Oddball engines and prototypes

[WilDun]

............Yes, chain of choice is the merc duplex, made by Iwis..................I'm not a fan of morse chains for primaries. Very heavy in relation to load capacity IMO.

I always knew that silent chain was available, but I had no idea there were so many complicated variations of it!
Tooth form generally seems similar to a rack and it's just as complicated as gearing!
For some of the purposes we are talking about here, maybe it isn't suitable, but with timing chains I guess it eliminates a lot of gearwheels.
I'm sure it's better used where it gets a lot of oil (ie as opposed to pre-lubed and sealed roller chain) - guess it would be difficult to lube properly otherwise?

[Grumph]

Morse chain is pretty well universal now for cam drives. It started coming in from the early 80's - replacing roller chains. Honda and Kawasaki both used it for primary chains up till space considerations made everything gear primary. Generally speaking, 750's and above had a pressure oil jet built into the cases to keep it wet. Below that capacity it's just splash and drain down to lube them.

I'm assuming that the old selling point of Morse chains - price - was the driving force for change because they don't last any longer than a good roller chain.
But it's got harder to find a good roller cam chain now. Tsubaki was the best but it's almost impossible to find now.

There's a guy here - who may even chime in - who's cut a number of CBX 550 Hondas in half with broken Morse chains....

[Michael Moore]

The photos from the Spartus article are in this folder with file names starting with spartus

http://www.eurospares.com/graphics/engine/

There's also SpartusSingle.pdf for the full article.

Sparks and Witham were S&W valve springs.

cheers,
Michael

[T.W.R]

The photos from the Spartus article are in this folder with file names starting with spartus

http://www.eurospares.com/graphics/engine/

There's also SpartusSingle.pdf for the full article.

Sparks and Witham were S&W valve springs.

cheers,
Michael

60hp from the single isn't too shabby...that's just shy of what Ducati's Supermono produced

[guyhockley]

My plan was to use the 500 clutch and primary chain with the 750 box, ignoring the jackshaft that drives the original clutch. May not happen but those are all bits I already have - that old justification for dodgy engineering!
I know of 2 examples where Morse chains are/were not well lubricated. There's a dutchman called Hans De Witt who runs a very original Konig in european classic races and that has an open Morse primary, presumably as Kim Newcombe designed it? There are usually smears of white grease on the the chain. There are photos of Rudi Kurth's Yamaha triple outfit that has a long first stage Morse secondary drive chain back to a shaft that then drives the back wheel with a roller chain.

Here's an article about Tigcraft's ER500 (as they seem to have called it) - it's that man Crashcart so some details are a bit iffy...
I've tried to shrink it, Greg but the files are still about 1.5mb each and 10+ overall, sorry.

[guyhockley]

Hmm, they seem to have ended up in reverse order and Kiwibiker says they're about half the size my computer does...
Here's the rest, anyway.

[guyhockley]

Back to Hillman Imps, if a Lynton replica is doubtful, how about one of these!

[guyhockley]

Also, to answer the lineage/design question of the Imp engine:

The Hillman 875cc engine


by Leo Kuzmicki, A Craig Miller and Peter Ware


From the paper presented at the symposium on the Design of Small Mass Produced Car Engines in November 1963, and presented to the Scottish branch of the Mechanical Engineers (Automobile Division) in Glasgow on Monday, January 20, 1964.
Prologue


The all-aluminium Hillman Imp engine developed from the Coventry Climax design was one of the design features of 1963. The bulk of the development work on this engine was carried out by the three Rootes leading engineers named above. Peter Ware is a director and chief executive engineer of Humber Ltd, while Leo Kuzmicki and A. Craig Miller are both chief engineers with Humber.

[Grumph]

Interesting design attribution for the Imp. I've read in several places that Harry Mundy of Coventry Climax was responsible for much of it. If you take it that the Imp was a productionised FPF Climax, then maybe he was. So that's where Kuzmicki went post Norton....bet it paid better than Norton did.

I hae me doots about your kawasaki parts mix. I've worked on both the fours and the twins and neer the twain shall meet if you'll pardon my scots.
You've got my email, if you want to get more detailed, we can talk.

Open morse primaries - some years back, I was asked if I'd scrutineer the local big BEARS meeting - the Sound of Thunder. I answered yes, sure but there'd be a tightening up on standards, starting with a committee menber's Norton which ran an open morse primary...Our rules state all primary chains must be covered.
Funnily enough they never got back to me....

Kawa 500's....Mine, 500cc, megacycle cams, RS36's, low budget....72hp and 142kg with about 4l of fuel - Meth/toluene brew. Tony McMurdos' Pink Thing, around 88hp and 145kg with a Honda VFR frame, same cams, RS38's and usually 25% nitro/meth/toluene brew. Much earlier than the Tigcraft effort - around the '87-89 period.
Finally read the Tigcraft article. Prob was an ER5 engine. The earlier EX500's gave no gearbox problems - even supercharged. Never even undercut the box in either engine. They were also revving it a bit low - with better springs and a local aftermarket ignition box we were using 13 grand as the limit. Never broke a crank but did a big end on one.

[guyhockley]

Interesting design attribution for the Imp. I've read in several places that Harry Mundy of Coventry Climax was responsible for much of it. If you take it that the Imp was a productionised FPF Climax, then maybe he was. So that's where Kuzmicki went post Norton....bet it paid better than Norton did.

I hae me doots about your kawasaki parts mix. I've worked on both the fours and the twins and neer the twain shall meet if you'll pardon my scots.
You've got my email, if you want to get more detailed, we can talk.

Open morse primaries - some years back, I was asked if I'd scrutineer the local big BEARS meeting - the Sound of Thunder. I answered yes, sure but there'd be a tightening up on standards, starting with a committee menber's Norton which ran an open morse primary...Our rules state all primary chains must be covered.
Funnily enough they never got back to me....

Kawa 500's....Mine, 500cc, megacycle cams, RS36's, low budget....72hp and 142kg with about 4l of fuel - Meth/toluene brew. Tony McMurdos' Pink Thing, around 88hp and 145kg with a Honda VFR frame, same cams, RS38's and usually 25% nitro/meth/toluene brew. Much earlier than the Tigcraft effort - around the '87-89 period.

I was bought the Coventry Climax Engine book as a present but never got round to reading it, yet. I'll dig it out and see if that says anything relevant - got 2-3 hours on the road, tomorrow, and torn ligaments so mrs is driving. Depends if the car sickness holds off! Harry Mundy - also involved in the Lotus Twin Cam?

The Kawa project is a long way down the list, so, thanks for the offer and I may get back to you if we're both still around...

Did Kim Newcombe use a Morse primary, and why, I wonder? Anyone got the book?

I was gobsmacked at 72bhp from 500cc, then I got to the fuel bit :-)

[guyhockley]

650 custom framed GPZ500 - text reads a bit oddly because it's a translation from german, I think. Don't know what the excuse is for the poor maths...

[guyhockley]

Got things a bit out of order.

[Grumph]

I was bought the Coventry Climax Engine book as a present but never got round to reading it, yet. I'll dig it out and see if that says anything relevant - got 2-3 hours on the road, tomorrow, and torn ligaments so mrs is driving. Depends if the car sickness holds off! Harry Mundy - also involved in the Lotus Twin Cam?

The Kawa project is a long way down the list, so, thanks for the offer and I may get back to you if we're both still around...

Did Kim Newcombe use a Morse primary, and why, I wonder? Anyone got the book?

I was gobsmacked at 72bhp from 500cc, then I got to the fuel bit :-)

Yes, I think Harry did the twink. See my additions to previous post. That fuel mix we developed in a GSXR1100 which Holden rode for a season here.
No idea what HP it made but it laid good Michelin slick rubber literally everywhere. Holden set lap records everywhere he rode it that season.

[guyhockley]

According to the book
https://www.veloce.co.uk/shop/produc...oup=Motorsport
Harry Munday was only at Coventry Climax from 1950-1955 but he very definitely laid the foundations for the future engines and remained a (hard) drinking best buddy of Walter Hassan, the chief engineer.
The genesis of the Imp was the FWM = Featherweight marine and was originally a vertically mounted 650 outboard engine. It became the 750 FWMA (A for auto) at Colin Chapman's bidding and did well at Le Mans. Other versions, Fire pump, pressure washer etc. followed. The MKII was bored and stroked to 875 and this was the one that Rootes started with. Coventry Climax regarded the whole thing as a bit of a disaster with Rootes redesigning various aspects of the engine without testing or listening to advice! It didn't stop them getting involved again later, though, as they developed the 998 conversion.
Leo Kuzmicki is described as ex-Vanwall which makes sense given the connections between them and Norton.
Probably enough about a car engine on this Kiwibikers site? :-)
One last bit from me - for TWR - this mentions the Pollard Imp (as well as his half-an-Anglia engine).

[T.W.R]

Did a quick look through previous posts & laughed at the search function
Here's R.E. "Bob" Geeson's REG