Engine builder, Steve Farkley, is recreating a new "NOVI" Indy engine in his shop on Gasoline Alley in Indy. The supercharged engine will live in a new, Farkley built, '56/'57 Kurtis style Indy roadster chassis equipped with, mac miller built, Kurtis 500G bodywork for the correct period "look". I'm working on that great NOVI tail fin to finish it off. This is gonna be a great car! OH! For those not familiar, the red #29 is what the finished car will look like.
What block is it based on? I've read about Studebaker Novi engines, but I don't know if they used other blocks too.
Go to uncommon engineering.com. Steve carved the crankcase out of a big heavy wall aluminum tube; mounted two Offy Midget (91"-105") blocks to it; created his own main bearing webs (ala original Offy and Winfield [Novi]; made a flywheel/clutch housing; "borrowed" the Milleresque centifugal blower he designed & built for a Flathead Ford (see the website); and had Moldex make a crank. The guy is a genius, master machinest, former Indy crew chief, and above all has the ability to work 16-18 hours a day for days on end. As far as the Studebaker connection-that's pretty remote. Andy Granatelli's STP Corp owned Studebaker for a while and also owned the Novi race cars. The Novi engines were designed by Bud Winfield before WW II and had nothing to do with Studebakers.
Maybe the Stude stuff was a different Novi? This lists a 1964 Studebaker STP Novi car. I used to have a link showing the Novi/Stude in detail, but the link doesn't work anymore. http://www.studebakerracing.com/usacopen.html Here's some pictures I took at the Speedway museum. It's a Studebaker-based engine.
You guys might also be interested in some of the other stuff were doing at "ground zero", here in INDY. Visit my other albums at: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/album.php?u=25869 .
The 4 cam Engine on display at Speedway Motors' museum (not THE Speedway Museum-that term refers to the IMS Museum) is the Willie Utzman built, special headed Studey V-8 subsidized by Agajanian. It never really ran at THE Speedway since they broke the snout off the crankshaft with the inertia starter during practice. No attempt was made to repair it and the engine disappeared until showing up at Speedy Bill's place. As far as those references to "Studebaker -Novi Specials" in the link; they refer to the Granatelli owned cars which did not have any Studebaker related mechanicals under the hood. The engines were definitely the 4 cam, centrifugally blown, 183'' engines of the Winfield design. (With only 3 main bearings like a Ford.) The only way the name Studebaker could be connected to the cars was via the aforementioned Granatelli ownership. uote=inkorekt;3343264]Maybe the Stude stuff was a different Novi? This lists a 1964 Studebaker STP Novi car. I used to have a link showing the Novi/Stude in detail, but the link doesn't work anymore. http://www.studebakerracing.com/usacopen.html Here's some pictures I took at the Speedway museum. It's a Studebaker-based engine.[/quote]
Wasn't the Novi's front wheel drive ?! I remember the hype of the Novi's...they were very powerful for their time...
The first Indy 500 I ever listened to was the '56 race. For years I'd listen to the race and one thing you could always count on... you could always tell when a Novi drove past the announcers booth as the scream from the supercharger was unlike any other. Here's some Novi history... http://www.studebaker-info.org/Indy/NOvi/novi1.html
I was just talking to an old timer about this the other day. He was an engineer before and after the war and had something to do with the design or componets of it or something. He's 86 so its hard to decipher some of his stories, anyway he was telling me they couldnt find anyone to race the thing for the first time because no one wanted to drive a front wheel drive car. They finally found some rookie that was willing to take it out and I guess he mopped the floor. He is supposed to bring me some pictures. If he does I will make sure to post them.
1963, the only time I made it to the 500. I can still hear Unser coming out of turn 4 with the STP Novi.
This is great project with a very interesting history I would like to see the completion. Excuse my ignorance but if I remember correctly Andy Granatelli loved these motors and cornerned the market on them at one time in hopes of running them sometime in the future at Indy! I was always curious what happened to these motors.
Thought I would throw in my 2 cents worth. The origional engine was built by Ed Winfield in 1938 and was known at the Winfield engine. 181 CI and had a bore and stroke of 3.125" x 2.75In" it was over square in principal and advanced for its time. In 1941 the engine was put into a 6 year old race car and sponcered by Bowes Seal Fast, driven by Ralph Hepburn. This was I belive a rear wheel drive car. Ralph qualified the car 10th and finished 4th. Granatelli said that Ralph was running with a throtle block as he could not use all the hp the engine had. The car and tires were not ready for the hp. After the war (1946) two new cars were built (front wheel drive) by Frank Kurtis and sponcered by Lew Welch, Lew renamed the engine Novi because he was from a small town in Michigan named Novi, Lew also had a buisness named Novi. There is a lot of history with this engine and cars for the years to come, not enough room here but I suggest reading "Mr 500 by Andy Granatelli as he wrote 2 chapters on the Novi from start to finish. He also said he has all 5 motors ready to race. This was written in 1969, I am still cerious if they are still there.
I'm SOOOOO impressed with anyone who can fabricate somethiing like that engine. That is 'way beyond cool.
There was a note about when the cars ran in FWD configuration, on the back straight it was noted that there was smoke coming from the engine bay. So the driver was flagged to come in. The car was gone over, nothing was found, and sent back out. This process was repeated several times. It wasn't until the drive commented that the car got "squirrely" on the back straight that they realized the smoke was not from the engine, but from the wheels breaking loose as the supercharger was winding up on the top end. (loosely cited from G. Borgeson "Golden Age of the American...")
The Novi engine was "designed" by the Winfield brothers, Ed and Bud, but the detail drawings and everything required to actually build the engines was done my Leo Goosen who was certainly one of the greatest American engine designers that ever picked up a drawing pen. The engines were built by Fred Offenhauser in his shop along side the regular Offy Indy engines he was building at the time. If you look the Novi looks like two Offy head/blocks on a common crank case. The money behind the Novi was a guy named Lew Welch and the real money might have been Henry Ford but that was never confirmed. Welch wanted front wheel drive and had Frank Curtis build the original cars although Curtis believed that the Novi hp would make a front wheel drive car difficult and tried to convince Welch they were still made front wheel drive. Ralph Hepburn drove the first one at Indy in 1946 and qualified on the pole. When Granatelli got the engines in 1961 he "borrowed" the drawings from Meyer Drake Engineering, the successors to Offy, and never returned them so they are probably someplace in the Granatelli/Studabaker/STP black hole. Granatelli made them 4 wheel drive which helped connect the hp to the ground but still could not get the car reliable. The best finish by a NOVI at Indy was 3rd by Duke Nalon in 1948 and that was one of the original front wheel drive cars. Rex
Rex What if they would have produced this engine from alum. This may have had a great impact on the offy.
why? ohh...volume up...Novi... http://www.milleroffy.com/novi.wav Offy for comparision... http://www.milleroffy.com/offy.rm
I would imagine the replica is the "old" noisy design...I hope so, the Granatelli era redesign were more efficient, but lost that crowdpleasing shriek! Here's some vintage Novi...
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