One of my favorite late '50's engine conversions, right up there with MC Supply's V-4 Panhead (I have a really crappy pic of the V-4, I'll post it up later for you).Bored and stroked to 96 ci., with shop-cast flywheels, shop-cast cylinders, shop built overhead cam setup, with one-off 1/4 speed cams ground by (who else?) Chet Herbert. Herbert also set the cams up to trigger a set of points for each cylinder, that were mounted exposed on the L/H side of the heads, right by the spark plugs. Whew!
Here's a top view of the OHC's, and the induction system. You can clearly see the individual sets of points for each spark plug, mounted to the ends of the cams in this shot.Check out this "fogger' setup. Not quite a carb, not quite fuel injection, but it worked. The fuel was force-fed by a war surplus aircraft fuel pump, thru aircraft fuel nozzles mounted in the venturi, controlled by a big butterfly.
Dishong campaigned this engine thru the late '50's-early '60's at the strip, recording a best time in the 1/4 mile of 10.50 seconds @ 132.65 MPH. I don't know if I'd want to ride this thing bent over that chain whipping along at 130 mph, right below my ribcage. But, that's how they did it!
Remember Arlen Ness' chain-driven Evo OHC conversion, done in the late '90's? Remember how everybody went ga-ga over it? Think it looked a lot like this setup?
How about that Desmohog guy on the JJ with the Desmodici Ducati heads on the cone bottom end? All very cool ideas.
ReplyDeleteRich, forgot to add this . Stan was the man who first built those mid-controls that all the Eastbay (Oakland), and Frico guys like so much.
ReplyDeleteRich, this was before the top comment but it got lost somehow. My friend Ron and Stan were good friends for a long time as I was too. Ron has another copy Stan built of this motor. He also has all of Stan's patterns for his stroker flywheels, the fogger system, and more. Stan ran Joe Petrali's 1937 HD streamliner after Joe was done with it on the Cal dry lakes, sans the bodywork. He scattered the original cases at one point. Schaller cams ran this same machine after that. Al Lauer (the Sacramento Indian dealer)had the original body work at one time. Stan was quite the hero to us boys up north.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the Desmo conversion, It's visually cool, but that was a LOT of work on an engine that'll never use the benefits of it. Why does a Harley BT, that hits 4000rpm at 100mph need a desmodromic top end?
ReplyDeleteAnd Rich, thanks for the info on the high mids! I didn't know Dishong was the first guy to configure those. I saw my first Crocker in his old shop.
Need the top end? No, but sometimes doing shit outside the box is fun.
ReplyDelete...and sorry for the Desmodici. I must've been thinking about the $750K bike that day (which Roland Sands showed up to the NLP this year on).