
Originally Posted by
Strokerhaus
Yes a couple of my single cylinder Alpha bottom end's are on that web site, and the picture you attached of the Alpha test bike with the very early single cylinder engine is one of my bikes although it no longer looks like that. The Alpha twin on the web site is one of 4 machines that "survive", but its not mine. That is the sister bike of the one damaged in the fire, which is being rebuilt slowly by its owner, the frame is now straight thanks to young Sprayson, there is now a replacement gearbox sourced from New Zealand, he has a spare engine, so heading in the right direction. I'm now making a replica Centuri engine since I do not want to trash another original Alpha engine on the race track, heads and crankcases already cast I still have to finish the core boxes for the cylinders, but that could take a week or two yet! My bike is one of the two DMW versions used in the 68 TT, neither of which managed a lap during the race. Another little snippet is the bikes run on a 29 mm Delorto with an 1800 main jet, yes not a miss print, one of the short falls of using a single carb and twin disc valves, however having said that, the final version did manage to produce 48 bhp at the crank, and had an amazing appitite for primary chains.
The Merlin engine in your photo's was very popular with the Kart people, there were 3 versions to my knowledge a 200cc, 250cc and a 350ish cc engine. A very good little engine, but sadly not developed like so many other good ideas.
The Arrow engine is now becoming popular again in Classic Bike racing in the UK, as you said the engine is very similar to both the Adler and TZ, with the same bore and stroke. The bikes currently racing in the UK are much more like the TZ internally, than an Ariel. The Ariel came in multiple shapes and sizes, 200cc, and 250cc with the latter available with the standard single carb, or the twin carb sports version. All bikes had the basic very stiff pressed steel spine from, which was very advanced for its time and trailing link front forks which are very heavy, the Leader had the extra body work for every day transport, and the Arrow was the bare sporty bike. Good machines.
Another interesting British engine was the Royal Enfield GP5 designed by Hermann Meier, which I think was one of the first 4 transfer port engines around, and way ahead of the Yamaha versions, and not counting the MZ boost ports. Hermann was a very clever engineer who also tuned the very succesful TT Arrow ridden by Mike O'Rourke.
Enough now lets get back to modern stuff, so I can revise my designs for the Centuri core boxes!
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