monster.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Its facinating how these exhaust systems were in development during similar periods of time hundreds of miles apart. For sure Jim Hallum's aluminum components system sounds like saving weight off the overhang of that cast iron block own weight was a priority. These Anzani engines were already notorius for breaking their aluminum tower midsections off at the neck separating the engine from the tower only to be held there by the steering bars and cables. Tenney's switchable systems were all cast steel and welded steel. I have the complete switchable elbos set for those pipes but I have only one section part of one Tenney's version of those early bounce pipes/expansion chambers. It is heavy so I can imagine what the rest of it weighed togethee assembled and then times 2 plus a long mounting frame supporting them too! Somewhere I have pictures of Tenney's version of a "ram's horn" type too that went to scrap back then?? He and his son were into Karts too and that stuff may have gone to karting enthusiasts I understand after he passed away. Where those pipes are now is unknown. There is a British Anzani Kart in the Smithsonian Museum/Institute on display. You can see that Kart on the internet, the Anzani engine was using the traditional albiet they chromed them, crescent shaped pipes. That was one loud Kart for sure.

That Vacturi carb high speed needle ajusting rack and pinion setup to lean the engine while it ran up and richening it for racing on the fly for racing speeds was one safer way of doing things than getting back into the transom are from where you were to reach and turn the high speed jet with your hand. Years passed I watched racers dump doing it as well as getting out of control real bad and recovering too. That is how I tuned my first KG9 Merc with its surface mounted high and low speed needles knobs that came through its cowls in the days before I scored and learned how and then used test wheels. That was suicidal in my 10 ft 6 D Stock hydro but pretty manageable in the Ashburn D runabout I campaigned then. Similarly so it was easy for A and B Anzani runabout drivers.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The following does not have to do with some new fangled shot gun they used to shoot wild turkeys in the bush but comes close in looks!

The following pictures is of the Bill Tenney built 2 stage exhaust system. It is one of his first of 2 forays into the world of the earliest expansion chambers in outboard racing. It still used a vestige of a megaphone system to start the engine off that was then "switched" to the expansion chambers once the raceboat had planed off and the Vacturi richened for racing speeds. The term "bounce pipes" are expansion chamber exhausts as they were referred to in the early 1960s.

The picture shows about 1/3rd of the expansion chamber they designed and built to hang on a frame rearward straight back from the Anzani engine. The other design is the "rams horn" type seen in the previous picture from the North Western region. These pipes were being developed were within similar time periods and the understanding is that there were cooperative efforts and information exchanges between the midWest and the North Western USA groups in terms of their development.

Today, Jim Hallum gave discussions on the concepts involved here and what happened to the Anzani engines when these new exhaust technolgies were being applied and tested. It would be the earlier generation Anzani crankshafts (tapered big big end pins) that would prove to be the weakness with applying these new exhaust technologies that would keep Anzanis using megaphones and nitromethane until the Harrison developed heavy duty crankshafts that came along that would alieveate the problem of developing newer exhausts for the aging race engine.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Back around 1978, I was buying my first Anzani engine from Gene Strain in Calgary. It was a class B - 20 cubic inch Alky. Gene (Pappy) was hitting 80 years old and he wanted to make sure I knew everything he did about the engine. At that point I only had a history since the 1960s of a pitman helping in Alky and our local stock racing members and driving my own DSH, so it was important I listened, looked and watched everything and he made sure I did.

One very important point he made with the Anzani's gearcase was to show me that he used "whale oil" in it (the real thing) because he said if water got into the gearcase, the water turned the whale oil milky and but it kept lubricating. He proceeded to open the can and put his nose over it splashing a bit on himself and did the same thing to me when he urged me to smell it and indeed the stuff smelled real strong and sorta fishy to make his point as fowl smelling pee colored oil dripped from the tips of our noses.

The next thing came when he said you can tune the Anzani in a barrel of water to which he took me to his 45 gallon drum with a wooden transom bolted on to a slightly flattened side of the barrel where the backside of the barrel was suitably cut out to allow for the Anzani's bottom exhaust pipe to clear and fire out its sound and smoke. Filling it with water with a garden hose he proceeded to take out the engines "test" wheel that we were going to shear pin and bolt to the gearcase. It resembled a Merc's only that it was circular but it was hubbed and had a 1/8 inch disk screwed to the hub and that was supposed to provide loading to the engine as we were about to run it?? Ya, Gene grinned and he said these work best of all, they grab like no Merc ever could and he proceeded to tell me that these were designed by the guys from down south, the west coasters. He said that the fuel system using a fuel pump and a fuel return line back to the tank was also of their design and worked way better than the Vacturi carbs old cork float, needle and seat that used to stick.

With all that we set the engine in the barrel and clamped her down. Hooked the engine block's water hose to the garden hose, fueled her with some ALky mix he he shook vigorously and poured in the fuel tank out of a brown glass jug, primed her, put on our ear protection and I started her while Gene throttled her and showed me how responsive the engine was from its leaned out start to richening her up and running her wide open showing me how that test wheel disk held the rpm down really loading the engine down hard so nothing got too fast that could produce a parts failure. Gene explained though the test disk was smooth it was that feature, the smoothness that made the water stick to it making it a brake of sorts that no Merc B,C or D test wheel could duplicate. During this time the racket as astounding that caused a few people at the Chestemere Lake yacht and sailing club next door to stop what they were doing and look our direction and observe something they seen before being Gene fooling around with his old engines. We cut the engine not long after he demonstrated how easy and safe the Anzani was to be tuned in a test tank with a test wheel and those around came down to see and talk about what they had seen as they were clearly impressed with the show of one, even though it was in a barrel.

Years later, I was so impressed with this kind of test wheel and its reliability (no more breaking cast Mercury test wheels hubs and shear pin holes) that I encouraged making this new breed of test wheel locally and where ever else I was seen using it, it was explained to others for their benefit and duplications. Quite a few made that style of test wheel their own.

Just recently talking to Jim Hallum about that sort of test wheel, Jim talked about its origins and development there. He indicated that using different diameters of disks set screwed on this kind of test wheel hub, were good for testing, for any outboard racing engine. The smoothness of the disk really holds the revs down with stiff loading the engine to develop power and power curve information that have a mathematical basis to aid and add to engine development! Its neat what you can do with 1/8 inch harder grade aircraft aluminum disks of different diameters. Some of that math may just turn up here to help with your engine when you make and use your test wheel like these. There will be some pictures of this style/type of test wheel to follow this article shortly, so you can make this kind of test wheel your own.

[smittythewelder]

The old "Type C" gearcase lube from OMC was whale oil, prefered by the Anzani engineers out here and jocularly refered to as "whale sperms" (from sperm whales, you see . . .). Type C was superceeded by something more politically correct and easier on the whales somewhere around 1970, I think.

When Ron Anderson started work for Mercury in the early '70s, he walked into the racing development shop one day when they were trying to run the latest big OPC racemotor in a test tank. They told Ron about the impressive horsepower the engine was going to make at such-and-such rpm, but their test-wheel was ventilating and cavitating so badly that they couldn't get a reading. Ron went over to the machine shop and had them make one of those smooth test discs. He took it into the racing shop and talked them into hanging it on their super motor. Very skeptical about that plain disc letting their engine over-rev, the dyno operator advanced the throttle very slowly. But once the engine reached 4200rpm, straining mightily, the tachometer stopped climbing. Everybody looked at Ron, and he said, "Well, if your engine really made the horsepower you said, it would turn this disc at the rpm you wanted." Shortly thereafter, they transfered Ron to race engine development, and soon he was running the department.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The following pictures show this high load smooth disk test wheel Gene Strain introduced to me for the Anzani back in 1978 that was developed by the Hallum and Anderson influences from the North Western USA. Smitty's story about how Ron Anderson showed them how they work at OMC is so vivid a description of how impressive these test wheels are and work, I never again used a Mercury test wheel ( I had worn out 3 Mercs at that point) for any engine after that, be they stock racing Mercurys, my other Anzanis, Modified Mercurys of all displacements from 30, 40, 44, 49 and 60 cubic inch. After rebuilding 2 Quincy Flatheads a D and a 44 inch F, the same test wheels were applied giving those same hold down the revs, load and tune effects that really set up the engines well. From these pictures it is quite easy to develop your own sets of this flat disk testwheels.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

My error is - Ron Anderson worked on OPCs not OMCs and not at OMC but at Mercury. One gets kind of wound up generating these things to read and you get writer's blindness! :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Trying to give more perspective to the 2 stage pipes Bill Tenney developed and I understand midwestern racer Dick Hopenrath even used to use thes 2 stage pipe sets in races during these early days. I could not just leave readers with the idea that the pipe looked like some kind of wild turkey buss you charged up with shot, nails, glass and black gun powder and went Thanks Giving hunting with. I found a trusty leftover no good expansion chamber from testing on Merc deflectors and shoved it on. It gives some perspective to length of the systems being supported and tested in the early 1960s and the adding to the overhanging weight added to an already heavy Anzani cast iron loop block being run.

They faced the same weight and lengths problems with these concept pipes in the North West according to Jim Hallum. They too tried 2 stage pipes using a megaphone and an expansion chamber. Because of the great added weight the next thing to go and was taken off were the uper and lower megaphones so the engine still used a gated 2 stage system was essentially dumping right out of the exhaust ports and then once the raceboat planned off switched to the expansion chambers to go for the sustained high racing speeds. The next thing they ran into in the North West was where they used high loads of nitromethane with straight megaphone systems the Anzani was able to do so without developing abnormal crankshaft problems. With expansion chambers and no nitormethane, the high pressures involved in good working pipes found the earlier generation tapered big end pinned cranksahfts could not take the power without severe consequences. It would be the next generation of improved heavy duty crankshafts and connecting rods with improved bearing systems developed by Harrison (HRP) Racing Products) that allowed further Anzani expansion chamber exhausts development that saw eventually the "rams horn" stinger type expansion chamber pipes developed and used by Ron Anderson pictured here some frames earlier on this BRF thread. Bill Tenney too developed a type of "rams horn" expansion chambered pipes but their development stopped without further improvement long before Ron Anderson made his work quite well.

The following series of pictures mocked up of what a 2 stage Bill Tenney developed megaphone switch to expansion chamber racing exhausts could have bascially looked like. Long? Yes! and very very heavy.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

One of the most unique features of the British Anzani outboard racing engnes was its unique combination of combining piston porting with a crankshaft rotary valve running right through the midsection of the crank. This combination though ported on the smaller side and not to any very narrow powerband because the were originally designed as stock racing engines on gasoline/oil. This allowed a situation when the engine was running where there was a port opening (rotary valve or piston port) or closing within any part of the crankshafts rotation which served to smooth out air/fuel transfer pulsing producing a very powerful motor. At this time in the 1950s there was no other engine that combined loop scavenging with piston porting with a crankshaft rotary valve system. It was revolutionary and every other manufacturer took notice especially when Anzani started to capture records that seemed incapable to such small displacement engines.

In the hands of the North West's, Jim Hallum there was extensive enlarging of carburator and piston port openings where the piston port coupled with piston skirt trimming effectively doubled the active port sizes thinning the castings port walls to the limit of thinness. Being stuck with the mild timing and restrictive sizing within the crankshaft midsection which was also a type of sleeve main bearing he could not take the rotary valve further. What he did go to next was to add 1 Tillorson HL right accross from the rotary valve opening face by locating the carb opposite it right on the crankcase wall. The result was speed and power increases. Then he added to that 2 Tillotson HL series carbs on top of McCulloch chainsaw reed blocks where each carb sitting on its reedblock penetrated one crankcase half of the engine. The performance result was immediate and found to be better than the carb opposite the rotary valve and Vacturi alone and was even noticeably better when he dammed the rotary valve off making it inoperative using blocking methods that effectively turned the Anzani into a reed valve combination piston port engine with 3 carbs though you see pictured the record setting engine with 3 HL carbs with the single Vacturi. The engine would be started off lean on the 2 or in case 3 small HL crankcase side mounted carbs which through the use of a cam brought the Vacturi carb on line last to get to the highest racing speeds possible after it had planned off.

Similarly on the exhaust side Hallum kept widening the exhaust port as he went through ring advancement changes from rectangular stock cast iron rings to a combination of stock located rings plus a another ring grove added over them to allow for widening ports without adding ring shear due to port width but to also have the change where it was no longer the piston crown and ring lands areas were controlling exhaust port timing to the change where the top of the Dykes ring (L Ring) was controlling the exhaust port timing which was more precise leading to superior engine tunning at the highest power peaks without downward leakage. To deal with further ring shear and do away with more ring friction problems he eventually did away with the 2 other standard rings to where the Anzani used a single Dykes L ring. A drop from 3 to a single ring resulted in expanded and increased very precise exhaust timing/tuning capabilities.

With the use of the single Dykes L ring known as a pressure back ring where exhaust blow down pressures force the ring wall hard against the cylinder wall making it a pressure seal, it would also immediately spring back releasing ring to wall pressure the moment the exhaust port opening lessening ring shear even more. This allowed initially the widening of the exhaust ports to larger wide sizes and with the deletion of the stock type rectangular rings completely with their ring shear problems then allowed Jim to widen the exhaust port to be "T" configuration making the exhausts ports as widest as they could be in terms what the Dykes L ring would allow by itself. It was not long before other racing engines went down this route as well, following the leader.

The route taken from Bill Tenney's midwestern area went down some of the same ways. Multiple carbs were not followed, a single Vacturi was kept. Changes to pistons in terms of cutting away piston skirts to alter piston port timing was adopted. Similarly the types and kinds of piston rings used increased from 2 standard rings to retaining them and adding a 3rd top Dykes L ring. Using a single ring did not advance at that point. Where Hallum's engines kept and enlarged intake, exhaust and transfer ports, Tenney's developments did similar but never got into the use of "T" ' d maxiumum width exhaust ports using a single Dykes L ringed piston. Tenney did go another direction in development where 2 extra transfer ports were added right under the exhaust port 90 degrees opposite the existing 4 transfer ports for a total of 6 intake ports. In effect a bigger loop charging flow from another added angle to sweep the cylinder of exhaust gases more so than a 4 port version could do. Due to increased crankcase volumes more nitro was added to the fuel mix to offset the increases. All these changes increased the power of the Anzanis but it was the Hallum engines that produced the speed records pulling the Anzani over 100 miles per hour barrier to set records there in relation to other engines also pulling over 100* mph many times the Anzani's small size of 322cc B Alky displacement.

Other engines would follow Anzani's leads in time from ideas and concepts put to work pioneered by Jim Hallum but he got the Anzanis there first forcing everyone else to play catch up later. And all this from a non-racer who had an unbelievable understanding of engines, never raced an Anzani where others had a hard time grasping what had just screamed by them into the record books. He was, is and remains unique amongst his piers an engima.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Very early on in racing outboard two strokes it was a given that to attain racing speeds with power the engine had to breathe efficiently in terms of intake air/fuel transfers and exhaust blowdown. Many engines in the deflector or cross flow variety were desgined around recreational pleasure uses therefore crankcase volumes of up to 4 to 1 were very much a common place. To go racing it was realized that these crankcase volumes had to be reduced signiticantly where 2 to 1 or less had to be achieved for race engines whose powerbands were to the extreme high ranges of rpms they were expected to produce.

Anzani early on in the late 1950s already had a semi-full circle crankshaft in place to reduce the crankcase volumes down to where they were expected to be for racing outboards efforts. Jim Hallum and his contemporaries looked at these volumes critically too. The first things filled in to reduce the crankcase volumes were crankshaft assembly alignment holes in the crankshaft plates active within each crankcase half section. These were filled with a hard setting compound that would not vibrate out with crankshaft operation. Another crankcase section filled was the crankshaft center bearing encirclement tunnel that provided not only air/fuel cooling to the bearing outer, the passage also served to supply active pressure to be bled off to pressurize the engines remote fuel tank. It was found that the cooling aspects were not required as air/fuel passing through the rotary valve face and right through the center of the crankshaft with the crank rotary valve passages cooled sufficiently in any case. These measures brought better results dealing with crankcase volumes increasing transfer efficiency of air/fuel entering and leaving the crankcase.

Hallum expalined that there were other efforts to reduce the crankcase volumes even lower by encircling the Anzani crankshaft lobe section on each half of the engine that was not full circle like the midsection of the crankshaft that was. In this case a kind of can was machined that could be welded or screwed onto the non-full circle sections of the crankshaft to drop the crankcase volume even lower. At this point it was explained that a type of threshold had been achieved where changes made to reduce crankcase volumes did nothing more to increase the performance of the engine. There was a plateau reached of engine breathing efficiency for an engine reving into the 9,000 rpm ranges.

The added metal can did increase other problems of reliability where if such an add crankcase stuffer added on, blew off, the result could be catastrophic engine failure. Such was demonstrated in the late 1970s when Calgarian, Gene Strain's 2 carb Anzani with such crankshaft machined fit and mechanically screwed on fastened add-ons blew up shredding these crankshaft stuffing cans, firing them through the crankcase as the engine grenaded showering bystanders with metal fragments gone in every direction as the engine destroyed itself upon being started and being rev'd up for raceboat drop on to the water. Speculation had it that there was enough nitro'd fuel in the crankcase as the engine reved up to cause an explosion tearing loose crankshaft components that would in fractions of seconds destroy the entire powerhead and that is what it did.

There would be improvements to later crankshafts in the later 1960s by Harrison (HRP) that would again reduce the crankcase volumetrics for Harrisons. HRP design changes would also deal with crankshaft and their components reliability which then also flowed out to the Anzanis of the North West. The HRP crankshaft was built completely full circle in all respects. The big end tapered pins of Anzani were gone with straight pins. These crankshafts were beefier, with improved bearing systems throughout top, bottom (both were caged wide type roller bearings) and with the use of Konig connecting rods and bearings technologies concepts from Mercury and OMC a much better crankshaft with reduced crankcase volumes was achieved differently. Crankshaft strength was greatly enhanced. Montana's / Roger Wendt's, Ron Anderson prepared engine is a fine example of the Harrison technoligied crankshafts put to work in a championship 322cc hybrid Anzani B Alky engine. It was remarkable in that it could easily compete with the new Konig Loop 4 cylinder 350cc engines and it took championships and ran some dead heats doing and proving just that.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Greetings to Lee Sutter of British Anzani engine fame.

I sure look forward to having Lee add to the history going on here from his unique perspecive being recreated hee for the Anzani outboard racing engines and their makers, users and drivers who also set records as well as those that just drove them. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

"I raced alki boats for about 15 years, and was at “D” Lake in 1960 when Bill Tenney first showed up with the Anzani. I was involved with Hallum and Walin in the early days, and Ron Anderson in the 70’s. My last race with an Anzani was with a “Coil” pipe, progressive multi-carb, non-nitro engine in BRR at Nationals in Depue, IL in the early 70’s. Bill Seebold, Jerry Simison (sp) and had a great race. Every part was handmade, fragile, in short supply, and 100% development!!! Walin and I were racers, Hallum and Anderson were engineers. Jim and Ron had “ME” degrees from the UW."

This short, writer undisclosed, introductory historic recollection story is from a racer who is preparing to contribute historical pieces to these British Anzani threads. I would be great to have others too so involved to look at doing the same thing. Being part of that recounted history being developed here. Everyone who raced or prepared or helped with these engines being raced down to the pitman who helped with the raceboat the engine was on has a story to tell. If there is some difficulty in doing so there is help for the asking too, so don't be shy. We would love to hear from you if only to assist you with something that would be difficult otherwise. :)

[smittythewelder]

It's time for me to bow out of the Anzani threads here, since you now have access to the guys who have direct knowledge. I was merely a bystander, and have warned you my memory of these things is subject to correction. I'll still follow the discussion.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Don't bow out Smitty. I have DIRECT knowledge of stuff that I have either forgotten or saw it from a different point of view. Joe is always reminding me of things I had forgotten or remember certain happenings different from the way he does. So chime in when you have heard or remember something of the story. There are always parts of a story that are missing. So Please keep adding your input.:)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

I know that you will no doubt remain by and prime different writers at different times concerning different posts. Its part of you that we all enjoy. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

British Anzanis came from the UK with some variations of heads for their A and B displacement engines. One style of head's combustion chamber was the classic "bell" capped hemi style head with the combustion chamber centered equally around the diameter of the bore size tapering upward to the spark plug hole making it a classic 8 to 1 compression ratio for gasoline oil use as a stock racing motor. This style of cylinder head is common place with most loop scavenged 2 stroke gasoline engines today but Anzanis came out with them priort to 1960 with the loop scavenging. This cylinder head was seated on top of a composite multi layered type head gasket well suited for gasoline use but was found to be unsuitable for higher compressions where Methanol and Nitro were used.

The cylinder head for Alky racing used a combustion chamber with an offset squish feature to it that would raise the air fuel charge accross the lower part of the head to where it would squish the air fuel off to one side into the combustion chamber proper. Compression with these heads depending on machined thickness could be varied from 12 - 14 to 1. Composite head gaskets proved to immediately to leak badly. Bill Tenney's standard adice was to custom make sheet copper and in cases alminum single layer head gaskets that would then be head gasket glue coated and torqued down with the standard BSW head bolts. Leakage was pretty much eliminated where nitro percentages in fuel did not exceed 15%.

On the North West Jim Hallum and his associates pretty much used a whole lot more Nitro than down east so their approach to Anzani cylinder heads turned out quite different. They were using upward from 25% to over 30% nitro'd methanol based racing fuels. They too initially started out with using the revised sheet copper head gaskets to stop compression leakage associated with Alky/Nitro fuels. They soon found that using more nitro exceeding 15% produced head gasket leakage on both sides of the copper head gasket. To remove the source of the leakage from one side or both sides of the copper head gasket they dispensed with the head gasket itself altogether by careful machining of head surfaces and also using a specialized heat proof proprietary alumina joint cement that when the head was placed on the block it seemed that it could have run without headbolts because the glue set so tight. But, in reality head bolts were necessary and installed and the head to block joint did not leak.

Still not completely satisfied with the distance between the headbolts having adequate torque evenly spead over the head and block matting surfaces, Jim Hallum removed the casting plugs that closed off the water jacket openings to the head, threaded in a steel insert into each casting plug and installed a pressurizing capbolt that forced the inside of the heads water jacket side of the casting downward to the engine head. Process one became torquing the head down glued at the mating surfaces with its 6 main head bolts and process 2 was to torque down 4 capbolts through the casting plug adapters that served to spread the torque more evenly on the cylinder head to block joint surfaces more evenly ensuring no leakage ever occurred as a possibility and none did.

The engine had a kind of not installed bolts look to it, but it worked well. These head bolt and joint cement improvements did not find their way East to Bill Tenney no different than the Tenney modified to 6 intake port loop engine blocks then too untilizing 25%+ nitro'e methanol fuels never found their way to the Nort West, but they are another story that involves the North West's evolution of the "T" type exhaust ports. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

One thing that was well noticed back in the early days 1950s into the early 1960s were the 2 approaches to racers exhausts. There was one course of practice were all the exhausts as many megaphones as there were, including exhaust plate and even the filler block where used were to be hosed down with water to cool off any heat they gave off. Similarly engine blocks that normally cooled from the base of the block upward saw more cooling water entry points installed between cylinders as well as deep cooling tubes installed through the rear water jackets at the head down to where the pipe inlet inside the engine block was right adjacent to the exhaust port to get the hotest water there out of the block first to achieve cooling to the maximum.

In spite of all this cooling water spraying like some proverbial hotel shower off the surfaces and innards of these engines, the deflector engines in particular with their 30% larger piston crown areas still melted down with great frequency. An engine that was running number one in one heat melted crowns completely on the second heat and so on. With the appearance of the British Anzani cast iron loop charged class A and B Alkies there was the changes that had racers scratching their heads. One real question was just how was a cast iron block on those things supposed to cool in relation to anything aluminum? IT used a single water inlet at the base of the cast iron block and then 2 outlets in total (one at the top of the cast iron block and one at the top of the cylinder head). Unknown to most then was that the cast iron or "gutter iron" Anzanis blocks were cast of remarkably has extremely good heat transfer properties. Also being understood morso then was the flat top or near flat top pistons involved in the loop scavenged operating system of the engine lost the heat soak characteristics retained by the deflector engines because the surface area was 30% smaller and without the intake deflector on the piston crown all deflector engines retain as their cross flow scavenging system required, so they, the Anzani loop engines ran basically cooler to begin with. Where deflector engines lost breathing in intake and exhaust efficiency as the rpm went up it was the direct opposite to the Anzani loop engines that got more efficient in transfer and exhaust as the rpm kept climbing gaining in efficiency as it climbed.

So too it became well noticed that Anzanis did not hose their exhausts down as cooling water was deliberately hosed away from the engines block and exhaust pipes surfaces leaving them dry and presumably hot as the engine twisted many necks watching them go by time after time without the catastrophic piston melt down failures so many others engines were plagued by. This emerged as the second approach to 2 stroke exhausts that persists today in modern day expansion chambered racing exhausts systems.

Well known to the mechanical and aeronaughtical engineers of that early period like Bill Tenney, Jim Hallum and followed closely by their contemporaries was that any pressure or vacumn sonic wave passing on a surface does so faster and more efficiently when the surface they are following is smooth, even temperatured, hot in temperature and resonant with the material being followed. You could see it all at work with just 2 jets of water streaming 5-6 feet out the sides of the Anzani engine clearing all its megaphone exhaust components leaving them dry. Nearly every other engine of that period was being soaked down to cool to the extreme. It was not understood by the general community of the day that even persists in more modern times that a dry hot pipe was the most sonically efficient pipe. Indeed pipes that were even water water hosed down on the outside also became water injected on the inside too, not cool the pipe but to fool the engine into reacting as if the pipe was a longer pipe than it actually was, was achieved giving some added success to water soaked exhausts systems of the day from another operating angle.

Today's offshoot of the even temperatured hot exhaust pipe principle is mirrored in modern day expansion chambered exhausts that are generally kept out and away from the water spray and in cases expansion chambered exhausts are ceramic coated to retain even heating and even insulation wrapped to retain therir heating to produce best power through fast and efficient sonic waving pluses back and forth producing a supercharging effect. If you were to ask today's pipe formula developers and makers if they make pipe formulas specific to boat racing, their answer would be no, they don't make 2 stroke pipes that are exposed to water though they are seen on raceboats because they would not work properly when wet, which all goes back to the days when the Anzanis showed up on the scene in the late 1950s with their loop scavenged engines using their hot and dry exhausts that eventually put the engines into the century marks setting records in the process.

It all goes back to say that British Anzani started a revolution in 2 strokes with its loop scavenged operation, what is so much not known was that Anzanis approach to 2 stroke exhausts was just as important but that was lost in the scramble of recognition of all the changes that came so fast in the game of follow the leader that developed 2 stroke engine wise, industries wide, over the entire globe that followed.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

During discussions with some Anzani racers and engine preparers and born out by particular wear and failure areas seen one critical weak spot with all pre Harrison changes to later versions was the piston connecting rod.

For the high tech, leading edge and revolutionary aspects of the Anzani engine there were 2 weakspots on the rods themselves and at both ends, big and small ends. The small end was bushed with a bronze type bearing slotted at the top of the connecting rod and into the bronze bearing itself to allow in lubricating and cooling oil from the air/fuel spray circulating in the crankcase.

The principle of using a bronze bushing itself provides for a sleeve bearing surface which by itself makes for a reliable bearing where moverment at the small end is limited in swing to the up and down motion of the piston itself. Similarly the heat from the piston crown had little effect as the bearing and wristpin surfaces were well washed with lubricant preventing any abnormal wear. The critcal thing was that this same bushing in terms of tolences of machining as well as its careful centered installation also played a big part in how the rod was kept centered between the piston itself and the big end of the crankshaft and the bearings at that big which at speeds of 9,000 rpm came to be very critical too. A sloppy wrist pin bushing bit to piston pin and piston pin piston bosses meant a sloopy big end piston rod action that meant on rotation the sides of the big end of the piston rod could and did create blue heat stress spots between the crankshaft and the sides of the big end of the rod creating friction and failure points.

The big end of the Anzani rod, the rod being one piece used an alloy roller cage and narrow and tall high speed roller bearings separated by a one bearing to one cage section for a one to one aspect ration between each next bearing. When there was side to side bearing slop movement from a too loose a wrist pin to wristpin boss to wristpin bushing fit and the sloppiness was carried all the way down to the big end of the rod and crankshaft creating contact points between the big end of the crank and the big end of the connecting rods the heat created was enough to cook (created coking of the caster lubricant into hard carbon conditions) lubricant (caster) on to the alloy bearing cage sludging up the cage enough to slow the roller bearings down until they would themselves no keep rolling but would start to slide instead creating such friction that the alloy cage would crack, melt or both along with the sliding instead of rolling roller bearing would all as a mass try to weld itself as a ring of hot metal around the big end of the crank and inside of the connecting rod all creating a massive mechanical failure capable of throwing the rod if not stopped real quick that would necessitate engine repair and overhaul.

The big end of the rod had another shortcoming. To lubricate the big end of the rod it was designed that lubricant would get in from the sides of the rod between the big end sides and the crankshaft. This seen as not enough the big end was bored as well with a oiling gallery from the outside of the big end of the rod through to the middle of the bearing surface so each bearing in turn could be set awash with libricant as the roller went over the oiling gallery hole centered on the rid right in the middle of each bearings rolling surface. This was fine in terms of design but so much rested on machining results any error there could result in desasters and did.

When the big end oil gallery was installed hindsight with what today's engineers have examined and since found was that the gallery hole penetrating the rod was too big increasing the chance that the rolling bearing could develop a wearing flatspot that did happen causing the roller bearing to skid instead of rolling damaging the bid end bearing surface of the rod, the roller bearing itself and the crankshaft big end pin necessitating their complete changout and renewal. The boring of the oil gallery in the big end of the connecting rod also presented a problem where the installed hole left a weakened surface on the inside of the rods surface where a fragment of the bore hole at the bearing surface would pit throwing metal into the big end bearings causing their failure much like putting a door stop wedge under a door in this case the bearing stopped, skidded and wore a pit into the bearing surface of the rod causing massive bearing, rod to big end pin failures.

The small end of the connecting rod similarly was not perfect as nitro methane loads in the Alky fuel mix could eventually create a pounding and bearing wear condition where the bronze wrist pin bearing would fracture on the crankcase side of the bearing necessitating its replacement though total failure was rarely the experience causing massive engine damage or failure.

Harrison (HRP) Harrison Racing Products seeing the big end and small end problems over a time history scotched the problems on both sides of the connecting rod and crankshaft moved to eventually resolve all the problems by going to a second generation more heavy duty crankshaft. It was without tapered big end pins, they were straight. he crankshaft by mass was 15% heavier and complete full circled. Harrison changed to Konig connecting rods that like Mercury used no bored in big end oil gallery holes that proved to be early potential and real failures on earlier Anzanis. Harrison designed and used modified big end roller bearings based on OMC and Mercury outboard designs principles and at the small end they used Torrington needle roller bearings at the small end with small end shims (like Mercury Outboards) to keep the rod centered from the piston small end to the crankshaft and connecting rod big end completely resolving the problem of big end crankshaft components coming into big end connecting rod outsides friction creating contacts allowing for a jump in power and rpm not previously possible with pre Harrison Anzanis. At that time it meant more nitromethane in the fuel could be used in the engine safely so it could go up to the 40% ranges. Such an engine was the Ron Anderson prepared class B Alky 2 carbed engine Roger Wendt (Montana, USA) campaigned successfully into the 1970s. None of this went un-noticed by Jim Hallum (Washington state, USA) who never got to obtain or use this new Harrison (HRP) revised crankshaft. Hallum however went on to the development of the "T" type exhaust port facilitated by refinements possible through the use of single Dykes "L" rings but that is another story in the amazing British Anzani development that spawned a revolution outboard motor marine industy world wide that is still going on today.

[Bill Van Steenwyk]

John:

Even though we have never met, I have been following this thread with great interest. I have always been very interested in the technical side of 2-cycle engines (never had the machinery/equipment to do any work on them myself which was probably just as well) but due to my long friendship/customer relationship with Harry Pasturczak was at least exposed to a lot of theory during visits with him, rides to boat races, and many, many late nite phone calls.
He was on close terms with Bill Tenney and spoke with him on a regular basis in the 70's/80's regards modifications to all kinds of PRO outboards and also kart engines, snowmobiles, etc., the whole gamut he worked on for various people around the country. I feel confident some of the modifications he made to my Yamato 80 which was used as an RB class engine came from discussions he had with Tenney.

The unique problem with the Model 80 or any other engine being used in the RB (restricted B) class was you could do most anything you wanted to the engine but there was one restriction, hence the class name "Restricted B". That restriction was the Model 80 could not use more than one 25.4MM carb.
The most common carb being used (at least the first few years) was the Bing carb used on the four carb Konigs and perhaps other engines at the time also. If you are at all familiar with the Model 80, you are also probably aware that the reed induction used (2 four petal reed cages fairly small in total inlet area) was also a point of restriction, so that even if you tried a larger carb which we did several times for test purposes, not a lot was gained. I am sure you also are aware along with most anyone else fooling with 2-strokes at the time, was the attempt to tighten up crankcase volume so as to pump all the fuel that came into the crankcase into the cylinders so as to get all the fuel transfered to where it burned and generated power. But because you were limited as to the amount you could get into the crankcase of the model 80 to begin with because of the carb venturi restricted dimension, crankcase volume did not seem to be the big factor with that engine that it was with others that had no carb restriction, either on size or number of carbs. About this time we were reaching an RPM figure with the Model 80 that it was never designed to turn in stock form(10 to 10.5 thousand RPM) and were starting to have severe vibration problems in the powerhead, leading to pipe and pipe bracket breakage, ignition components shaking off the motor, and even breaking the cast aluminum Yamato Racing tower housings that we were then using in conjunction with the Yamato racing lower units. To that point we had not attempted any crankshaft balancing but because of so many vibration problems Harry balanced the crank in one of the engines by removing several pie shaped segments from the original full circle crankshaft that came in the stock engine. He would have preferred to add weight but for a reason I don't remember chose to do it by weight removal instead. We went testing very soon after he completed the job and in addition to finding the engine ran much smoother in the RPM range that had previously been such a problem vibration wise, we also picked up 2-3 hundred RPM and a mile an hour or two. At first we (at least I) thought the balance job on the crank had allowed the engine to go higher in RPM by the virtue of that modification alone, but in his typical inquiring mind way, Harry thought a litte further and determined that possibly the INCREASED crankcase volume gained might be allowing more fuel to be drawn into the crankcase through the already restricted carb/reed opening and be acting after the first couple of revolutions to fill it more completely with a fuel air mixture, as a storage medium of sorts that allowed a greater volume of fuel/air mix to be in the crankcase and then transfered to the cylinders through his highly modified porting arrangement present in the motor versus what was original. He had done away with the factory sleeves very early in the process and had blank sleeves made by LA sleeve and them ported them to his own spec. At this point the reason for the increase in power was purely supposition, so he proceded to make a further modification that would increase crankcase volume futher and see if we saw a futher increase. To do this he machined a pair of spacers that would move the two reed valve cages out from the original mounting boss on the crankcase approximately 3/8 of an inch. He had calculated this would increase the total volume of the crankcase for each cylinder by about a cubic inch I believe (this was in mid 80's so my memory may not be exact) and we went testing again and picked up another 1-2 hundred RPM, so to our mind that proved without a doubt that he was on to something. Next he dissasembled the crankcase and by hand work with a dremel tool he got enough metal out of the inside of the case to equal another almost cubic inch for each cylinder. This again increased the performance of the motor, not so much top end this time although I seem to remember about another 1 MPH or so, but really broadened the powerband and made it more responsive up thru the RPM range and also eliminated the use of water injection in the pipes which was a real pain in the butt and had caused many problems that were fully explained in another thread on BRF.

This same time frame, he passed on the information to Kay Harrison and Kay brought several Yamato's over to his shop just prior to the DePue Nationals. Harry and Kay dissasembled the engines and removed the aluminum plugs that were filling holes in the full circle crank discs in the engines. I never heard how that worked for Kay, or if I did, I don't remember the results, but it certainly worked for me. That engine, with one 25.4 MM Bing carb. and a 13-15 lower unit (not 1-1) set a Kilo record in 1985 at Moorehaven Fl. two way average of almost 91 MPH. We had to run in the canal on the north side of Moorehaven that year for some reason, and the acceleration area to the measured kilo was QUITE a bit shorter than is usual for a Kilo run. The boat was accelerating all the way thru the Kilo and nothing was in the water but the lower half of a three blade prop with the boat gently walking back and forth from sponson to sponson and daylight being seen all the way under and thru the bottom. Since the boat was still accelerating when exiting the Kilo, and the speed attained is calculated from the elapsed time you enter until you leave the kilo, I have no idea what the actual terminal speed reached was, but if I had to guess I would say between 95-100. This in no way takes away from Gary Walin's accomplishment with his B Hydro straightaway record in excess of 100 MPH but I think it stands as quite an accomplishment with only one, 1 inch diameter carb. It is probably the record I am most proud of, as it was set with a purely competition boat/motor setup.

The main reason I wanted to post this story was to point out one of the things that made Harry ZAK the innovator he was. He was never afraid to buck the conventional wisdom and try something different, even if it went against the commonly held knowledge regards motors at that time.

I have really enjoyed your posts, as the Anzani was one of the engines that the boat racers of my generation grew up around. I never owned one, or was even privy to seeing one apart, but your posts have answered a lot of questions I have had for a long time.

Thanks Again and I look forward to more information of this kind from you.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Like many I only saw Yamato 80s running as 20SSs Stock Outboards back in the later 1970s. They were one of the cheapest engines of that era ever brought into racing and left quite an impression of reliability with people that raced them and people like me that saw them raced. I never saw one apart ever. What everyone seemed to know is that they were loop engines of near 30 cubic inches and some expressed some designs to make them go faster we were beginning to hear about back then being the RB class. Adding a pipe and a Yamato nose cone gearcase like the Yamato 250, 350 and 500 alky engines and a racing pipe was the last I heard they eventually did. I was unaware of the carb restriction that was not really unlike the 26 millemeter carb bores found on stock gasoline burning Anzani engines set up from the factory stock racing until Tenney, Hallum, Anderson and others bored the tar out of those carb holes putting them in cases to 40+ millimeters making internal casting walls paper thing doing so stretching the limit in the size of carb sleeve you could macine and fit the Vacturi carb to make it go.

It is amazing that the Yamato 80 RB went as fast as it did but clearly the engineering was already part of it and had to be fine tuned to go the rest of the way you did. The 10,000 plus rpm the RB Yamato is something Anzanis and Harrisons were hard pressed to keep up to until that new generation of heavy duty Harrison developed crankshaft came around to give the reliablilty the earlier generations of Anzani cranks could not.

I too see little in terms of attempts to balance Anzani crankshafts, rods and even pistons nor the later Harrison crankshaft themselves but look under a flywheel of both Anzani or Harrison and its all there as that is what they went after to get it all to spin smoother. Numerous and assorted bore holes strategically put to achieve balance through that flywheel.

When it came to crankcase plugging to reduce crankcase volumes it was done to Anzani crankshafts with a lite weight solid material glued into place in 4 holes on each side of the cranshaft per crankcase half. There were 8 such pluggingings on Anzani plus the rotary valve surroud tunnel that that was not in and had no effect on ecah side of the 2 crankcase volumes. With the Harrison later generation of crankshaft there was no plugging but the crankshaft became full circle in every respect where with the Anzani it was just the center section that was full circle with the outside crankarms very much like a Merc or OMC. There was a lot of debate, trial and error as to what ideal crankcase volume came to be. With the advent of bouce pipes as early expansion chambers were called crankcase volumes were again very much the question because the change was so profound it became a whole new ball game in comparisons to engines still using megaphone open pipes. They were different like night and day by all accounts with movement to expansion chamber exhausts they looked at increasing crankcase volumes not unlike what you did with the Yamato 80 RB getting excellent results.

Anzani never got into reed valves the way Yamato 80 RBs did. When Hallum and Anderson added Tillotson HL carbs to each crankcase half section they mounted them on McCulloch chainsaw reed valve bodies and used progressive cam throttle connections that led to the Tillotsons opening first to where the piston port and rotary valve feeding Vacturi carb came on stream last to provide the breathing that brought the Anzanis into the 100+ miles per hour bracket setting the records back them. I asked Jim Hallum recently why with all the problems that the Vacturi was capable off on that kind of setup why was the Vacturi not subjected to sitting on top of some kind of surface reed valve box to change the nature of the engine's breathing and tunning to get there. Apparently it was because they had not developed to that point and it worked fine in progression with as many was 3 more Tillotson HL carbs coming on stream first before the Vacturi. It the Vacturi was like putting icing on the cake of that engine breathing to full potential. So it remains amazing that it took massive carburation (up to 4 carbs (3-HLs and 1 Vacturi) to get the 322cc Anzani to set their records and more amazing still that you almost the same speeds with a larger displacement Yamato 80 RB engine and such a tiny single carb all by its lonesome self. It would have been interesting to see what putting some 36 to 40 millmeter carb on your Yamato 80 RB could have done coupled to having the restrictions taken off the reed valve induction too to go with that all out unrestricted racing effort? Had anyone gone that far since your effort and if so what was the result?

It is interesting how 2 different engines engineered for gasoline racing went so far to setting records when set to methanol and modified accordingly to use it in Alky racing.

[Bill Van Steenwyk]

John:

The model 80 which was the first yamato imported to my knowledge in the mid 70's for racing, was a 20cubic inch motor, so it was basically the same displacement as the Anzani's. The later versions of the Yamato, 102, 202, 302, were of slightly larger displacement, about 400CC or 24 cubic inches displacement. I believe the Model 80 was 326 or 327CC displacement in stock form, so not as large as you are thinking.

Again, your posts have been very interesting and informative. Thanks again for posting the pictures etc., that provide information I had never thought I would be privy to.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

I was not aware the engine was only 20 cubic inches as somehow I was told it was more or near 30 and that stuck in my cranium until now. Then at Yamato 80 RB's 350CCs being about 20 cubic inches to the Anzanis 322cc being less going that fast with a Yamato Y80 RB with the carb size restriction was really hauling as a RB! I don't think you mentioned what the Yamato's compression was raised to for methanol fuels use or the method to raise the compression itself like a higher piston dome, revised combustion chambers or shaved heads or a combination of all those or some and some?

When I heard that the Yamato 102s, 202s and 302s were about 24 cubic inches I thought the Yamatos had dropped from the Y80s displacement that was locked in my head. I can remember Y80s were selling for some $400 to $500 USD$ back then and were considered a bullet proof heavy duty engine with a gearcase like a golf club. Most never thought them though some considered them a replacement for Merc's 20H Popper, but they were classed 20SS anyhow and slower than 20H at the time when they mixed them up at different races. I have never seen an RB run but heard they were quick.

[Bill Van Steenwyk]

John:

The stock bore and stroke model 80 as mentioned in the previous post was 326-327 CC short of even the 350 CC upper limit displacement for a "B" PRO motor. Right before ZAK passed away he built up a stroked model 80 crank using special crank pins he had made by a friend of his. He had two sets made so we would have a spare. I still have the spare crank pins. This gave one of the two RB engines I had a full 350CC of displacement and we hoped would allow us to compete better with the 350CC Quincy Z motor which at the time was becoming the dominant motor in the class, for several different reasons which I will not go into now. Along with the increase in stroke (we had to take this road to get to the 350CC displacement allowed because larger oversize pistons were not available) the stroker crank required a new set of sleeves be manufactured/ported and installed, because the porting in the sleeves in the engine at that time would not be proper with the longer stroke. Upon completion of this modification, the engine had gobs more low end torque but tended to stick pistons when the pipe was pulled up. Harry had a new pipe drawn up, but about that time was diagnosed with a brain tumor (early 90's) and he basically was not able to do any motor work for the last year of his life, so that project really never came to its full potential.

Regards the heads/compression ratio for methonal: I think it was in the neighborhood of 15-16 to one or at least that is what comes to mind. The head was completely remanufactured using a stock 14MM model 80 head that had the existing combustion chamber cut out, a new aluminum "plug" welded in, and then remachined for what Harry wanted. So a little old, a little new.

Regards the speed difference between a stock model 80 and a 20H: I owned a 20H in the mid 50's (merc remanufactured and sold by a merc dealer) but I only ran it once or twice stock, then it went on alky and a lot of quincy mods for NOA racing in Arkansas where I lived at the time. NOA called it Division 1 racing I believe, Could be wrong about that as it was a long time ago. The mercs were just coming on and we ran against a lot of Johnson KR's i believe the B motor was. Seems to me it ran stock in the 55-60MPH range, and a good Model 80 like they still run today in APBA stock is I believe faster than that. How much is due to more modern boat/propellor design I don't know. I would think the model 80 club foot would not be as hydrodynamically efficient as a quickie, although maybe the gear ratio in the model 80 unit would be easier to prop out.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Its pretty interesting how these Yamato 80s made their apprearance seemed like the westcoast first then spreading east in the USA. As far as I know there were only a couple ever sold in the Alberta (Calgary & Edmonton) area amd at the time they were about $500.00 as they mixed a lot with the Montana and Washington state racers and they turned up at races as the 20SS stocks. Here right dead center of North America on the Red River not a single Yamato 80 has ever been seen. Only in the 1990s did anyone see a Yamato of any sort being the 350cc and 500cc 4 cylinder Alkys. They were fast! Some thought them Konigs because of the close appearance until they got a close look and asked. Did Yamato try to copy the Konig design at first? The Japanese were always great at copying good things.

[Mark75H]

Some thought them Konigs because of the close appearance until they got a close look and asked. Did Yamato try to copy the Konig design at first?

Definitely

Actually another Japanese company, Fuji, copied the Konig design and Yamato bought Fuji out.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The following picture is a late Model British Anzani with late model expansion chamber racing exhausts. The engine just can't get away from the classic crescent shaped exhausts systems even with expansion chambers. The shape remains. Anzanis so equipped also had a departure from the fuel they used which meant when you went with the supercharging aspects of modern expansion chambered exhausts you also dispensed with using nitromethane in the methanol fuels anymore. It was just too much power the earlier versions of the crankshaft to take.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The following 2 pictures are of a classic British Anzani MkII (1960s) Alky racing engine on display that came in either 250cc (Class A) or 322cc (Class B) displacements with a single large Vacturi carb to feed the engine a methanol / caster / nitromethane fuel mix.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

I had to go out and measure the Anzani B Stock racing block (closer to 348cc?) I have stored. The B Stock Anzani has a full 30 millimeter carb inlet hole on the side of that cast iron loop block.

When the 322cc Anzani block was readied for Alky racing the inlet hole was not round as the stock one was but slightly enlarged and re-shaped from round to an odd shape to help direct air'fuel into the rotary valve some 90 degrees off the main piston ports.

On some engines Tenney as well as Hallum or Anderson prepared class B Alky Anzani blocks they went as far as 44 millimeter block to carb openings leaving some casting port passages paper thin. Generally though the 90 degree passage on the block to the crankcase for the crank rotary valve was left as is as was as. The crankshaft rotary valves to the crankcase halves through the crankcase center main was very mildly timed and even at times they tested with it the rotary valve eliminated and blocked by Jim Hallum when they fitted 2 Tillotson self pumping crankcase carbs sitting on top of reed valve bodies on some Anzanis having 3 carbs in total instead of 4 some versions used.

It was found that the Anzani could run better without the crankshaft rotary valve and crankcase carb mounted next to it. It is ironic that Bill Tenney must have taken that to heart and for future development as he made and I have here a NOS new Anzani crankshaft center section that has no rotary valve tunnels going to each crankcase half through the middle of this crankshaft main. By Jim Hallum's decriptions they were flirting with reed valve inductions on the crankcase side of the engine more and more as an alternative to an ineffective factory installed rotary valve of the original design.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

It is quite usual from the North West Coast standpoint to plant at least a couple of carbs on Anzani B Alkys being the Vacturi primary on the cast iron loop block and a Tillotson HL self pumping carb as a secondary adjacent the crank rotary valve window being the most common. 2 Carb models east of the west coast were few and far between.

The picture of this class A Anzani is quite a departure from that North West norm and the development is unknown at this point. In this case the rotary valve window was sealed in the cast iron block as well as on the original side of the crankcase. The developer then swung the center bearing with its rotary valve opening window virtually 180 degrees over to the other side of the crankcase and carefully reducted a tunnel that directly flowed air / fuel to the window and crank center main rotary valve openings as the crank turned. This is in steep contrast to the original layout that involved a tortuous kind of "S" shaped passage way that started in the cast iron block adjacent to the primary block piston ports that then ended inside the crankcase. Not only was the S shaped passage gone but the new direct passage made the whole path straight and some over 1 inch shorter in intake length.

Jim Hallum commented recently how he felt the crankshaft rotary valve as it was factory installed was mildly timed and found to be in-efficient when they improved the situation by cutting off the rotary valve circuit and adding 2 Tillotson HL pumper carbs on reed blocks on forward crankcase sides. Perhaps this re-routing, shortening the intake circuit and straightening that circuit did something positive with the rotary valve. What is quite clear from these pictures is that this class A Anzani was well run and worked with this combination of 2 carbs with one swung to the other side of the crankcase with better directed rotary valve charging.

Enjoy the pictures.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The following picture is a Konig 2 cylinder magneto adapted to fit right on to an Anzani A or B powerhead. There were a few of these around.

Anzani bakelite gears had a horrible reputation of shearing all the gears of the bakelite manufactured gear due to the pressure and vibration of he 180 degree swing of the geardrive to the corresponding top dead center activties of the engine firing causing the gears to loosen between the bakelite magneto gear and the steel gear under the flywheel it meshed too. Somewhere once worn and loosened in mass some time after a run that exceeded 4,000 rpm the bakelite gear teeth would just sheer off causing the engine to stop.

It was adapting the rubber mounted Konig geardrive to the Anzani's Lucas magneto that put a stop to all that shearing happening and from there on in most Lucase geardriven magnetos sported Konig fiber gears taking the rpms past the 9,000 range without difficulty.

Enjoy the pictures of the Konig magneto adapted fully for use on Anzani.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Most Anzani megaphone exhausts were generally rolled steel with a variation of pipe supports or struts to ensure the vibrating and harmonic pipe did not break off and stayed put when in competition. There was a distinct west coast variation where the struts were anchored to the top of the exhaust plave and on to the middle of the head giving the pipes a sort of PacMan look. The idea in that was to spread the load between 2 locations.

Bill Tenney on the other hand had the pipe supports welded only to the exhaust plate giving the exhausts a supported "Crescent" shaped look.

This pipe set in this picture was very much simplified. Instead of 2 aluminum cast shaping plugs installed in the overly rectangular stock Anzani exhaust port rendering it square and then easily adaptable to make it change from a square to round to go with exhaust pipes easily, the maker welded on 2 extended blocking tabs right on the exhaust pipes flange to do the shaping from the inner side of the exhaust port to the surface of the exhaust outlet on the block itself and then with that shape to a round exhaust pipe elbo.

Instead of external pipe supports most used the maker welded a buttress to each pipe following its inside curve to provide angular support. This is not inlike in principle to how Harrisons Racing Products cast their aluminum elbos for their aluminum tubed racing megaphones.

All three methods worked for Anzani albiet this is the lightest overall weight exhaust system ever put together to hang on an Anzani by almost half a pound a pipe making for a remarkably light setup especially with the Anzani's block being cast iron. These innovative pipes would have reduced the overhang weight and the stress it caused to the engine cracking blocks and aluminum engine mounting tubes considerably.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

At a recent small 2 stroker (sled) parts sale and swap meet I purchased a NOS, what appears to be near complete 12 volt DC electronic powered up exhaust (twin pipe) water injection (European) kit that uses the pressure pumped pressurized bottle and solinoid regulated method of injecting 2 racing stacks, with every manner of controls, adjustable jetting, plumbing and all. It is highly compact in sizing and looks like it cost a fortune to make with heavy duty quality through out. Does anyone here have some experience to relate how this type of stack water injection system could be adapted to a 2 cylinder loop engine like an Anzani or Harrison etc. similar. This is unlike any Quincy Loop water injection setup I have restored. There is no dating on the kit but it appears to some to come from the 1970s to early 1980s. I am going to take pictures to post and may be trigger some information on this kind of system and its install.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The following sequences of pages depict one of the hottest British Anzani drivers of the early 1960s in the USA, Dave Berg. In 1962 Dave Berg lost his life in an even't first heat of A ALky Hydro. The Dave Berg Memorial Race and Trophy were launched in his honor to perpetuate the memory of more than just a good driver but an all around wonderful person that was lost to the sport.

Enjoy the pictures and words, source, World of Boat Racing Magazine. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Some more pages from 1962. You can sure tell the British Anzanis by their crescent shaped stacks in all cases!

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Moving water injection for 2 stroke pipes back to the Technical Threads

I just acquired some technical information on water injection for 2 stroke engines. It is for that pictured system and it turns out that it is from 1995.

With that it is more appropriate and fitting to get this water injection for 2 stroke pipes subject out of Harrison and British Anzani engine threads which go back way further in history and return this subject to the Technical threads of BRF to be shared with readers there. That is where I will immediately post Electrical as well as Flow diagram aspects of the 1995 "TA" *tm system I acquired recently for readers to see there.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Pictured real close up here was probably the last NOS, never started ever British Anzani B Stock gas engine left in the world at the time I assembled it out of a box some 5 years ago.

The stock gasoline fueled racing block is some 348cc with a bell shaped full width combustion chamber with 8 to 1 compression ratio as opposed to the 322cc Alky racing block used in North America that also featured a special Alky racing head with about half the CC volume raising the compression to some 14 to 1 as well the combustion chambers were offset to provide "squish" to make the compressed charge for Alky racing more turbulent for combustion than the stock version.

Of some interest was the Amal Monoblock round slide carb Anzani used for gasoline operation that worked very well but for Alky operation and greater amounts of air/fuel flow Bill Tenney the importer used OMCs Vacturi carb suitably venturi sleeved for North American class A or B Alky competitions.

Enjoy the pictures. :)

[Master Oil Racing Team]

John, I found this pic among some of my Dad's stuff. I am not sure of the year, but Claude Fox sent it to my Dad for pre race publicity around 1967. It is an NOA photo and was among about a dozen my Dad failed to return to Claude. I can't really tell the numbers, but the first two may be M 72 and M 61. The Anzani looks to be on a Dubinski. The other motor might be a Konig. The exhausts look different. The others are Merc Quincys.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

For sure the hydro and engine on the left is an Anzani on some kind of hydro resembling a Jupiter by a different builder with some differences. I have heard and seen copies of that hydro before and they supposedly were some kind of copy of Hal Kelly's work. The other engines could have been Konig and even a Hot Rod?? Can you image here from time to time 12 boats in one heat and nearly all Anzani with a few of the others shaken in. I think most pictures from that era a going to be black and white based.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

I just received a DVD from Jim Hallum containing race and kilo trials footage from the later 1950s into the 1970s of racing in Region 10. Now its a matter of toasting it for single pictures for various threads here in historical as well as posting to YouTube so everyone can enjoy the action to be done as soon as possible.

Dang it! Now I got to buy and install a DVD reader/burner now!

:)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

I have some pictures of Bill Tenney's version of compteted expansion chambers for Anzani but the Jpeg format is some weird verison not recognized or is a variant of some kind that can not so far be reformated and posted here. I am sure there are readers around here that have better program knowlege than I have so who can I forward the pictures too so they can give it a crack and then they can post their results here? So far I am at a loss how to change their strange Jpeg format. Help would be greated apreciated. :) Please email me.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

From Jim Hallum the key to producing a multi-carb (4 carb) Anzani was to attach a couple of reed valved bodies with Tillotson HL pumper carbs converted to Alky to the left forward crankcase half of the Anzani that were in front of the HL feeding the crank rotary and the block mounted Vacturi. Evidently the first reed valve bodies for the frontal carb installation were from McCulloch 2 cylinder chainsaws, the kind that cut down Douglas Fir and Redwood trees. Sometimes you see the odd twin carb, twin reed valve body crankcase mount assembly pop up on go kart racing sites and some times Ebay but are soon long gone when noticed at all. So where are the rest? Does anyone know of McCulloch chainsaw happy hunting grounds of parts banks anywhere to search? This stuff must still be around in some parts sheds where tall timbers grew?

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Periodically there are the appearance of saw toothed sort of carb spacers put under the carb base used on British 2 strokes and 4 strokes that in some way alters intake airflow and stops the intake and crankcase from loading up or puddling with fuel? One turned up on Ebay but was off by the time I tried to see it. Did anyone else see that device? Can anyone give an overview on the technology involved and if was tried or seen anywhere else?

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Corin and Ron. You are the only 2 British Anzani enthusiasts and restorers that I know of in the United Kingdom. I have some news that will be of some British Anzani racing outboard interest for you. Another enthusiast of British Anzani racing outboards has turned up over there and he is eager to get talking with you. PLease contact me by email here at - catwerx@hotmail.com for details. :)

[F HARRIS]

Jon I Owned And Raced Bill's 1st Two Headed Monster And It Never Lost A Race. I Have Photos Of The Engine But They Are At My Home In Temple Texas. It Was Very Heavy And Was Hard To Turn. After I Won The 1960 High Point Championship N.o.a. I Went Into The Service In 1961 And Dick Pond Ran Some Of My Equipment While I Was Away. I Have Many Stories From That Era. I Started In 1955 And Raced Until 1969. I Am Trying To Rebuild A 40h That Has Mumps Origin From Ko Turner It Had The 1st Cd Ingnition To My Knowledge And I Need A Tower Housing. Any Help?

[Master Oil Racing Team]

I never met you personally Floyd, but I recognized your name from the NOA Roostertails, and from a Forest Lake race newspaper from the 1968 NOA Nationals at Forest Lake, Minnesota. You are "The Man With The $1,200 Elbow". We're looking forward to your many stories.

[F HARRIS]

I do remember your name. The 1968 forest lake race I was commodor of Midwest Power Boat Assn and my racing days were coming to an end. In my years prior I raced the excellent drivers like Bill Seebold, Dick Pond, CLayton Elmer, Raymond Jeffries, Dub Parker, Bud Jones and many more. How many our left I dont know but would sure like to here from any of them. It was by chance I found Quincy Weldings web site as I am trying to restore a 40H I purchased from KO Turner I think he lived some where in Texas. We installed CD ign on it and it ran super. I need a tower housing as I have a gear box. thanks for your earlier reply Floyd

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Yes KO Turner was a Baytown Boat Club member Floyd. Raymond Jefferies and his son died in a plane crash I believe around 1969. Dub Parker died in a house fire I think in 1980 or 81. I talk to Clayton frequently. I'll let him and some of the others know what you are looking for and maybe they can help. Grandpa Seebold was looking for a carb for his PR a couple of years ago and he was able to get it together and running when Clayton sent him one he had still in the box.

After the Sunday's events were blown out at Forest Lake, the 2nd half of the '68 Nationals was held at my Dad's house here in Texas. Most of the qualifiers came down and we had a great time.

[John Schubert T*A*R*T]

Yes KO Turner was a Baytown Boat Club member Floyd. Raymond Jefferies and his son died in a plane crash I believe around 1969. Dub Parker died in a house fire I think in 1980 or 81. I talk to Clayton frequently. I'll let him and some of the others know what you are looking for and maybe they can help. Grandpa Seebold was looking for a carb for his PR a couple of years ago and he was able to get it together and running when Clayton sent him one he had still in the box.

After the Sunday's events were blown out at Forest Lake, the 2nd half of the '68 Nationals was held at my Dad's house here in Texas. Most of the qualifiers came down and we had a great time.

Wayne,
I thought that Dub died in a plane that he was piloting. If Ralph Donald reads this, I know that he knows for sure.

[Bill Van Steenwyk]

Wayne:

I believe you are mistaken about Dub Parkers death. He also died in a private plane crash. It was several weeks I think, before the plane and his body were located in a very remote area in either Alabama or Georgia. I believe this was in about 81 or 82 as the PRO Nationals were held in Lakeland Fl., that next summer and they were called the "Dub Parker Memorial" or something similar. Ralph Donald will surely chime in on this shortly. I believe he is out of computer touch this weekend.

Bill Van

[Master Oil Racing Team]

You guys are right I'm sure. For some reason I kept thinking it was in a house fire, but that didn't make sense. The plane that Raymond died in was a light plane with much more horsepower than it needed. He wanted a fast responsive plane like boats he raced. If I remember correctly there was talk that he thought he could fly it out of a stall with sheer horsepower. But then my memory seems to have some skips.;):D

[David_L6]

As Bill said, Dub Parker died in a plane crash in the very early '80's.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Tim Chance said you were going to turn up some day and tell us about that engine!! Welcome Sir! Welcome!

When I was a teenager that Anzani twin was some kind of rumor out this neck of the woods. It was beyond sight and mind of anything I could visualize way back then. Where I grew up in Selkirk when the NOA came "up" north class A and B was just crowded with Anzani engines with a smattering of Harrisons later into the mid 1960s. The Anzani was the dominating engine that gave larger classes and their owners twisted necks just watching them rocket by with their crescent shaped stacks howling.

When I inherited the Mark 2 Anzani equipment through Bill Tenney's estate I had no idea that the main components for such a twin were already there. For most of the time I was concentrating on restoring A and B Anzani engines. It was Tim Chance coming up with a brochure picture of the Anzani Twin block C after some discussion of the engine had already taken place on the board that got the ball rolling to get it back into one piece again that did it.

Just before Christmas of 2006 the complete mockup of the twin was put together and posted that sure put a lump in Tim Chance's throat. Tim mentioned that he knew the fellow that single handly started the motor too that had passed away some 5 years previous. Tim also mentioned that he was going to try to get a hold of you Phil and see if he could get some pictures of the engine to post here as all I had to go by was the otiginal Tenney brochure picture and some dead reconing on my part that seemed it was going in the right direction. I too am sure going to look forward to seeing pictures of you with it? you have of the engine, the engine and boat and it all in you in action with it hopefully too?

I am sure looking forward to seeing more of your pictures and stories on here as soon as you are able to do so.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Floyd: It is with regrets that I have no Merc 40H parts left. As I changed up to Merc 30H and 55H engines back in the 1970s I sold my KG9s and then the 40Hs to junior upcoming racers here and from what I know they scattered over the years with some even ending back in the USA in the hands of collectors. Parts for Merc 40Hs do come up on the AOMCI website as well as on EBay auctions with some frequency see it seems so keeping an eye on those sites could very well produce the parts you need.

I am pretty sure that my mentor in racing, Ted Coates (from Selkirk, Manitoba club -MORA) who was a C-Service, C and D stock racer here marched me up to you and introduced me to you back in the 1960s as was his habit with me with everyone he knew he felt I should also know which to him was everyone! I take it then that Don Tarnowski was the Midwest Powerboat presdient a few years before you in that case. Seeing you again would be a pleasure. I am not sure if you knew but Ted Coates passed away last year at Victoria, BC where he retired to quiet a number of years ago at age 87.

[Bill Van Steenwyk]

Wayne:

I don't think you are entirely mistaken about a house fire taking a boat racers life some years ago, as I seem to remember something about that also. Been too many years and lost brain cells ago to recall the specifics though. Perhaps someone else will remember something about this and fill in the particulars.

I do remember Ralph Donald speaking about Dub's death in the plane crash, and if I remember correctly he was surprised that Dub's life would end that way, as he was an experienced pilot, and I seem to remember there was something unusual about the circumstances. Perhaps he will chime in about it when able.

[Donald]

Dub died on Dec. 30, 1980 in a plane crash near Perry Fl. He and a friend were returning from a diving trip in the keys. No one really knows what happened, but they had refueled at Sarasota on the way back to Gadsden and were in a heavy rain storm when the plane went down. There was speculation that Dub had suffered from the bends from diving and then flying, but I believe he either had a heart attack or just flew into the ground. Wayne is partially right about Dub being in a fire. His shop behind his house caught fire and Dub was burned pretty bad when his clothes caught fire as he tried to save some of his equipment. He was laid up for several months. It is interesting that I had an inquiry recently from a Steve Kouski, which came through APBA, about the Dubinski boats. It seems he had owned one at sometime in the past wondered if any were any still around. To my knowledge there are none left.

[Bill Van Steenwyk]

Now again, thanks to BRF, we know the "rest of the story"

[Tim Chance]

Awhile after Dub's plane crash I received a package in the mail from Billie, Dub's wife. It was this trophy. It is sort of tarnished but it is inscribed:

C HYDRO 1st HEAT
S.E.B.A.
CHAMPIONSHIP
1961
VALDOSTA, GA.
1st PLACE

The note from Billie said that she thought that Dub would want me to have the trophy as a keepsake to remember him by. I cherish her thought.

On another note: Hello Floyd Harris, what's it been 38 years....

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Tim Chance: When Floyd Harris showed up here I thought immediately that the whole thing was your doing! LOL! Now your saying it wasn't???? Naaaah! It must have been and now there is the trophy! What is next? LOL! I am sure looking forward to seeing some pictures posted on that big twin C Anzani with stories as told by Floyd and anyone else that was there too. It seems our group is getting ever larger with the interest. That is great! :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

I just had to transfer a copy of your Anzani 250cc gasser Anzani and raceboat picture to the British Anzani thread. It belongs. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Rod: That 250cc Anzani looks neat, it made me go staring at the Lectron and a Mikuni carbs I have that are set up for a gasoline 340cc engines. Using a Konig pipe though is really a cat of a different color based on the Konig's ports which are very different from the reality of Anzani ports be they the squared ones or in the case of later class A blocks square in the cylinder port but exactly round at the pipe flange. No matter what, to get maximum out of any 2 stroke the pipes have to be made specifically for that engine to get everything out of it on gasoline or on methanol.

Back in the early 1980s here I bolted up a velocity stacked Tillotson HR adjustable / self pumping carb on a 322cc Anzani Alky B, put it on racing gasoline and re-set up the ignition timing for the high compression Alky head still on it. With open pipes on gas mounted on a Giles DSH of the period the engine was faster than any Merc 20H & 30H but not as quick as stock Merc 55Hs. It left those on shore wondering what the engine would do on gasoline with properly calculated expansion chambered exhausts of which 1 pipe would be shared between the 2 cylinders or one pipe for each cylinder? That was never done though but now there are computer formulas I can give you that will give you that precise pipe and it has variables to formulate for gasoline or for Alky too. I am going email those to you so you can have some fun in designing that pipe. The pipe wil change for each different spec'd Anzani too, that is the nature of the beast.

On quite a few pages here on BRF there are some pictures and even specs for a variety of pipes used on Anzanis that were specifically designed for them early on be they open pipe megaphones or the later expansion chambers. Some were dead reconing, cut and paste evolutionary where others sure look like formula work when their appearance is put side by side with computer generated pipes yet they were early enough that they may be slide rule or trig table or hand held LED calculator specials. One thing did turn up with expansion chambers and racing alky-nitro fuels was that due to the supercharging effects of the expansion chamber pipee was the nitro was no longer needed, the crankshafts would not stay together because of the nitro. In fact Jim Hallum mentioned that even on methanol the pipes were too much for the crankshafts so they set records with A and B Anzanis with multiple carbs abd retaining nitro/methanol fuels and open pipes pushing the records to just of 90mph for A and just over 100mph for B with Anzanis. It can only be speculated what they could have done with Anzanis if they had access to the latest model Harrison crankshafts that were very superior to the Anzani product at the time.

All this still leaves the whole notion of using racing gas and proper made for Anzani expansion chambers an open question and that apparently is within the engineering ralm of not threatening the existing Anzani crankshafts. Needless to say I find that part really interesting and worth a future go though Anzanis sure sound nice as other period classical racing engines do, on open pipes. Open pipes make a race engine not only look like one but also sound like one. If there was ever the question just get the opportunity to be there with a Quincy Flathead as it takes off, it removes all doubt! :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

I broached the question if anyone had ever tried to reed valve an Anzani or Harrison's main block mounted carb with Jim Hallum? When expansion chambered exhausts were being tried way back then in the later 1960s the main carb spitout increased significantly as the pipes turned on bringing that experimentation to an end retaining the open pipes to get the records that resulted. That carb spitout demonstrated the supercharging effects of modern day pipes that without question put 2 stroke loop engines over the top on the horsepower they develop today. Anyone toy with those reed valves on these engines? There is little doubt they could have killed spitout and improved power then?

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

These are pictures of Anzani engines, powered race boats, their crews and their drivers. They are all from Washington State coutesy of Jim Hallum who did the conversion to DVD which I then digitized to singular pictures. The quality of the pictures tends to degrade a bit due to motion and generational copying so have a kick at the cat if you can identify what is in them. There are quite a few baches and this is the first one. Enjoy!

Special thanks again to Jim Hallum. With out you none of these would be possible. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Another batch of pictures taken from Jim Hallum's collection circa 1965 to 1976.

There are lots of closeups here of engines in evolution, their exhausts too.

Lots of typical boat racer activities once everything has been set up! They all sit down, relax and contemplate it all starting when it should.

There should be lots of familiar faces and names here that are also visiting the BRF webisite now too, reading and posting.

This stuff and it is only a fraction of what is to come will sure bring on some memories. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Many of these pictures were from Lake Laurence, WA where they not only ran straightaway record runs but also ran oval races for records. Eventually we will see pictures of the timing crews/judges and all. Enjoy the pictures.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Enjoy this next small batch again from Lake Laurence, WA courttesy of Jim Hallum. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Locations - Some pictures were also taken at D Lake, Oregon, USA as well as some other race locations on the west coast.

Very much in the picture batches now as well as future batches are racing greats like Gerry Walin, Lee Sutter, Ron Anderson & his Bro, Jim Hallum (engine builder) and their relatives.

Hull types - Sidcrafts, Marchettis, Karelsons, deSilvas and others one off and homebuilts.

The very first 2 carb Anzani Jim Hallum ever built is featured here. Eventually Anzanis went from 1 to 2 to 4 and as many as 6 carbs feeding only the 2 cylinders. Ron Anderson followed Hallums leads in adding multiple carbs (Tillotson HLs self pumping carbs). Multiple carbs were more a west coast characteristic than out east by far. Few multiple carbed Anzanis appeared in the midwestern or eastern USA or eastern Canada. There were some single as well as 2 carb Anzanis being run out of Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

West Coast Anzani pipes like their eastern cousins were crescent shaped belles stacks but there was a difference. Bill Tenney supported each pipe from the main exhaust flange both upper and lower right off the exhaust port of the engine block. That gave Tenney's engine a distinct different look as the wester coast engines used the center head bolts and a support bracket to each pipe giving those Anzani stacks a "PacMan" crescent look to them and people did make those distinctions at races. Easterner and West Coaster.

Where Anzanis traditionally took a pressure line off the crankcase to pressurize the fuel tank and lines going to DelOrto up high fuel bowls on Bill Tenney spec'd prepared engines, the West Coasters adapted the fuel flow through and return to tank line system using a typical OMC pulse diaphram fuel pump with enlarged intake and ouflow fuel nipples to do the job. The West Coaster method took overhead weight off the engine by removing the DelOrton fuel bowls of which could be from one to three of them up there. The WestCoaster method also largely did away with flooding the carb or having the cork float sink in the Vacturi carb used causing flooding. The Vacturi carb under WestCoater methods became a "floatless" spill over and return to fuel tank system.

The four pipe (2 open megaphone & 2 expansion chamber (rams horns) Anzani is featured here which they eventually shed the 2 open megaphones to go into pure expansion chambers which added so much power to the engine that the earlier crankshafts could not take the pressures and broke.

A reverse blocked Anzani class A Alky is featured within picture batches upcoming. This method put the overhanging cast iron block over the transom and in the boat which served to cushion the vibrations incurred by overhanging the crescent shaped pipes rearward. This would reduce the cracking and breaking at the neck the cast aluminum towers they used. Some towers were subsequently made from steel and some even brass materials stock.

During this late 1960s period speeds in Anzanis went up to where 90 miles per hour on a Class A Alky hydro were happening. With a B class Alky Anzani speeds went up to 100 miles per hour occurred with some speeds as high as 107 miles per hour clocked but the official record came in with a two way average at just over 100 miles per hour was achieved. With both the class A and B Anzanis conventional hydros at 11+ feet in length were found to be too short as far as kilo boats were concerned. Popular oval course hydros were the Sidcrafts, Marchettis, Swifts, Ogiers, Karlsens. Some of the first pickelfork hydros turned up in the early 1970s at these kilo and 5 miles of racing trials.

There will be another batch of pictures being posted shortly after this post. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Pictures in Order:

* Gerry Wallin just enjoying the sun sitting in his hydro.

* Class A Anzani reverse mounted engine block with specialized surfacing gearcase with offset mounted skeg to give the prop a clean bite for kilo trials. The boat is a Hagness hydro specifically for kilo speed trials.

* Typical Anzani B Alky with long course stacks.

* The R-800 kilo boat of Ron Hagness.

* Reverse mounted A Alky Anzani kilo trials engine up close. This engine put Anzani class A kilo trials speeds into the 90 mile per hour range for its 250CC (15 cubic inch) displacement.

* The D Lake, Oregon USA timing and speed trials crew and officials.

* Gerry Wallin with a full face helmet going after the competition ride with an Anzani A powered Marchetti hydro.

* Gerry Wallin smiling after a heat race using an Anzani A Alky and Marchetti hydro picture

If any readers can update these pictures with corrections or expanding the stories and descriptions please do. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Pictures in order:

* Reversed Anzani A Alky kilo engine put the carb on the right side of the engine with the sparkplugs pointing at the driver. Note the long and steeply flaired kilo megaphones used.

* Anzani B Alky with expansion chambered (rams horn) exhausts only. The megaphones were deleted entirely from the engine that saved a lot of extra overhang weight. These pipes caused the engine to spit air/fuel back out of the Anzani's Vacturi carb a lower rpms due to the superchanging aspects of the pipes and the Anzani's intake ports under the carb.

* R-48 Kilo trials hydro. Karelson or Hagness raceboat?

* Gerry Wallin being taken from his hydro horseback style, he just didn't want to get wet and the water was quite cold too.

* In the fog and mists at D-Lake, Oregon Lee Sutter in his alky runabout is barely seen but they could hear him just fine.

* Gerry Wallin horsing it around putting on his Fantom shirt!

* Gerry Wallin hamming it up for the camera man with his Fantom shirt on.

* R46 Anzani powered kilo boat. Both the Anzani powered A and B kilo boats were a problem with keeping their noses down. At the speeds they were attaining conventional hydros at just over 11 feet showed their limitations imposed by their lengths and hull designs. It would not be too long to the point where pickelfork hydros would start to make appearances in the 1970s.

* The R46 kilo A Alky hydro from a different angle.

* The A and B Anzani powered kilo hydros side by side.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

3 missed pictures from the previous post.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

In order:

* Right side view of the dual stacked (both expansion chamber as well as megaphone exhausts broguht in to or out of use with a mechanical gate to switch them) Anzani B Kilo trials engine.

* Rare picture of Jim Hallum (mechanical engineer) at the kilo trials. That is because generally be was behind the camera when he was not working and preparing the Anzani A and B Alky race engines. He was the cutting edge change agent with these engines that saw them to their speed records in the 1960s and early 1970s. The changes he made to Anzanis brought a following from others that would so the same or similar to chase these speeds.

* Gerry Wallin using a full face helmet for the first time?

* Left side view of a British Anzani B Alky with 2 types of pipes being tried.

* A closer look at the left side, single carbed Anzani B Alky.

* The up close look at the rams horn type expansion chambers on the B Alky Anzani.

* Gerry Wallin's "The Fantom" Anzani powered hydro.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

ALESSANDRO ANZANI - Life Information

Birth: Dec. 5, 1877
Lombardia, Italy
Death: Jul. 24, 1956
Basse-Normandie, France

Inventor. He was an Italian cyclist and motorcycle builder who invented the first lightweight engine for practical use in airplanes. His three-cylinder, air-cooled engine was used by aviator Louis Blériot in the first successful flight across the English Channel in 1909. He spent the majority of his life in France, but retained his Italian citizenship out of loyalty to his own country. The 1920s Italian car "Anzani" takes its name from the company that he founded.

Burial Cemetery:
Cimetière de Neuilly-sur-Seine
Hauts de Seine, France

His product lines bearing his name directly as well as being a contractor & product contributor to other famous names and products covered the European continent and were and still are known various products and in a pioneering sense today around the world. British Anzani is but a small part of the overal Anzani marque in industry. :)

The British Anzani Company has been revived and lives on in the UK in new endevours in industry.

[Tim Chance]

I recall one time I changed jobs and the new place had a big graphic arts camera (20"x24" film size). Right there on the face place of the light integrator/timer: British Anzani.

[J-Dub]

Thats way too cool! I believe that R-800 boat may still be around too. It ran about 20 years ago with an RB or RC Yamato. Driven and owned by ???? Korpe brother of Kieth and Eric Korpe. If it is the same boat, we have it too!

J-Dub

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

I can't seem to not walk and talk to some mechanic of sorts and if they don't know the marine outboards and few do, they sure know about the motor bikes, the cars, the lawmowers and especially the aircraft engines which any aviation engineers all know of. Two of us husband types were sitting in a physiotherapy center waiting for our other halves to be finished their sessions, one of us was 30 years older than the other and he sure knew about Anzani engines too. Its a smaller world out there. :)

[Smokin' Joe]

Tenny was one of the greats when I was a kid, can find nothing about him on the web. Do you have info and photos to post, also from his older OMC racing days? Would really appreciate it.

JMC

[Mark75H]

Lots here on BRF about Tenney :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

I met Bill Tenney in the early 1960s when I was a growing kid, like yourself for me serving as a pitman for my neighbor who was a racer who knew him well and sought his advice concerning his Elto, Evrinrude and Johnson 1930s race engines and later on his Mercs too. To Ted Coates (my neighbor), Bill Tenney was a wealth of information and he, Ted admired. What Bill was doing with the Anzanis at the time that were really twisting peoples necks a lot with their speed.........and their sound too but Ted did not want to go there for him at the time things were fast enough and he was content to watch with a twisted neck like the rest of us.

Like Mark 75H says there is a lot of information on Bill Tenney here and his son called me earlier this winter to touch base and he indicated that with some time to do it that he could come up with pictures and stories to post here for all to enjoy in the future. Its is all nice to look forward to. :)

[Tim Chance]

Here is a photo of Bill Tenney driving a Neal Hydro with a Johnson SR (although I don't know those old motors that well so it might be a PR). I grew up on Lake Minnetonka and lived on West Arm, the next bay over from Crystal Bay where Bill lived.

If you notice Bill is driving with an "S" number not a "G", so this photo was taken when he lived in Dayton, Ohio. Bill gave me this photo sometime in the ealy 1960's.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

For Bill Tenney I suppose his experience with Neal hydros brought about his recommendations for them when it came to Anzani engines. He recommended them out of familiarity in some of his literature. No wonder why. He obviously liked to drive them too. :)

[Smokin' Joe]

Right, Bill Tenney and Neal hydros! Would also be interesting to know something of the history of Neal.

Thanks!
Joe




Here is a photo of Bill Tenney driving a Neal Hydro with a Johnson SR (although I don't know those old motors that well so it might be a PR). I grew up on Lake Minnetonka and lived on West Arm, the next bay over from Crystal Bay where Bill lived.

If you notice Bill is driving with an "S" number not a "G", so this photo was taken when he lived in Dayton, Ohio. Bill gave me this photo sometime in the ealy 1960's.

[Tim Chance]

A couple more pictures. One is Bill Tenney racing on Lake Tetonka at Waterville, Minnesota in the 1950's. Again a Neal Hydro and Notice the "G" number. The other photo is Dick Hoppenrath in 1962 driving Bill Tenney's C Class Neal (It could be the same boat as in my earlier post as you can just make out the "S" number. The motor is not visible but there is a B Anzani clamped onto the transom.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

You can tell there is something powerful on the back of that Neal with the kind of spray only a small 2 blade on an Anzani could throw off with the boat coming that direction at you. Those little engines seemed to throw up as much water up as a roostertial as they would throw readward as thrust when underway and they howled as they did it.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Quite a few years ago examining some Anzani crankcase parts I ran into a top crank end cap that was partial oillite bronze bushing and at the very top of the cap was an open ball type roller bearing unsealed from either side??? I said to myself that okay so they used a bushing lower on the crank but upper next to the flywheel keyway they used the ball bearing, someone must have removed the oil seal and never used the end cap again? Or maybe it was a sealed ball bearing from both sides and someone removed the top bearing seal to lube it? Taking the end cap right apart it turned out that there was no oil seal on either side of the caged ball bearing? They looking at it again maybe the ball bearing was forced upward and broke off the end caps main cap and seal and being broken the part was just left never to be used again?
So to with me it just sat there.

Then the other day I was examining parts from two other boxes from 2 other sources and one more of these unusual caps came out of each of the 2 boxes from 2 different supplier locations. They too had bottom oillite bronze bushings that the crank spun on and above had these both had "open" (no seals) cagged ball bearings but the difference was there was a retaining snap ring (force outward) that fit a machined grove in the top of the end cap.

Could these have possibly been run open like this with some leakage from the bushing supplying some caster oil from the air/fuel mix that leaked past the bushing under pressure supplied the lubrication these open cagged ball bearings ran on? Or did someone smear some grease or shoot some thick ooil on these open caged ball bearings before they mounted the Anzani flywheel before running the engine a given amount of time before they somehow relubricated these open caged ball bearings all over again?

Some kind of a strange setup that will soon be seen here when I photo these different kind of Anzani end caps against the more modern ones not unlike the conventional types Mercs and others would use that had bearings and seals in way we are used to seeing them. Open caged ball bearings in racing engines???

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

A recent information contribution on Bill Tenney and his grandfather John Eastman who worked for Bill Tenney by Bill Eastman, grandson of John Eastman. This gives readers some of the projects and inovations that were going on with Scott Attwaters and British Anzani engines in outboard racing.

As pasted from email from grandson Bill Eastman:

I have seen a few of your posts (John Taylor and other posters) on old hydros and Bill Tenney. I may know the origin of your "dimpled aluminum plate" dual motor mount. In 1958, Bill worked with Scott Attwater and prepared the Flying Scott. It mounted two three cylinder Scott motor heads on the same lower unit di Priolo used to break 100 mph. The first attempts here in Minnesota were aborted due to ground swells on the lake. They tried again in canals down south (Florida?). They beat the record on their first run but the lower unit chucked its gears during the return so no record. While waiting for repairs, Entrop ran 107 in Seattle and the effort was scrapped.

Where did I get the info? My grandfather was John Eastman. He raced with Bill Tenney before WWII and was an engine machinist during the 50's. We moved to northern Minnesota in the mid sixties. The Flying Scott's hull came with us and was kept in a carriage shed for years. Unfortunately, it did not survive. The most unique feature is the mid-boat motor location clearly visible in the photo. The motor did not turn so steering was handled by a rudder at the end of the right tail.

I think the link was in one of the bulletin board threads with your contributions. The number 40 Aquasport with Boat Sport magazine looks like one I saw years ago. On page 22, in the lower left photo, I believe you can see my grandfather's bald head and plaid shirt. I was born in December 1958 and Grandpa John passed on in 1981 so my knowledge is both old and second hand. However the article and your response helped clarify some memories. I thought the swell-limited runs were up here on Minnetonka. Apparently, this was wrong- they were on Lake Mead. However, some shakedown runs may have happened here. Because Tenney's shop was famous for engines, I "remembered" the motor first. After reading the article, I remember Grandpa saying that Tenney didn't do the motor- they did the boat and setup. Although the article suggests otherwise, Grandpa was very consistent that the Scott broke 100 in a single pass and chucked it's gears on the return. Grandpa enjoyed telling a good story but he seldom embelished.

The Flying Scott's top deck was barn red with white lettering. Everything else was varnished birch. It was extremely well made. Most of the hardware was gone- the tanks under the side hatches, the steering wheel, and the tach. Obviously there was no motor or motor mounting hardware. The right tail still had a rudder attached. The left tail had rudder hardware but no rudder- it handled better with only one. The windscreen (simpler and smaller than the one in the photos, I think) and the tach mount (vibration proof) were in the cockpit.

I lived with Grandpa John and Grandma Vivian from 1966 until I went to University so we had plenty of time to talk. Unfortunately, the only keepsakes I have are one Del Orto float bowl and Grandpa's outboard motoring 1000 hour club certificate. My uncle inherited the farm and sold it off. I don't think he kept much. He moved to Alaska years ago and I've lost touch. Grandpa knew Bill Tenney since before WWII and worked on Anzani's up to his death.

If you are interested, I can try and describe some of the work they did. For instance, Grandpa said that, when porting a motor, they sometimes broke through to the water jacket. If this happened, they peened lead shot int the opening to seal the area so they could test the motor. One of Bill's "secrets of success" was a home-built dynomometer and, as the US distributor, a healthy supply of parts. While they developed customer Anzani's, they'd end up with a small number of "golden motors." These were kept and used for Bill's personal record runs.

For BRF readers information I am going to ask Bill Eastman to do the descriptions of goings on at Bill Tenney's shop on British Anzani engines and hopefully some pictures may turn up as well also.

The "golden" British Anzani engines Bill Tenney kept for doing his own record runs are now believed to be the subject of piece for piece engine restorations now going on in 2 locations known though because of the garage/shop fire it is unknown what engines may have been destroyed. According to Tim Chance there were some Anzani engines referred to as the sisters or something of that nature that were some of Bill Tenney's favorites that were perhaps within that golden engine group.

The engine dyno referred to I saw myself in 1996 and today I believe it is still in the hands of Tom Moulder and has been used by Tom in the 1990s since Bill Tenney used it for its intended uses back in the 1960s.

More interesting information on all this is upcoming from Bill Eastman soon. :)

[Smokin' Joe]

That's really a nice response, thanks! Do you have photos of the Scott, or know where we could locate some to post? What did Bill Tenney do for a living, and when did he die?

So you and my youngest brother were born the year before I started NOA racing as 16 year old.

Best wishes,
Joe







A recent information contribution on Bill Tenney and his grandfather John Eastman who worked for Bill Tenney by Bill Eastman, grandson of John Eastman. This gives readers some of the projects and inovations that were going on with Scott Attwaters and British Anzani engines in outboard racing.

As pasted from email from grandson Bill Eastman:

I have seen a few of your posts (John Taylor and other posters) on old hydros and Bill Tenney. I may know the origin of your "dimpled aluminum plate" dual motor mount. In 1958, Bill worked with Scott Attwater and prepared the Flying Scott. It mounted two three cylinder Scott motor heads on the same lower unit di Priolo used to break 100 mph. The first attempts here in Minnesota were aborted due to ground swells on the lake. They tried again in canals down south (Florida?). They beat the record on their first run but the lower unit chucked its gears during the return so no record. While waiting for repairs, Entrop ran 107 in Seattle and the effort was scrapped.

Where did I get the info? My grandfather was John Eastman. He raced with Bill Tenney before WWII and was an engine machinist during the 50's. We moved to northern Minnesota in the mid sixties. The Flying Scott's hull came with us and was kept in a carriage shed for years. Unfortunately, it did not survive. The most unique feature is the mid-boat motor location clearly visible in the photo. The motor did not turn so steering was handled by a rudder at the end of the right tail.

I think the link was in one of the bulletin board threads with your contributions. The number 40 Aquasport with Boat Sport magazine looks like one I saw years ago. On page 22, in the lower left photo, I believe you can see my grandfather's bald head and plaid shirt. I was born in December 1958 and Grandpa John passed on in 1981 so my knowledge is both old and second hand. However the article and your response helped clarify some memories. I thought the swell-limited runs were up here on Minnetonka. Apparently, this was wrong- they were on Lake Mead. However, some shakedown runs may have happened here. Because Tenney's shop was famous for engines, I "remembered" the motor first. After reading the article, I remember Grandpa saying that Tenney didn't do the motor- they did the boat and setup. Although the article suggests otherwise, Grandpa was very consistent that the Scott broke 100 in a single pass and chucked it's gears on the return. Grandpa enjoyed telling a good story but he seldom embelished.

The Flying Scott's top deck was barn red with white lettering. Everything else was varnished birch. It was extremely well made. Most of the hardware was gone- the tanks under the side hatches, the steering wheel, and the tach. Obviously there was no motor or motor mounting hardware. The right tail still had a rudder attached. The left tail had rudder hardware but no rudder- it handled better with only one. The windscreen (simpler and smaller than the one in the photos, I think) and the tach mount (vibration proof) were in the cockpit.

I lived with Grandpa John and Grandma Vivian from 1966 until I went to University so we had plenty of time to talk. Unfortunately, the only keepsakes I have are one Del Orto float bowl and Grandpa's outboard motoring 1000 hour club certificate. My uncle inherited the farm and sold it off. I don't think he kept much. He moved to Alaska years ago and I've lost touch. Grandpa knew Bill Tenney since before WWII and worked on Anzani's up to his death.

If you are interested, I can try and describe some of the work they did. For instance, Grandpa said that, when porting a motor, they sometimes broke through to the water jacket. If this happened, they peened lead shot int the opening to seal the area so they could test the motor. One of Bill's "secrets of success" was a home-built dynomometer and, as the US distributor, a healthy supply of parts. While they developed customer Anzani's, they'd end up with a small number of "golden motors." These were kept and used for Bill's personal record runs.

For BRF readers information I am going to ask Bill Eastman to do the descriptions of goings on at Bill Tenney's shop on British Anzani engines and hopefully some pictures may turn up as well also.

The "golden" British Anzani engines Bill Tenney kept for doing his own record runs are now believed to be the subject of piece for piece engine restorations now going on in 2 locations known though because of the garage/shop fire it is unknown what engines may have been destroyed. According to Tim Chance there were some Anzani engines referred to as the sisters or something of that nature that were some of Bill Tenney's favorites that were perhaps within that golden engine group.

The engine dyno referred to I saw myself in 1996 and today I believe it is still in the hands of Tom Moulder and has been used by Tom in the 1990s since Bill Tenney used it for its intended uses back in the 1960s.

More interesting information on all this is upcoming from Bill Eastman soon. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

From a previous posting, something I thought was some kind of saw horse queen joke are a couple of samples of open bearings with an inside bushing to support the top of a class A-B crankshaft at the top of the crankcase. If those bearings were supposed to run open in the air, did some leakage through the bronze bushing below it leak enough to lubricate the open bearing? Or did the driver turn around with a squirt can of oil to give it a periodic shot while underway, racing?

Featured also are what most would expect. A bearing housing that housed 2 ball bearing sets and a top seal yet here are these open bearings and they are both snap ringed to keep the bearing against the housing and stop them from moving up or out too. There is no evidence that there was ever any oil / grease seal on one or both sides of the inserted now open to air ball bearings either. Something weird here I can't explain. Anyone have any light to shed on this weird way of running top of crankshaft bearings?

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Having cleaned up and dismantled the open bearing end caps and wanting to not leave the bearings open even on a show engine I am wondering if a grease / oil sealed ball bearing could be fitted and even used once in a while with startup without burn up? That would retain the installed bronze bushing and seal the system further without loosing the ball bearing system on top which is not seen once the flywheel is installed.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

To go to the 3 and 4 carb Anzanis and Harrisons one pretty much had to find a dealer repair depot McCulloch chainsaw graveyard to get a stock of Tillotson HL carbs but more important, the base with reed valves underneath the carb. Two such graveyards have been found mainly because scrap recyclers dislike other metals in aluminum scrap and none one is going to have some of their dealership service staff clean the stuff of steel parts on hourly keeping in mind the price per pound of scrap aluminum. Still, finding these dusty derelict caches was just plain lucky. It is amazing how rain water destroys aluminum exposed to the elements over time.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

These open bearing end caps for British Anzanis pictured here came up in discussion with Jim Hallum. He had never seen what I described and pictured here as being something an Anzani would run of any vintage they had being running in the North West. Still he referred to other outboards that had such bearings where the bottom crankcase pressure with its residual oil would be piped to the open bearing and sprayed on it as the motor ran. Jim was also familiar with the use of an inner bushing some babbit, some oilite bronze and others of hot dipped silver where leakage past the bearing would prove lubrication to a bearing above that one but never did he see this on the top of an Anzani. I mentioned to him that I had sen a Qunicy Flathead 4 cylinder engine with all half of each rod silvered from the bottom to midway up the rod to the small end. This he said were racers/engine builders using silver as a bearing type of separation surface on the rod's surface so the rod's steel would not touch the sides of the crank cheeks where steel to steel contact would otherwise make a considerable amount of friction. Asking me if I had ever seen frictioned colored big ends on connecting rods on their sides next to the crankshaft cheeks was the rod being pushed sideways real hard and that friction resulting. It was more prominent on Alkys than gasoline/oil engines because of the inherent dryness of the alky caster mix versus gas/oil. Jim stressed when assembling any racing engine that the rods should not be sloppy in their centering within the small end wrist pin to piston side as well as on the crankshaft cheeks to sides of the connecting rods next to the crankshaft cheeks. To the small end it is paying close attention to the wrist pin washer fit (Mercs) and in the big end, plating the sides of the big end with silver which is a very good bearing material. Keep the connecting rods centered real well at its power unemcumbered with any side thrust friction.

Jim also gave out some good pointers and how to construct jigs for tearing down and putting together multi-piece crankshafts with both taper pin and straight big end pins. That is a subject to make a good article of all by itself for the future.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

If there was any effort to lighten Anzani flywheels it was sure evident where these open beairng end caps were used. The Anzani's center main section of the crankshaft in pictures already posted weighs as much as all the rest of the crankshaft components combined attached above and below its rotating mass. The stock Anzani racing flywheel weighed in at nearly the same weight as the whole crankshaft itself and even in the stock gasoline state or the Alky racing state the engine would rev up so fast it was a race to drop/throw the engine and boat into the water to race nearly as soon as the engine started or you risked engine explosion and they from time to time did explode just that way. That demonstrated that the engine could accellerate even quicker if much of the flywheel was done away with having all the weight of the crankshaft deliver engine torque at racing rpms. They were not wrong in their assumptions so there is a history of the flywheel being cut down from 4 pounds to where they were used at 1/2 a pound in weight for racing with no ill affects to the engine. Shortly I will picture the flywheels for posting in this thread in their evolution from stock racing weight to extremely light flywheels for Alky racing.

[Mark75H]

That demonstrated that the engine could accellerate even quicker if much of the flywheel was done away with having all the weight of the crankshaft deliver engine torque at racing rpms. They were not wrong in their assumptions so there is a history of the flywheel being cut down from 4 pounds to where they were used at 1/2 a pound in weight for racing with no ill affects to the engine.

At racing speeds on a boat with a prop this disagrees with the laws of physics. The advantage is a more balanced motor, not pure acceleration by itself.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

I am unsure whose physics you speak of Mark 75H but the age of cutting down flywheels for Alky engines was very much a Mercury / Quincy Merc alky deflector engines starting in the later 1950s and so to did this spread to British Anzani, Harrison, Quincy Flathead Loopers, Konigs, Crescents and so on as racing evolved in years. It was crankshaft designs in these engines that allowed the practices with some basis being race course length as well. A faster engine rpm spinup was obviously desirable with short and medium courses where flywheel weight would be less important on long courses with large pin curves. Flywheel size is pretty much seen pictorially in races as well as in engine parts pictures as years went by.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

In order of flywheel evolutionary change:

British Anzani flywheel evolution from Stock B (UK) Gas and the beginnings of Alky here in North America were the same flywheel, machined steel, chromed over and no balancing other than what the machining afforded in its production. (35 & 36)

(39) Shows the first flywheel cut down where the flywheel remained the same thickness and the diameter became no wider than the outer rim of the rope plate. Balancing was done on its underside.

(38) Shows the typical second cut down where the flywheel diameter stayed at the width of the rope plate but its thickness went down 1/4 less than original stock thickness. Balancing again was carried out on the underside.

(37) Shows the third cut down where the diameter remains the same width as the rope plate but now remains only 1/4 as thick as the stock original. At this point the flywheel was getting so light balancing was not done.

(40 through 44) Shows the fourth and last possible cut down where the rope plate and flywheel were thinned down to 1/4 as thick as original and the diameter was changed to that of the flywheel side magneto timing gear. At this point flywheel weight had dropped from 4 pounds to 1/2 a pound rope plate, timing gear and flywheel as the single assembly. No balancing was evident on this the smallest flywheel assembly cut down.

(50 - 49) Shows extensive balancing of two cut down flywheels.

(51) Shows a typically unbalanced Stock and early Alky racing flywheel at 4 pounds in weight.

(45) Shows a late 1950s model Anzani rope plate of aluminum cast with machining.

(46) Shows the typical British Anzani embossed rope plate with inlaid red paint that was the typical unit used until Anzani stopped engine and parts production.

(52 - 53) Is the typical Anzani crankshaft center section that by itself weighs almost the same as the stock flywheel. As the flywheel was cut down this center section became the main rotating mass of the crankshaft accumulating most the torque for the racing engine. The top throw, bottom throw and big end pins together weighed the same amount as the singular crankshaft center section. Anzani did not go completely full circle crank where its later cousin the Harrison did with an entirely heavier crankshaft and a very light aluminum and steel cored flywheel.

It is unknown at this time if the smallest cut down flywheel was used on class A and B Anzanis but for sure it was used in class A Alky successfully. Stage 2 and 3 cutdowns were definitely used in Alky class B.

Enjoy all the pictures of flywheel evolution! They were spinning these Anzanis into the 10,000 rpm ranges in Alky racing in North America. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Final picture batch - Anzani flywheel evolution.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Readers asked - The center section of the crankshaft pictured has an egg shaped port that runs diagonally through the center of the crankshaft main that feeds either side of the crankcase half as the window rotates within the crankshaft Oillite bronze main bearing found there is the typical crankshaft rotary valve of the day. When it came to the gas burning A or B stock Anzani run in the UK during the period it worked rather well boosting engine performance but here in North America and running them in Alky A and B, . that became debatable. Builders like Jim Hallum and Ron Anderson found that deleting the very mildly timed crankshaft rotary valve entirely and going with reed valve at the base Tillotson HL carbs in a 3 carb configuration worked better. The 4 carb (2 Tillotoson HLl on each crankcase half & one HL above the crankshaft rotary valve crankcase opening in front of the Vacturi) and single Vacturi main carb configuration went best of all. There were also some 6 carb configurations (5 Tillotson HLs and 1 Vacturi).

The problem with the Anzani crank rotary valve was once it was machined into the crankshaft centre it was more or less fixed with the only timing change available by altering the Oillite bearing rotary valve opening. Some made the changes this way and still others went the root of adapting a Konig style belt driven disk rotary valve with 2 carbs however the most successful Anzani engines used the rotary valve in a 2 carb (1 - HL and 1 Vacturi) or the 4 carb version that set some straightaway records in the 100 mile per hour range in the early 1970s.