Boat racing trivia

[aksarbenx7]

Martin!

[racingfan1]

OK , i think i have waited long enough and there has been a lot of good guesses so the correct answer is , Whirlpool. They built one experimental motor that was raced a few times in California and had some success. However . exec's at Whirlpool decided to stick to the washer and dryer business. I cant help wonder if this motor still exists and what it would be worth!!!

[Smitty]

That was fun; where did you find that info? Any links, photos??

[racingfan1]

Sorry Smitty no photos or links. Most of the engine questions came from the book by Peter Hunn titled " The Old Outboard Book ". It is a very good reference when it comes to old outboard motors. It is available on Amazon at different price points.

[racingfan1]

Question #13 - This motor has been called " one the 1950's first all-out , factory ready , alky racer able to best the old reliable Johnson SR " ? , be as specific as possible to get credit .

[dwhitford]

Hubbel-modified Merc ''Wildcat'' . . . or some such other cat name.

[John Schubert]

Hubbel-modified Merc ''Wildcat'' . . . or some such other cat name.

I second this one

[rumleyfips]

Didn't Champion have a parallel assembly line for alky engines ?

[racingfan1]

I get the feeling I will get multiple answers on this question and each may be correct and will be debated afterwards, but the Hubbell is not the one I am looking for.

[Fast Freddie]

Anzani?

[rumleyfips]

Wasn't the factory Anzani a stock ( never APBA approved ) B ? I thought that Bill Tenney was responsible for the modifications to alky.

[mark40h]

Quincy-Merc

[racingfan1]

More specific

[Stu Ford]

Quincy-Merc-Looper

[rumleyfips]

I think the first Quincy looper was 1963. That leaves the Quincy - Merc deflector , but it was more a tuners engine than a factory piece. I'm getting closer and closer to Konig but that didn't happen till the second half of the 50's.

[dwhitford]

I bought my 1st A- Looper in 1966 in Lakeland from a guy from Buffalo (don't remember his name) who was in and out of alky racing only briefly. It had a quite early block, maybe dating from 1965. At the time I had access to Melvin Cooper's ''brand new'' (latest model) 1967 A Looper block in Bud Wiget's Lakeland shop b4 Melvin was in town to pick it up.

Bud and I measured the porting and determined that no way was I able to duplicate the ''latest'' porting because Chris had changed the porting dimensions in two directions at once between my 1965 (?) cylinders and Melvin's up-to-date new 1967 block. As I recall, the biggest difference was in the 3rd-port (the piston-port) timing, and Melvin's new block had a higher exhaust-port timing than my older block . . . more ''overlap'' between exhaust- and transfer-port timing.

So we ignored the 3rd-port timing difference, and I asked Walt Blankenstein (two doors up East Magnolia Street) to match my exhaust ports to Melvin's. I had modest success with this cylinder block as a new alky racer in the late 1960s. I think that Paul Christner might be able to shed additional light on the Looper changes that were taking place in that middle-late 1960s era when Chris was trying so hard to stay ahead of Koenig development.

I still have that Blankenstein-modified cylinder block down cellar, if anyone is interested, as well as the later exhaust-divided Quincy Looper cylinder block that I acquired (at peril to the family budget) in about 1970

I'll add that I tried hard to make exhaust-expansion chambers work on the A-Looper in the early 1970s. I failed. But Bob Grover succeeded in Vermont with the exhaust--divided newer cylinder blocks and exhaust headers. For awhile, Bob & I were in almost daily telephone ccntact about this ''secret'' project.. Eventually Bob prevailed with what would now be considered a ''mild'' chamber config.

I drove Bob's rig (a Yale pickle-fork hydro) at Thompson, CT a year or two after he sold it. It had more punch than I ever remember from my own Loopers, but he and I were a day late and a dollar short of being able to win with his rig. The day of the cast-iron Koenigs had already arrived with their additional 4-6 mph!

[racingfan1]

I feel we are getting close but I am looking for something just a little more specific.

[Steve Dunn Racing]

Gravity tank 20h Quincy

[racingfan1]

We have a winner , that was exactly what I was looking for.

[racingfan1]

Question #14 - In 1961 Dave Berg claimed both the A Hydro and A Runabout championships. Tragically Dave was unable to defend his titles as he was killed in a boat racing accident several weeks before the 1962 Nationals. However another driver won the A double in 1962 , can you name him???

[mtechmarine]

Thomas Christopher, Grenada MS

[racingfan1]

Well that didn't take long