1955 Boat Sport magazine article

[racingfan1]

I came across this story in the magazine and found it interesting , How long would this conversion take ??

[smittythewelder]

I'd like to know when those open and untuned exhaust dumps started getting replaced with tuned megaphones, and who did it. I'm guessing Dieter Konig, because I've seen a photo or two from 1957 (I think) of one of his first loop-scavenged A alky motors with a skinny megaphone aimed straight out either side. I think the European motorcycle guys were already using megaphones (and loop-scavenging) before this. Anybody?

(I can imagine the old Quincy Welding veterans here chuckling at how much horsepower these "pioneers" were leaving on the table. You fellas must have been pulling at least half-again as much as the figures mentioned here by Hank Bowman by the early Sixties.)

[smittythewelder]

Mr. Gene East, will you tell us about the history and tech of Quincy Welding's development of the alky Merc conversions? I'd particularly like to hear about the experiments with welding in the compression pads (some called them "rickies," right?). Welding aluminum calls for careful cleaning in all cases, and I'm wondering if those previously-run engines proved to have a lot of glop down inside the grain of the casting that made them difficult to weld. It was interesting that you guys had a different method of raising compression than O'Dea and the California engine builders, or so I recall. IIRC, Lon Stevens welded-in an entirely new combustion chamber, and O'Dea had some sort of replacement head (how attached??).

The heads aside, who came up with the megaphones? The 2-into-1 elbows? And what about third-porting, and cutting the new hole in the back of the reedblock? Oh, and the welding of the extra counter-balance weights on the crankshafts? All this was pretty cool stuff in it's day, and the stories ought to get into print.

[Gene East]

Mr. Gene East, will you tell us about the history and tech of Quincy Welding's development of the alky Merc conversions? I'd particularly like to hear about the experiments with welding in the compression pads (some called them "rickies," right?). Welding aluminum calls for careful cleaning in all cases, and I'm wondering if those previously-run engines proved to have a lot of glop down inside the grain of the casting that made them difficult to weld. It was interesting that you guys had a different method of raising compression than O'Dea and the California engine builders, or so I recall. IIRC, Lon Stevens welded-in an entirely new combustion chamber, and O'Dea had some sort of replacement head (how attached??).

The heads aside, who came up with the megaphones? The 2-into-1 elbows? And what about third-porting, and cutting the new hole in the back of the reedblock? Oh, and the welding of the extra counter-balance weights on the crankshafts? All this was pretty cool stuff in it's day, and the stories ought to get into print.

Smitty, I will answer some of your questions in the near future. I drive a school bus and I overslept this morning. I do 2 things every morning regardless of how late I am. I read my Bible program and I check BRF! Got to go NOW!!!

[Gene East]

Smitty, I got on the bus in time to pick up the kids. Didn't have time to shave though. People ask me all the time why I drive a school bus. It certainly isn't for the money!

The kids are the reason! Some times a few of them can be real obnoxious, but when you start seeing improvement in their behavior; it's all worth while!

I have quite a few students who respectfully call me "Grandpa"! I have, Black, White, and Hispanic kids who call me "Grandpa"! The only Asians who call me "Grandpa" truly are my Grand-daughters; Jemma and Noella. Their Great-grandma Tamiko is very proud of her 1/8 Japanese grand daughters.

Alan Ishii says these little girls prove we are cousins. Actually Alan and I are brothers!

I will post some of the info you requested later after I do a little digging. I will answer your question about Dick O'Dea's removable head.

The removable head did not fit on a Mercury block! Dick built a "Kit" that mounted on the Mercury crankcase. The block was cast iron and as I recall the head was aluminum. I believe he called his complete powerhead "The Red Head".

I know where 2 of these are, but I ain't telling unless the owner/owners give me permission to do so.

I'll get more involved Re: Quincy questions next time!

[Gene East]

Ok Smitty, lets get started on your list of questions. Bear in mind this issue of "Boat Sport" is 61 years old. I was 14 at the time, but I had a subscription to "Boat Sport" and actually read this article 61 years ago.

My Dad and Uncle Gene were fishermen so I was aware of Quincy Welding and Marine. I was aware they had some pretty fast boats. It was still nearly 2 years later before I met O.F. Christner.

I attended my first boat race in 1956. The N.O.A. Division 4 World Championship was held in Meyer, IL Just 7 miles from my home town. I noticed a lot of trailers with decals which read "Modifications by O.F. Christner". I knew who Mr. Christner was, but I had no Idea what a modification was!

First let's talk about padding cylinders. I have not heard pads called "rickies", but perhaps in some areas they were. You may be surprised to learn the first "pads" were not aluminum at all. They were hand made from brass stock and fastened in the dome with screws. This information was provided by David Christner, O.F."s oldest son and a Champion Boat Racer in his own right.

The brass pads were introduced in the late 40's. Aluminum pads came into being in the early 50's with the early pads sand cast by a foundry 4 blocks down the street. As padding became more popular, permanent molds were made for 2 sizes of pads, A-C & B-D, greatly improving availability. Later a permanent mold was made for 22 & 44 cu.in. engines. The 22 ci engines were very popular on dugout canoe racing with Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest.

You are correct in your statement regarding cleanliness while welding aluminum. I hated padding a block that had been run in salt water. Some of the high zinc alloys Mercury used to combat salt water corrosion were terrible as well. The later 44's welded great although some of the earlier blocks did not. The 44's had a tendency to crack between #2 & #3 cylinders. Chris instructed me to drill 3 1/8" holes 1 in deep in the web between the 2 cylinders. "Problem Solved"!

I liked welding on Mk-25's, but the most weldable blocks were the sand cast Kg-9's Mk-40,50 and early Mk-55. They welded like butter!

You mentioned we had a different method of raising compression ratios than O'Dea and Stevens.

Have you noticed which method Mercury copied???

We'll address pipes tomorrow!

Gene

[John Schubert T*A*R*T]

Smitty, I got on the bus in time to pick up the kids. Didn't have time to shave though. People ask me all the time why I drive a school bus. It certainly isn't for the money!

The kids are the reason! Some times a few of them can be real obnoxious, but when you start seeing improvement in their behavior; it's all worth while!

I have quite a few students who respectfully call me "Grandpa"! I have, Black, White, and Hispanic kids who call me "Grandpa"! The only Asians who call me "Grandpa" truly are my Grand-daughters; Jemma and Noella. Their Great-grandma Tamiko is very proud of her 1/8 Japanese grand daughters.

Alan Ishii says these little girls prove we are cousins. Actually Alan and I are brothers!

I will post some of the info you requested later after I do a little digging. I will answer your question about Dick O'Dea's removable head.

The removable head did not fit on a Mercury block! Dick built a "Kit" that mounted on the Mercury crankcase. The block was cast iron and as I recall the head was aluminum. I believe he called his complete powerhead "The Red Head".

I know where 2 of these are, but I ain't telling unless the owner/owners give me permission to do so.

I'll get more involved Re: Quincy questions next time!
You can it's in my possession & going together once the pistons are fitted to the block. My first restoration is in Mark Suter's museum. I actually raced one that Dick installed on my #2 20H in 1955, finished second to Vic Scott (kingpin of the B class).

[smittythewelder]

Gene, this all was going on a few years before I started racing (which was in '65, the last year before the flatheads got out to Reg. 10), and I never owned a Quincy alky Merc, so I don't know much. As I understood it at the time, you milled a portion of the stock combustion chamber entirely out, and then welded-in your little curved casting. Is that right? And that Stevens milled off the entire stock combustion chamber, welding in a whole new combustion chamber? Either of you would have been operating pretty close to the upper edge of the cast-in iron sleeve. Sounds like real tricky work to me!! I like your account of drilling some small holes to make that "siameezed" section more flexible.

I suppose a few who read this will think this is sort of a strange interest in very old and very minute details. Yet I know that lots of old alky racers were and still are fascinated by the tiny technical details that make engines and boats and props go fast and live. As many have remarked, in the end motorsports turn out to be as much about the people, about your old pals, as it is about the machinery and the racing. But these folk first became your pals largely because they were like you, sharing similar interests and ideas and skills. I run into old drag racers and rodders, and it's funny how we will mention some mechanical issue we were all concerned with many decades ago, and quickly we are earnestly jabbering away about it as if it had happened yesterday, I mean the SAME CONVERSATION continued thirty or forty years on without missing a beat!! WE all get old, but these shared interests often stay about fresh as ever. Maybe boys with their toys never fully grow up . . . which could be a good thing when you look at some people our age who can't talk about anything but their aches and pains. Maybe we're lucky to be able to wrap our minds around these dusty details.

[Gene East]

Smitty,

Don't know if you know John Schubert or not. He's a big dog in outboard racing and a super nice guy as well.

As John said, Mark Suter has a "Red head" John is working on another and neither of those are the ones I know. So obviously there are at least 4 "Red heads" in existence.

John mentioned Mark Suter. Check Mark out on BRF. He has a fantastic collection of boat racing history. There is a Quincy Welding section among numerous others.

All the filler block patterns for Quincy pipes are in his collection except the very first A-B version. That one was sold in an auction at a boat racer reunion. I will respect the ID of the man who bought it, but I'm sure you would recognize his name.

More on pipes later!

Gene

[rumleyfips]

Google tells me that European motorcycle racers were far ahead of outboards with exhaust tuning. Norton used a megaphone in 1934. Dieter Koenig put megaphones on an alky engine in 1957 ( maybe 1956 ). I think Koenigs were still deflectors at this time Smitty. Erick Wolf put expansion chambers on a DKW in 1951 or 52. Outboards didn't have expansion chambers for another decade.

[Gene East]

True! I'm glad you used the Koenig spelling. I worked in the pits for a guy who had one of the very first German Class A motors. I swear the flywheel crank plate said KOENIG! Everyone tells me I dreamed that!!!

[zul8tr]

Here it is spelled Konig on the company adds on engines and boats:

http://www.quincylooperracing.us/gpage8.html

[25XS]

True! I'm glad you used the Koenig spelling. I worked in the pits for a guy who had one of the very first German Class A motors. I swear the flywheel crank plate said KOENIG! Everyone tells me I dreamed that!!!

Gene, the spelling is: " König " with two dots above the letter "o" is how the rope sheave you dreamed about was made! Pictured below is the first year "A" class alky, it's a 1957 Model HRA-57 and the rope sheave also says, "BERLIN 36" on it! I sold this engine to a guy in Australia in 2010. It was missing the carb & megaphone pipe but not stuck.
Tom Brockmeyer

[Gene East]

Thanks Tom, I am aware of all this history and the meaning of the different spellings, the umlag (spelling?) etc.

In the back of my mind I can still see Koenig. The only people who could convince me otherwise would be Dieter, Harold Chambers ( team owner)
Ed Dickerson & Don Bockenfeld (team drivers). Unfortunately all 4 of these men are racing on Lake Paradise!

George Taylor had some of the very earliest K-brand motors and he says no "E" on any of his motors.

Steve Litzell whom I greatly admire and who actually worked for Dieter at the factory says no "E"!

I guess the next time I see Dieter, I'll ask him!

Gene

[Gene East]

Back to Smitty!
You are correct, we did mill out a slot in the dome to facilitate welding the pad. We were probably 5/16 in above the sleeve where we were welding. Never did I penetrate (puddle) deep enough to expose any cast iron. In addition, we positioned the pad in the dome with a straight edge down the crank case bore. Then a solid steel slug was placed in the bore of each cylinder to hold the pad in place and to serve as a heat sink to minimize cylinder distortion. Often just a simple hone job was needed, although a special tool on a cylinder boring machine was used to finish machine the pad. A re-bore could be done if needed at that time without changing machines.

Jim Schoch (Have you heard of him) ran the boring bar. Jim only won 16 National & World Championships and set or broke more records than I can remember!

Imagine what a 75-H block weighed with the slugs in the cylinders. Not a job for a 97# weakling!

[Gene East]

Smitty, Have you noticed the ad for the Quincy Visumatic throttle in the Boat Sport copy.

I don't know if that name is a take off of the popular TV ads for the Vega-matic or not.

Easily the best throttle of it's day; QW sold thousands of them.

That was how the Christner kids made their spending money; assembling throttles.

Nearly everyone who ever worked at QW built a throttle or two.

Also the exhaust manifold for the 2 cyl. motors was a popular item as well.
Far more were sold to the general public than to racers.

This manifold had a cover plate that could be added or removed in no time at all.

There was even a cute little option of twin chrome pipes. The prototype was made with tubes from Mrs. Christner's vacuum cleaner.

Rumor has it Chris slept in the dog house for quite a while over that one!

[25XS]

Thanks Tom, I am aware of all this history and the meaning of the different spellings, the umlag (spelling?) etc.

In the back of my mind I can still see Koenig. The only people who could convince me otherwise would be Dieter, Harold Chambers ( team owner)
Ed Dickerson & Don Bockenfeld (team drivers). Unfortunately all 4 of these men are racing on Lake Paradise!

George Taylor had some of the very earliest K-brand motors and he says no "E" on any of his motors.

Steve Litzell whom I greatly admire and who actually worked for Dieter at the factory says no "E"!

I guess the next time I see Dieter, I'll ask him!

Gene

So Gene, a photograph of an actual 1957 "A" alky König rope sheave won't convince you? Your vision/dream is pretty strong for the KOEnig spelling on that rope sheave then. I wonder if the motorcycle engines also had rope sheaves and maybe there were several versions? Steve Litzell has seen a group of photographs of this engine and said it all looked legit to him. The transom brackets on this one were reproductions I got from John Shubert, otherwise the engine was a time capsule.

[Gene East]

The only thing that would convince me would be to see the actual engine owned by Chambers Equipment Co. and that's not going to happen.
I don't know the serial number or if a number ever existed!

Like I said, when I see Dieter; I'll ask him.

Thanks for your suggestion that the motor I remember MAY have had some BIKE parts.

I suppose if the presence or lack of an "E" in a name is of some concern to me, I've had a good life!

Ask a few of the older members on this web site. You'll find I can be a hard headed "OLD SOB"!

[Bill Van Steenwyk]

The only thing that would convince me would be to see the actual engine owned by Chambers Equipment Co. and that's not going to happen.
I don't know the serial number or if a number ever existed!

Like I said, when I see Dieter; I'll ask him.

Ask a few of the older members on this web site. You'll find I can be a hard headed old SOB!



Gene:

I have known you for at least 35-40 years, and I can vouch for the fact you can be a hard headed old SOB, BUT when I wrote a piece comparing Konig VS Quincy several years ago on BRF in reply to some statements Paul Christner had made, you confirmed all of them best I remember. You may be an OLD SOB, but a very fair one also, even thought it must have hurt somewhat to have to agree with my "remembering". And OLD SOB's make the best friends also. Hope your health problems are over with or at least under control these days, and see you at the Reunion.

ADD: Hope it is a while before you have a chance to talk with Dieter!!

[Gene East]

Bill,

As one "OLD SOB" to another, "SALUTE"!

I look forward to seeing you and many other "OLD SOB's" in DePue!

My health issues seem to have resolved themselves.

My Doc said yesterday aside from having arthritis every place I have places and being overweight, there is nothing wrong with my heart.

Doc has a very attractive young female intern working with him. There's nothing wrong with my eyes either!

Thanks for asking! Had some pasta last night, but went a little light on the garlic!

BTW: Add about 10 years to the time we have known each other. We're older than we think we are!

[smittythewelder]

Google tells me that European motorcycle racers were far ahead of outboards with exhaust tuning. Norton used a megaphone in 1934. Dieter Koenig put megaphones on an alky engine in 1957 ( maybe 1956 ). I think Koenigs were still deflectors at this time Smitty. Erick Wolf put expansion chambers on a DKW in 1951 or 52. Outboards didn't have expansion chambers for another decade.

Rumley, I've not seen a photo of the B/C deflector Konigs with anything other than open exhausts, no pipes. The exhaust flanges were drilled and tapped, but I'm guessing that was to hold the manifold used with the Stock-configured engines. Probably there were owners here who did make themselves a megaphone set-up at some point. But I don't think the Konig deflectors got used for very many years, not like the alky Mercs. There's another Boat Sport article from about 1957 telling all about the B/C deflector motors, and toward the end it mentioned that the 3-cylinder C motor was shortly to be replaced by a 2-cylinder model. This had to be the loop-scavenged FC, and maybe at the same time the FB engine which used many of the same or very similar parts replaced the deflector B. In 1957, Konig already had a looper A engine, which I think was also his first engine with megaphones.

Have you ever seen the insides of a deflector Konig? The air/fuel makes its way from the crankcase to the combustion chamber through windows in the piston skirt (Anzani did this as well). Might help cool the piston, but it looks pretty restrictive to my eye, and I wonder how well it could flow compared to the Mercury side-transfer passage. No easy way to make direct comparisons, I guess, because the bore/stroke combinations were different between Konigs and Mercs.

As you say, roadracing motorcycle engine technology was, so far as I can tell, a generation or two ahead of even purpose-built racing outboards at every point (at least until now), though occasionally our side had something pretty slick, such as Konig's disc rotary valves and slider pipes. And though it might not quite have been 2-stroke state-of-the-art even when new (I'm trying to remember details of the Suzuki X-6 and the 250cc Yamahas of that moment), the Quincy flathead still is amazing for the clever way Christner worked around the limitations (bore spacing) of the Mercury crankshaft, which meant that racers could recycle a bunch of their Merc parts and go real fast, real cheap!! And they were easy to work on in a home shop; incredible!!

Gene, for you I will happily use any spelling of any word, just to keep you talking, LOL!! I did see that ad for the Quincy throttle, but don't think I ever saw one out here. Leonard Keller was building all the hardware in his little north Seattle shop. He was a very good guy, one of many such that made any new kid feel welcome.

[Gene East]

Keller made good products. They were good competition!

I think the original Quincy throttle sold for $7.50. They were around $50.00 when I left QW. Art Neadeck and Ron Hill make/made copies of the Quincy throttle.

Don't know if they are still available or what the cost might be.

Re: Quincy exhaust manifolds for "Green-tankers". A lot of these were sold to racers and pleasure boaters as well.

My first racing boat was a Pabst runabout with a KG-7.
It had one of these manifolds until the guys at QW gave me a broken set of pipes which I repaired in high school shop class.

My Dad was deputy marshal in our home town of La Grange, MO. (10 miles up the Mississippi from Quincy)

One day he received a call from an irate lady insisting he arrest those boys making all that noise on the river.

Dad explained to her in detail why he couldn't do that.

#1 "I don't have jurisdiction on the river!"

#2 "My boat isn't fast enough to catch them!"

#3 " One of those boys is my son"!

Some times it pays to have "contacts".

Gene

[Original Looper 1]

This is the most original unrestored Quincy Merc that I have seen in the last 40 years !

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mercury-Mark-20-H-Quincy-Racing-Outboard-/222108605637?hash=item33b6b45cc5:g:p4YAAOSwubRXJnY M&vxp=mtr

Regards
Paul.

[Gene East]

Thanks Paul,

That is a SWEEEEEEEEEET 20-H and it shows a very clear image of the exhaust manifold we've been talking about. Also someone spent a lot of time polishing the Quincy gravity fuel tank.

People may wonder why use a gravity tank when the 20-H came from Mercury with a fuel pump. One of the reasons is: The 20-H came from Mercury with a fuel pump! Huh??? What did I just say???

True, the 20-H did have a fuel pump and it worked very well, ON GASOLINE! The check valves were rubber and alcohol would cause the check valves to swell up and make the fuel pump unreliable.

For our readers, Paul was a young teenager at this time and was not really involved with the racing aspects of his Dad's business. Thankfully that changed!

Charlie Strang and his engineers at Mercury came up with neoprene check valves. Problem solved!

Charlie Strang could see the value of racing to Mercury.

Carl Kiekhaefer could not! He was very offended that the first thing a racer did was discard the cowlings on what he viewed as "His Motors" plus he believed, "His Motors" ran just fine right out of Fond du Lac. Mr. K cancelled QW's Mercury dealership virtually cutting off QW's parts supply.

Charlie went to bat for QW pointing out that we were providing valuable R&D for Mercury at very low cost. Quincy Welding was reinstated as a Mercury dealership.

Quincy Welding made one concession. What had once been called "Quincy-Merc" was hence forth known as "Merc-Quincy"! I'm convinced he simply wanted top billing.

I respect Mr. K for what he was able to accomplish in his lifetime, but I didn't like him! He came to Quincy and Mr. Christner (Chris) was escorting him around the shop and introducing him to the crew.

I was "blue printing" a 6 cyl. block on a milling machine. The first words he ever said to me were, "What are you f'ing up today?" Not a good way to win friends and influence people!

If you haven't read his book "Iron Fist" I highly recommend you do so. As he was dying he said, "Tell Charlie I'm sorry"! I believe he owed O.F. Christner an apology as well!

"May he rest in peace"!

[smittythewelder]

Thanks for the link to that string of photos, Paul!! I'd never seen that.

[Gene East]

Smitty,

Was this the first time you were on the Quincy Looper web site? Paul and Diane did a great job, don't you agree?

I promised to talk pipes several days ago. A little diversion called "FISHING" got in the way!

A Church "Brother" has an overstocked bass lake on his farm that needs periodical thinning out. Several of us saw it as our Christian duty to help the Brother out. It was a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it!

Back to the subject at hand, "Pipes"!

The 1958 NOA Championships proved to be a Konig rout in the A & B classes. Konig had megaphones, Quincy did not! The results clearly showed Quincy needed pipes.

I was told Mrs. Christner (Vera) told Chris he needed to "soup" those motors up a little. Paul says she was a bit more direct in what she said!

An added emphasis was placed on developing tuned exhaust for 2 cyl. Mercurys. Chris studied everything he could find regarding tuned exhaust on 2 cycle engines. Of course most of the available info applied to motorcycles. Chris loved motorcycles to begin with. I think he may have bought a bike or two and used them as a tax write off. I don't know that to be a fact, but it sounds more legit than a lot of things others have done

First requirement was a method to separate the impulses. Hence; the filler block seated in body filler to prevent cross leakage.

Standard steel elbows were purchased from a local plumbing supply house.

QW didn't have a shear or rollers, so blanks for the megaphones were sheared at the Knaphiede plant 1 block down the street.
Yes, "That Knaphiede" the leading manufacturer of service truck bodies in the USA! Sometimes when we needed just a few pieces, we were allowed to shear them ourselves. Of course that was before OSHA!

Chris made a hand operated roller to pre-shape the megaphone and he machined a tapered mandrel to finish the taper. This resulted in a megaphone with a small point on the end. At first this was trimmed with hand shears so the pipe could stand straight when stood on end, This was discontinued when no impact was noticed.

QW had no dyno at the time; so all effective testing had to be done on the boat and it gets extremely cold in Quincy after the leaves turn color. The boat tests showed a considerable increase in speed and racing in Florida in early 1959 showed QW back on top again.

Eventually, QW made pipes for all Mercurys up to the 90 ci. 6 bangers. QW also made some of the Mercury Factory pipes use in tunnel boat racing!

You asked about the 2-into-1 elbows,(we called them converging).

Chris conceived the idea and he and I set out to build a proto-type. It was gawd awful big and ugly until Al Herrmann reminded us we were not putting twice as MUCH exhaust in the pipe, we were simply putting it in TWICE as fast. We went back to the original pipe and we were happy with the results. I worked for QW from April 1961 to May of 1972. I built nearly all of the pipes built during the '62-'72 period. We made pipes for a lot of motors other than Mercurys. In fact I think I made the first set of converging pipe for a 2 cly. C-Konig. Why would we want to do such a thing?

We'll talk about some of your other ??? next time.

Gene

[Gene East]

Smitty,

Have you ever seen a Konig M class motor?

It's half a 2 cyl A!

I know I'm older than you, but this motor reminded me of a song that was popular when I was a young man.

Perhaps you've heard it.

The song was about a "one eyed, one horned, flying purple people eater!"

[smittythewelder]

Song by Sheb Wooley, IIRC; came out when I was in sixth grade, a couple of weeks before the Russians launched Sputnik and we kids were warned to get serious about our studies. That was made a little harder for some of us because the first cheap mass-produced transistor radios had come out, about the same time as early rock n' roll. My family didn't have one for another couple of years, but I did have a real crude radio I built from a kit. For the antenna, I attached a wire with an alligator clip to the metal frame of the bed. It only got clear reception on about three stations, but one was top-40, so when I was supposed to have gone to sleep I put in the single earphone (no speaker) and listened to early Elvis and all the others.

Megadittos on Paul's Quincy Welding website, a wonderful historical resource!!

When you come back, please talk a little more about the "siameezed" pipes (converging elbows). Was the initial motivation just to cut the top-heavy weight and complexity? I remember seeing one or two Mk 75s with six individual megaphones. The top pipe pointed straight aft, but by the time you got to the bottom pipe it was pointing down about twenty degrees and near to dragging on the water!! What performance differences did you see with the 2-into-1 vs. the individual pipes? I know the FC Konig guys did like their Quincy replacement exhausts, and Jack Reed used to cream everybody and set a record or two with his.

Gene, I hope you know you aren't the only old guy who goes fishing religiously . . .

[John Schubert T*A*R*T]

Smitty,

You need to come to the Reunion in conjunction with the Depue USTS Nationals. You can talk with Gene, Jim Schoch & many others including Dan Kirts, Billy Seebold Dicky Pond (depending upon health)

[Gene East]

Smitty,

You are right about the "spread" of the pipes, especially the 75-H and the bigger 6 bangers.

The first remedy was to begin with #3 & #4 pointing as straight back as possible and work outwardly (up or down) from that point.

Fix #2: Imagine a vertical line perpendicular with the spark plugs. Tilt #1 pipe 5-10 degrees toward that line. Tilt #2 pipe away from that line. That shortened the span and did not effect performance other than presenting a smaller wind drag.

Later pipes were made with a tapered elbow larger at the outer end using a much shorter megaphone.

These elbows later became the converging (siamese) elbows used in the 2 cyl. per pipe configuration.

More later

Gene

P.S. I repeat John's invitation. I will be there Thursday and Friday. Unfortunately, I have other commitments for Saturday and Sunday.
Hope to see you there!!!

[DeanFHobart]

So Gene, a photograph of an actual 1957 "A" alky König rope sheave won't convince you? Your vision/dream is pretty strong for the KOEnig spelling on that rope sheave then. I wonder if the motorcycle engines also had rope sheaves and maybe there were several versions? Steve Litzell has seen a group of photographs of this engine and said it all looked legit to him. The transom brackets on this one were reproductions I got from John Shubert, otherwise the engine was a time capsule.

Does anybody know how fast this A alky Konig would run on a hydro?

Really cool history.... Great to read about it.

[smittythewelder]

Konig built that basic engine for a decade, with upgrades to port timing, pipes, mag, carbs, head. Dean, you remember the versions of the early to mid-Sixties with the skinny early expansion chambers as run by the Rautenburg brothers, Lee Sutter, Barry Lewis, and others? On a hydro, those would run (meaning read on a Keller speedo with the pitot tube dragging) 68-75mph set up for short course with one of Papa's wheels. Dick Rautenburg told me he won the '63 Nationals on Moses Lake running a little bronze Pop Smith wheel on his little BSH Sid for a real quick 68. Or as "quick" as an old A Konig could be, which wasn't very. With more modern expansion chambers and port timing to match, and 34mm carbs, the same engine would have easily got into the 80s.

But that early version in the photo? With the low port timing (and that engine might not have had a boost port at all), tiny carbs, early megaphones, mounted on a Swift hydro with the props of the day . . . well, one of the REAL OLD guys here will probably remember, but I want to guess you'd have been doing well to read 60mph.

(EDIT) (If anyone cares at all about trivia, sorry, I remembered wrong and the song referred to above came out in 1958, most of a year after Sputnik went up) (Yeah, I know, but it's a History thread, so I thought I should get it right . . . )

[DeanFHobart]

I still want to know how fast that 1957 A Alky Konig would run.

Thanks............................................ ..........................................

[rumleyfips]

Not exactly the answer to your question , but. In 1958 Dieter Konig set a 65 mph B alky record for APBA. The A was probably slower and regular setup probably slower again. It does make Smitty's 60 mph look logical. The NOA A alky record in 1958 was set by Bill Settle at 61 mph ; no idea what engine.

[rumleyfips]

Check the Boat Sport Oct 1957 issue. Deanie Montgomey set the A alky NOA straightaway record at 59.221. He used megaphones that stuck out like a bad pair of ears.

[zul8tr]

Check the Boat Sport Oct 1957 issue. Deanie Montgomey set the A alky NOA straightaway record at 59.221. He used megaphones that stuck out like a bad pair of ears.

Here is that page with the NOA straight a way record

http://boatsport.org/BSV63/p6.jpg