Last night at the Town Hall cruise night we came across this nice looking 1928 Buick with an American LaFrance engine. The older gentleman that drove it there says he built it about 30 years ago and drives it whenever he can. The engine is 855ci and has 3 spark plugs per cylinder. One of the plugs in each cylinder is connected to the distributor for starting it. The other 2 plugs are connected to the mag. It's set up similar to what an old Vanderbilt Cup car could have been. Lots of brass and wood and overall....very cool!
Definately a cool piece of history there. What has me stumped is the cylinder configuration. Is it a 3 cylinder with 4 valves per cylinder or just a 6 cylinder with 2 cylinders parallel to each other? Either way, very cool. Thanks for posting.
Had me going too, so I asked.............. It's a 6 with 2 cylinders parallel. An inertesting design really. But I dont' know if I would really want to do any major maintenance on it. I had to laugh when some 20 something guy asked the owner how big the engine was, after they were told 855 cubic inches they asked "How many liters is that?" Here's more of a direct side view pic.
That is very cool!. I get to work on a 1926 LaFrance we have here at work. Those motors are big! The one we have has only two plugs per cyl. with 2 ignitions , a mag and points and coil. Here's a motor shot...
The engines of fire aparatus have redundant ignitions systems for the severe duty they were exposed to at fire scenes. If you have a pumper truck, you certainly don't want the engine crapping out when the fire is only half out. These things sat idling at 11 or 12 hundred rpms for hours at fires. If the primary igition started to miss fire due to fouling the plugs they would switch over to the backup. Or would use the magneto fired circuit at the scene in order to not have to worry about having the battery discharge. Did you not eht little brass plaque announcing that it wa a high compression engine and required ethyl gasoline? Minimum of 74 octain, ain't that just above kerosene????? If you ever get a chance to attend a SPAAMFA (society to Preserve and Appreciate Antique Motorized Fire Apparatus) check out the show. Lots of interesting mechanical stuff, and some very pretty trucks. When you are ther make sure you ask somone about the Mattydale Lay.
Its a rat rod, it has an Iron Cross!! It is uber cool, what a blast it would be cruising down the highway in it would be! Doc.
Very cool, I also get to work on our 1928 La France pumper at work. It looks the same, but with a small variation. Ours has 3 plugs per cylinder, but 2 are distributer and 1 is Mag.
Love it, this made my day! When the Great Race came through Lexington a few years ago I was fortunate enough to see an American Lafrance go by. Huge wheels, huge car, sounded incredible. I'd pay good money to ride in one of those.
ever after that old drag coupe was found with its long island heritage, i try to look a little harder and longer in back yards. there really is some cool stuff on this island. and i saw the iron cross first time what do i win
Cool car. I wonder how much torque you could get out of that engine with a set of custom high compression heads...
I believe if you look real close, you will see it doesn't have heads. The cyliders are cast to include the head and are fixed to the crank case. So you would need o cast new cylinder assemblies, or maybe just reliece the crankcase to move the piston up further into the cumbustion chamber.
I saw that motor in the "Indy cars from 1911-1939" book I bought for my Old man, me and my brothers father in-law were both quite enamored with this thing. Really cool looking motor for sure. *edit* Spoke too soon, however very similar motor, perhaps not so big, it was a Leon Duray 16 cylinder motor, which appears to have been built pretty much the same way, except it would be 4 cylinders per "head", couldn't find a picture online and no scanner, may take picture later and post.
A couple more pics for the morning crowd: This plate was the forerunner of the "Easy Pass" toll system. You paid an annual fee and you had access to the Vanderbilt Motor Parkway.
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