Agreed. Just like Harry Miller, Harry came up with the concepts but Leo Goossen and Fred Offenhauser carried them out.
It's just another SBC, but it does have some advanced features for 1963. Mickey Thompson had some friends in high places at GM and they were only too happy to collaborate with him in this Indy 500 effort. Chevrolet provided the aluminum block and heads and no doubt engineering assistance while M/T and other vendors provided the rest.
Air cooled diesels been successful for many years in industrial equip, like Deutz tractors. Good oil coolers help
Well, There were many air-cooled engines, OTTO-cycles or Diesel engines, small or big, single-cylinder or multi-cylinder - for automobiles, lorries, tractors, buses, boats (tanks, too!) were used throughout history, without problems if well-designed, constructed and used! Well shaped metal shields around cylinders with proper turbines and the help of oil coolers were enough. In the above example of a FOX six-cylinder engine - all cylinders got the same quantity of cool air - from above, through sleeves right down and then away from the engine compartment... This one system is one of the better looking! I have experience with a small TRABANT engine: 600cc, twin-in-line two-stroke 26 HP, no oil-cooler... No problems at any temperature, easy start and ride... At the end of the eighties, a lot of Trabant engines were modified and used to propel ultralight aeroplanes and motorised Rogall trikes, of course, flying illegally in daying old Yugoslavia. My friend worked in service for TATRA automobiles that in the last variant had big 3.5-litre V-8 160 HP engines at the rear-end of limousines. The only problems were the not-so-good heating of the cabin, during short drives in winters. I solved that by driving my car in a winter jacket and Tatra had two gasoline heaters - one for each of the seat rows. Tatra need 30 litres for each 100 km during winters and heaters worked only up to 120 km/hour - after that, wind shot them down. Ciao, Zoran
David, from The Old Motor, built a brand new waking beam Duesey. If you haven't seen the pictures or read the story it is quite a tale. I'd love to hear it run.
Just arrived today from Gene Altizer, was under his work bench for over 40 years. Algon SBC injected intake featuring individually adjust port nozzles via brass knobs. When's the last time you've seen one of these...complete!
Just binged this thread. No mention of the Jeep single overhead cam straight six from 1963-ish, I don't know how many years it lasted. Hemi combustion chamber opposed valves, only one lobe per cylinder. My mom had a new 63 Wagoneer with that engine. Ran good, my big brother got it in 72, I think, and ran it until the body was falling apart. Another single overhead cam engine not mentioned was the prototype (I believe) Meyer Drake (again not certain) single overhead cam midget engine. I'm so bad at finding stuff on the internet, I figured if I mentioned both, some really good internet sleuths would find pictures of them and post here... maybe???
That's the one. With oil changes every 2000 miles and running on 60's era high test gasoline, recommended by her uncle a factory trained Jeep mechanic, it lasted close to 100,000 miles.
noboD, Thanks for mentioning the walking beam engine I rebuilt. The car's full history is know and it finished 2nd at the 1916 Indy 500. It is one of only a handful of Pre-WWI american racing cars to have survived intact in good original condition. The engine has all of its original parts except the new replacement block I made so the thin and tired original block can be preserved, and so it can be actively vintaged raced. Since then is has been run in all the major vintage races in the US and at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in the UK. It was last out in 2021 and I drove it for the owner on the Pebble Beach Tour and the VSCCA Fall Finale Races. It will be back out in 2022 for a VSCCA Hillclimb.
I love to study the details of these old cars. I am curious - why does the first walking beam have only six lightening holes in it while all the others have eight?
Maybe it was a replacement part that had the holes drilled after the fact of manufacture. I understand many of the race engines of that era were hand made using blacksmithing technology. Some were beautiful nonetheless.
The Duesenberg Brothers at the time spent much of it building engines and racing cars to sell to provide income to fund their racing team. The team cars were usually finished at the last moment before the 500 and sometimes there wasn't enough time to even paint them. One year a car was finished the morning of the race and it was going to make a qualifying attempt the when it arrived at the Speedway. It never made it there in time because it got caught in the Indianapolis pre-race traffic. This set of rocker arms originally were hand-forged as are a number of other engine and chassis parts. A spare set of original walking beams, which have survived (plus several pairs of different original rear end gear ratios) were machined to lighten them. I have thought that in the usual rush, someone forgot to drill all of the holes, or the smaller drill bits had broken?
The Jalopy Journal
