9 Attachment(s)
They silver dipped/plated connecting rods bottom ends.
I was not aware until Jim Hallum explained it that many racers silver coated the bottom ends of connecting rods for the purpose of using the silver as a bearing surface where the sides of the big end of rod could be subject to side thrust contacting the crankshaft creating friction. The following pictures are of a good and lasting silver coating on one rod and the eventual failure of the coating on the other rod necessitating removal and re-newing the coating before any fragements could be allowed to go through the engine possibily damaging other components. This silvering of connecting rods according to Jim Hallum was widespread and used on many racing OMCs, Quincy-Merc padded block deflectors and Quincy Flatheads just to mention a few other than Anzanis.
Enjoy the pictures. :)
Speculation - How much did British Anzani U.K. & Harrison (HRP-USA) communicate?
Between BRF's U.K. Anzani contributor (Twister) and myself, we have been running comparisons on the two companies racing technologies. Early Anzanis used cast iron blocks for A and B engines but towards the end of Anzanis manufacturing operations in U.K. an aluminum blocked ferrous sleeved engine turned up that still used the Anzani high compression cast alluminum racing head. At the same period Harrison produced an aluminum block with ferrous sleeves with its own design of high compression head for Alky racing. Up to this point all Anzani cast iron blocks were cast with wide rectangular exhaust ports that Bill Tenney cast and installed exhaust filler plugs for to keep the exhaust port square out of the block to the exhaust pipe flange mount. When Harrison produced their A and B Alky blocks, they came with squarish inner exhaust port side to rounded port outside at the exhaust pipe flanges so the exhaust pulse went from square to round in the short casting tract keeping the area constant as it hit the exhausts as Anzani did but Anzani's remained squarish and made the transition in the exhaust pipe to a rounded wave always keeping the transition area constant as Harrison did. The last thing that turned up for Bill Tenney who was in frequent advisory contact with Anzani U.K. that were never finished for use were several cast iron class A blocks that were virtual carbon copy exterior wise with cast round out exhaust ports completely like Harrison aluminum castings but in Anzani's cast iron with the transfer port makeup as Anzani used with all earlier cast iron A and B blocks. If there wasn't cooperative collusion here, there was certainly some kind of communications where they were both looking at each other in some way? The likenesses in engineering look distinctly similar never mind there was some interchangeability very much present.
Some postings of class A and B Harrison will be posted shortly with the latest of the Anzani's class A cast iron block for viewer comparrisons. You readers can be the judge. Perhaps Kay Harrison could give some insight. Unfortunately, Charles Harrison of (British Anzani U.K.) has since passed away since Twister posted his hybrid Anzani picture with Charles Harrison standing next to it here on BRF. It all makes for much speculation! :)
10 Attachment(s)
The Cousins? How do Anzani and Harrison compare?
Just how much Anzanis and Harrisons compared I have never done though people have been saying they are close cousins with some real close family connections.
So I took the comparisson to the 250cc Class A Alky engine blocks first. The Anzani is cast iron which has obvious rust coating to differentiate it from the Harrison which is high grade aluminum cast.
It turned out that Harrison class A heads fit Anzani cast iron blocks with drop on fit and dead on head bolt holes. The water jacketing ports are exactly the same position fit and connection. Using a head gasket tightened down imprint it was found that the cylinder to head fit is exact and the combustion chambers are exactly where they should be.
On the Anzani block side the Harrison head which is not as thick a casting sits right down on the Anzani block with head bolts in the right exact position for boltdown. The water jacketting ports are an exact match. Using a head gasket tightened down imprint it was also found that the Harrison head fit down exactly right on the Anzani block and the combustion chambers were in exactly the right place and position.
Go another area is the outer exhaust port where the crescent shaped exhausts flanges bolt up exhausts on both Anzani and Harrison are the same so one can use a hand built steel system of this late model Anzani cast iron block on Harrisons and the Harrison (HRP-Lodite) cast alluminum elbos and exhausts can be interchangeably used with these late British Anzani 250cc blocks.
From this comparisson it seems these engines were much more than overseas cousins of each other. They must have talked some? :)
Enjoy the pictures for your own comparissons. :)
8 Attachment(s)
Cousins compared second pictures batch.
Make your comparrisons.
Enjoy the pictures. :)
9 Attachment(s)
The Northwest Ported Anzanis real big.
A testament as to how Ron Anderson and Jim Hallum developed the Northwest's Alky Anzanis and Harrison-Anzani hybrids is in the porting extremes they took these engines to. Where Bill Tenney (Midwestern USA) stopped making ports too much larger than they were for running methanol and on one carb, he decided to add another pair of intake transfer ports to each cylinder right under the exhaust ports putting transfer ports at a total 6 large loop ports to make the engine breathe better and go faster. The Northwest developers (Anderson & Hallum) just made the ports in the original numbers bigger and bigger right to near paper thin cast iron passage walls maxed out. The Northwest went from 1 carb to 2, then to 4 and even 6 carbs on some of these 2 cylinder engines eventually settling on 3 to 4. Internal porting in the Northwest was to say the least was the biggest. The Roger Wendt hybrid Anzani-Harrison-Merc-Konig was impressive with its porting. Its primary carb intake was 1.675 inches in diameter. The secondary carb to crankshaft rotary valve opening was .875 inches in diameter. The combined carb opening diameter was around 2.5 inches making for one well breathing and rather remarkably successful racing engine in Roger Wendt's hands and driving skills. This engine won, placed and dead heated in many a race against other Anzanis, Konigs and Quincy Flatheads.
*Note: The engines block mount flanges broke off necessitating brazing repairs so skillfully done with finishing lasted for years with no problems even to the point where the engine was retired from racing years later. This engine was known to use in excess at times nitromethane in the methanol fuel mix exceeding 30 percent very successfuly.
Enjoy the many and varied views of the Wendt engine's various large ports pictures. :)
10 Attachment(s)
The Anzani cylinder heads particular to the North West (West Coast) USA.
The following pictures of Anzani cylinder heads are particular to the North West, West Coast and far Western Canada. They knew their weaknesses of having only 6 cylinder head bolts so they took up to 4 approaches.
Bill Tenney in the Mid West simply made up as others did sheet copper head gaskets on the neighborhood of .050 inches thick, coated them with excellent head gasket cement and torqued the head bolts down appropriately which for nitromethane levels in the 10% to 15% range in the methanol mix sufficed.
In the North West they ran more nitro so their approach was a combination of approaches.
Approach 1. Was to simply do what Bill Tenney did with sheet copper gaskets and good head gasket goo and apply extra torque to handle the extra nitro.
Approach 2. Was to remove the casting plugs in the head and drill one extra threadable hole between the cylinders and install and torque down "pressure bolts" after the main head bolts were tightened down. These pressure bolts did not perforate the head face but put pressure on the inside of the water jacket mimicking part of what a headbolt would do partially and in this way equalizing pressures in some ways the same ways the head bolts spread torque pressures around the head. With copper sheet gasketing and good head glue it generally stopped compression leakages around the head gasket.
Approach 3. Was to go headgasketless entirely. The engine block at the head was ensured it was machined flat. The head was then milled to put a raised lip around each combustion chamber right over the cylinder opening in effect creating a sort of labrinth seal not unlike how Konig does their heads and cylinders. Approach 2. was added to equalize torque pressures around the head. With that done a high quality cylinder head cement is used by itself and the head is torqued down to the block with head bolts and the pressure bolts were set. This method worked quite well.
Approach 4. Was to use Approach 2. and Approach 3. and add a thinner copper sheet head gasket which was glued as well. This approach also worked quite well.
Generally approach 2. was good to 20% nitromethan in the fuel, Approach 3. and 4. were good to 30% to even 40% nitromethane in the fuel which seemed to be the upper limit on nitromethane they ever used in methanol racing mixes.
Enjoy and analyse the pictures of these heads. :)
3 Attachment(s)
The Wendt engine Vacturi AO-500 sleeved carb with enlarged fuel bowl.
Found some pre-restoration pictures of the Vacturi AO-500 carb Roger Wendt used on his 2 carb Anzani-Harrison-Merc-OMC-Konig hybrid. The carb barrel sleeve is only 1/8th of an inch thick machined alluminum locked into the stock Vacturi barrel making the throat very straight in length and 1.675 inches in diameter with the slightly fluted end acting as a mini-velocity stack (an OMC stack could still be added to the end with flange mount and screws for extra ram). This carbs liner is an entirely straight venturi (it has no choke point to increase velocity within the barrel at any point other than what there was behind the overhead dual high speed jets) with 2 jets at the roof of the throat spewing down fuel on demand as the throttle bufferfly opened. The only moving parts on this carb was the throttle butterfly and the high speed needle whose complete assembly has a moving "rack" to richen or lean out the engine on the go adjusted by the driver feeling out where its best power was from the normal driving position.
This dual carb engine was termed as being real hungry with its huge ports so the builders removed the normal fuel bowl and machined and added one on made of machined steel in construction about 4 times the volume contained in an original fuel bowl. The system is OMC fuel pump to carbs with spill over and return to tank from the Vacturi carb bowl.
Enjoy the pictures. :)
Note some combustion chamber work.
In a couple of the pictures there has been some work done on a head's combustion chambers to reduce their volume. Normally these heads were planed off so many thousands of an inch to increase the compression ration for use with methanol racing fuels. In this case there was an attempt to raise the compression ratio still higher and the developer carefully welded in the sides of the combustion chamber to do so. The project clearly was not finished and requires careful finishing and volume checking in doing so to come to the final product. Some racers also refinished damaged combustion chambers / heads this way as at a certain point Anzani replacement parts became rare or unavailable.
Chromed over brass constructed and braze welded Anzani exhaust system?
One might think at different times that one has seen everything, but, not in boatracing and certainly not in racing outboard restoration!
The other day I was examining and working on a set class "A" Alky Anzani pipes that felt all too heavy for what I thought they were only to find that each megaphone, elbo and their support braces were very nicely made of brass and brazed together and these were also brazed to steel exhaust mounting flanges of which then each completed pipe was then thinly chrome plated.
I will be picturing them for posting soon. Some one out there must have noticed these nicely made unique pipes out of brass and might have a story to tell concerning them?
One unique irregular feature on each pipe is a small brass patch bazed on where the pipe corroded through more than likely from running nitro in the methanol racing fuel mix. The patches are where the fuel might puddle when the engine was not in use eventually weakening the metal from corrosion. The patches were skillfully brazed on, the surface leveled and the patch was re-chromed. Nice work all in all. :)
5 Attachment(s)
As the chrome flaked or wore off the brass starts showing.
The following pictures are these almost all brass Anzani class "A" - Alky pipes. As the heat, wear, tear and corrosion set in and the chrome finish wore off here and there which was very thin to begin with the brass started to show through. These pipes made of thin guage brass sheet metal for the megaphones and brass pipe for the elbos with brass pipe supports brazed to megaphone and elbo all of which are finally brazed to 3/16ths steel exhaust flanges. As thin and light weigth as they look they are the same weight per side as a complete side of Tenney built heavy quage steel exhaust stacks with their large encircling pipe supports also welded to their 1/4 inch exhaust connection flanges. On the inside some sections of the pipes had the green corrosion common to brass, copper and bronze set in.
These mainly brass constructed pipes seem to be unique enough to have been noticed by others. Is there a story about these brass exhausts out there?
Enjoy the pictures. :)