Oddball engines and prototypes

[pete376403]

There's a small bell ringing faintly in the back of my head - I seem to remember the old man saying that one of the Milne bros was behind a 4V conversion coming out of the states around that time. As an ex speedway pro he kept track of that sort of thing - and he'd met Cordy Milne before the war when he came out to NZ. It's a very small and esoteric area of engine development done by a small group of people.
I can't search well enough to come up with any links sorry.

Drake 4v conversion - "This JAWA conversion was developed by the DRAKE Corporation whose main claim to fame was the fabulous Offenhauser engine as used in the Indianapolis 500 car race, from which the head design was used on the Speedway engine.

The engine was actually designed by Hans Herman who was the Chief designer of DRAKE engineering whilst the owner of the company and Chief engineer was Ed Schafer, who also worked for SRS (Speedway Research and Specialties), and revealed that the 4-valve head was inclined at twenty degrees and pushrod operated.
The engine, tested by American and Exeter star Scott Autrey, became available for the start of the 1976 season and featured a flat piston with 4v cut-out. Mr Schafer noted, "The benefit of our 4v Head is that it bolts on to a JAWA engine with no modifications or machining required. The conversion kit consisted of the following:
Cylinderhead complete with valveguides , springs , rocker arms pushrods.
2 ring forged piston 14 / 1 compression ratio
When you placed your order you sent your cams to be reground and the price of the conversion kit was $ 600.00 US

We would like to thank Bert Sergent from New Zealand who has kindly sent us the following pictures of the DRAKE (Speedway Research) Motor:"

http://cybermotorcycle.com/archives/...ikes/drake.htm. (no pictures though)

[Grumph]

I stumbled across a small article in an old Classic Bike mag about a Swedish bloke Ebbe Troedsson who commissioned Rodger Tichmarsh to build a Seeley replica special but the motor he had would fit so paid nearly 3000 pound for a non runner BVR motor & gearbox to fit into the special and it all ended up in a shit fight and duly ended with Valentine saying production of the motor had ceased. There was just a small background about the intended usage.

What I saw was the original announcement/teaser piece - again in a Classic Bike or Classic Racer mag - where Valentine quoted a test rider as saying "it's an absolute animal" yeah, right. No perfomance data supplied and as I said, pretty sure the pics showed the usual speedway mag ignition.

Well done Pete - good skills finding that. My old man may still have been correct about a Milne involvement as Drake wouldn't have developed it on their own without some prompting...

[T.W.R]

What I saw was the original announcement/teaser piece - again in a Classic Bike or Classic Racer mag - where Valentine quoted a test rider as saying "it's an absolute animal" yeah, right. No perfomance data supplied and as I said, pretty sure the pics showed the usual speedway mag ignition.

Well done Pete - good skills finding that. My old man may still have been correct about a Milne involvement as Drake wouldn't have developed it on their own without some prompting...

Here's the small article I have....quiet an interesting read, no wonder Troedsson was pissed off makes the motor look like a real Walter Mitty effort.

A link to the piece about them being ineligible for speedway & long track by the FIM regulation

https://www.google.co.nz/url?sa=t&rc...ArWDZNhZiFMUq8

[husaberg]

Here's the small article I have....quiet an interesting read, no wonder Troedsson was pissed off makes the motor look like a real Walter Mitty effort.

A link to the piece about them being ineligible for speedway & long track by the FIM regulation

https://www.google.co.nz/url?sa=t&rc...ArWDZNhZiFMUq8

I remember young Valentines reply to the article he said something about the fins only being decrotive anyway.
His father had designed the way the finger rockers works after he had said he wanted to do the 5 valve.
He was only about 23 or maybe younger when the engine was put into production
from what i understantd BVR also made only 5 5v v twins and NZ got 3 of them
https://s22.postimg.org/4ihb991zl/We...n_DOHC_5_V.jpg


http://s30.postimg.org/r6yin0p75/Baz.jpg
Baz Fox likely has them all.
http://macgor.proboards.com/thread/3...denco-vee-twin

---

Here is a Drake JAwa
http://i1338.photobucket.com/albums/...siklj8jyh.jpeg

[T.W.R]

I remember young Valentines reply to the article in the next issue he said something about the fins only being decrotive anyway.
His father had designed the way the finger rockers works after he had said he wanted to do the 5 valve.

Yeah he said something similar in the 3rd to last paragraph....."He stressed their fitting was for aesthetics rather than cooling purposes"

[guyhockley]

Drake 4v conversion - "

http://cybermotorcycle.com/archives/...ikes/drake.htm. (no pictures though)

These should be the pictures from the original page.

Doesn't have the Drake, but there's a german website that covers some of the same stuff that the Speedway Workshop site did. Google translate, maybe?

http://www.bahnsporttechnik.de/

[guyhockley]

Thought you were allowed 6 pics per post?

[guyhockley]

The only pictures from the BVR page - not very good ones either.

The text read:

"The above Photo's show the BVR (Brian Valentine Racing) SOHC 5 Valve Weslake engine. The father of Brian is Ron Valentine the original designer of the very first Weslake engines.


After Otto Lantenhammer came with his prototype OHV 5 Valver, Brian decided that a SOHC system for the 5 valve should be much better. The engine was tested in a grasstrack bike and was very promising, but the project was stopped by the FIM because very shortly after the engine was tested, they came in with new regulations for speedway and longtrack racing.
The new rule stated that only engines with 4 Valves could be used in speedway and longtrack racing.


Many thanks to Ben Ludolphy from the Netherlands for supplying both the pictures and the information on this one."

[guyhockley]

I think there's a chapter about the BVRs in one of Vic Willoughby's books. I would go and look but it's cold and wet and the bookshelf is out in the workshop!
The Haynes museum is just up the road from us. They have an upstairs room which is dedicated to some bloke's private speedway and long track collection they inherited. It's really annoying! Stuff has been laid out very artistically, but with no context, order or information. Part of it is a row of engines from JAP to GM via various 4 valve conversions but in no sort of order and devoid of information.
(In my opinion) the rest of the museum is pretty much a waste of time, too...

https://www.haynesmotormuseum.com/th...way-collection

[guyhockley]

Not in a book in the workshop, in a folder on my hard drive!
The Godden GR500 (which also spawned a V-twin, I think?) is in "Winning Engines" by Vic Willoughby.
Also REG from Classic Racer.

[guyhockley]

Bit more REG

[guyhockley]

and finally.

[WilDun]

Guy,
REG was a very interesting machine, it just shows that no matter how good you might be as an engineer, the big boys of the establishment will just ignore you and eventually "starve" you out! (ie except for guys like him).
That's what happened initally to the Wright Brothers powered flight project in America and the same scenario slowed down development of Whittle's jet engine in Britain.
There is a bit of a mistake in the description of the crankshaft (under "Technical Marvel" heading), where it says that it was "Nitralloy" which is nitridable steel (and which it most probably was) - then it goes on to say that it was machined from a solid billet of HCN5 aluminium (doubt it!)
Other than that, a very good article!

and...... I really should be in bed!

UPDATE: - maybe he was referring to the rods when he mentioned aluminium.

[pete376403]

The valentine article mentions the banning of twin plug heads (as well as 5 valve heads) - I bought a J.A.P speedway motor from Bruce Abernethy (aka Abbo) many years ago - it had a twin plug head, the additional plug hole was between the pushrod tubes. I didnt get the special timing case/magneto platform though. It used to run two magnetos, one timed fractionally ahead (or behind) the other. Abbo said it made that motor unbeatable out of the starting gate (This would have been in the late 40's early 50's I guess). Sold all the J.A.P stuff to Harold Sergent when i switched to Jawa. Harold has a fairly good speedway museum in Fielding and he has a knack of finding rare things so he may now have the complete Abbo engine. He may also have the Drake / SRS /Offy engine as well.

[Grumph]

Abernethy was an old acquaintance of my father's. I was introduced to him at a Lady Wigram meeting where he was running I think a Cooper JAP.
I'm pretty sure the old man respected him as a trader/wheeler dealer, not necessarily as a rider. The twin plug JAP sounds like something he'd have tried.

Pity we've lost Geoff Mardon, he knew where a lot of that stuff was - and where it had come from.

I ran up against Sargent when I got roped into trying to get F500 cars going in the SI. He was providing a good Jawa for someone up north who was a regular winner. I simply prepared a couple of Suzuki 400/4 based engines that made way more HP than a Jawa could - and didn't weigh a lot more.
F500 seems to have died out now.