Picklefork sponsons

[Danielking]

Hi all, I'm a new member of hydro racer and I was wondering if anyone can help me out please. I'm planning on making myself a 10' 6" aluminium picklefork to run my British Anzani class B 350 racer on. And I was wondering if any one could tell me what size sponsons would be best for this application?. length, width, depth, shape. Any help would be greatly appreciated, many thanks Dan.

[DeanFHobart]

More Info Needed

Hi all, I'm a new member of hydro racer and I was wondering if anyone can help me out please. I'm planning on making myself a 10' 6" aluminium picklefork to run my British Anzani class B 350 racer on. And I was wondering if any one could tell me what size sponsons would be best for this application?. length, width, depth, shape. Any help would be greatly appreciated, many thanks Dan.

Hello Dan,

The entire boat dimensions will depend on how fast you are planning to go.

Not just sponson dimensions.

You should be able to get hydro plans from someone. Make a new post asking for Hydro Plans..... for a certain speed.

Best of Luck on your project.

Dean Hobart...............................

[Danielking]

Brilliant many thanks for your help Dean. I really appreciate it

[brill27]

you must be a welder with a lot of time.how fast will it go?i run 750ccmod hydro on a 12 foot wood boat.the back of the sponson to the transom is 87 inches so what ever the rest of the inches are sponson.runs in the 80mph on top end.

[Danielking]

Hi there yes I am, I'm only 24 and have a lot of free time on my hands and I wanted to build something a little different. I am planning on running in the 70+ mph range for the moment until I build my computer designed expansion chamber exhausts.

[Smitty]

The fastest Anzanis I know of were built by Jim Hallum and Ron Anderson in the '60s and early '70s. They found that the original con-rod big-end bearings weren't up to the added stress of expansion chambers. I forget what their fix was, because eventually they did get reliability with expansion chambers (and modern ignitions). If you are going to modify that engine much, you better have a source of pistons, because you are going to stick pistons on the way to getting the combination to work. Will Harrison make or supply them? Or maybe you could go to Wosner (I think it is) if you have the cash to have them make pistons. Expansion chambers tend to make pistons hotter. And those Anzani pieces are not modern high-silicon pistons.

Let's see, I do recall that one substitution Jim and Ron tried that worked was VB Konig rods and big-end bearings. Possibly the Konig small-ends had to be machined or ground to work with the Anzani piston and wristpin and bearing. The VB Konig rod was about a tenth of an inch shorter than the Anzani rod, so the mounting surface of the block (to crankcase) had to be machined down by that amount to keep the port timing right.

Presumably you are just using the Anzani as a playmotor or lake racer. If so, maybe it's better not to try to make a lot of power with it. If you want to make 75 to 80mph power, you might instead find a good Yamato 80 that was used for a no-longer-run class called Restricted B. This is a generally tougher and more capable motor than the Anzani. There aren't a lot of Anzanis around, and collectors may offer you more for yours than a good Restricted B engine, ready to run, would cost you. There are other PRO engines that are obsolete or becoming so that might also work for you, such as the 250cc Yamato. In their day, Anzanis were often referred to as "Anxieties," and you might find that for all your efforts you only get a few short rides and a lot of hassles.

I see you have another thread seeking Anzani parts. Now don't take this wrong, but I'd guess that very few members here who own such parts would be inclined to sell them to you, rather than an engine collector, and have them get used and maybe irreparably damaged by a newbie building a playmotor that he maybe doesn't know much about. A fair number of mechanically-savvy members here have fabricated their own outboard racemotors using engines from motorcycles or dirtbikes, for which there are always plenty of replacement parts at a reasonable price, so that's another option you might consider if you want something unusual.

I'm interested in how your aluminum boat comes out. I have heard that there was an aluminum outboard hydro in the very early Fifties. Are you employing honeycomb panels? And are you a "panel-beater", an ace with an english-wheel? There are a lot of compound curves in the deck of a hydro, unless you design those out.

[Gene East]

Smitty, Would you recommend welding as Daniel is planning or riveting?

I think you are correct in your recommendation of selling the Anzani to a collector and buying a more dependable engine with the proceeds

[Smitty]

Anything I'd say would be sheer speculation from ignorance! Daniel is evidently a welder, and as such should know all about distortion, esp. when welding sheetmetal, and presumably knows all the standard tricks for reducing distortions via weld sequencing, fixturing, chill-bars, minimizing heat input, etc., etc.. I would think that a good way to keep the back of the bottom flat, and the main girders straight, would be to use honeycomb panels there, and maybe everywhere else that he'll have uncurved panels (non-trips, gussets, etc.).

I'm not sure anyone knows how the very few aluminum outboard hydros were put together in days gone by (before honeycomb panels). Maybe once Daniel gets a clearer idea of what he's going to attempt (I think his first move should be to go to some boatraces), he could contact Ron Jones, Sr. or Jr., who built honeycomb Unlimiteds.

Daniel is in England, which would make it impractical to get an ex-Restricted B Yamato 80, as I had previously suggested. If he goes to a UIM race over there, he can get more appropriate suggestions for his project. Better yet, he might decide he wants to get into racing!