British Anzani Racing Motors & History

[Healey75]

I recall water injection into the inlet manifold on cars in the '60s as an aftermarket go faster fitment, it all faded away, but for sure I have noted that some of my older cars go far better on damp misty day than on a hot summers day..maybe higher air density on a cool day as well as the water droplets, I did my apprentiship in the aircraft industry in the '60s, the Rolls Royce engines I think on the VC10 airliner had some sort of water injection system to assist when the aircraft we operating on hot and high altitude runways... makes me wonder why it's not part of todays car engine system...rust..?

[Alacrity]

I am sure the fantastic british Harrier & others also use water injection to boost its engine performance as and when needed.

[se7en]

In 1968,My first Lotus 7 had water injection, I left it at the top of the slipway on a spring tide........ it didn't make that engine go any better !!

[twister]

Lesson 1: Do Not Loan Your Car To Clive!

[SpiritOfSelkirk]

Jim Hallum sent me the Anzani twin block D engineering platform that they used identical dual Anzani 322cc 2 carb engines on it with both blocks tuned sideways and blocks-cylinders swung 180 degrees and over the transom inside the raceboat to deal with overhang weight with the exhausts in effect making their start from inside the transom in both going out.

The engine coupler transmission is the heavy Anzani unit I am used to and have but the output shaft center output is blocked and taken off one side that is outside the transom. The rest below the engine was done 2 ways as the adapter to midsection is Merc they used a Mercury Mark 75 midsection, gearcase & clamps and due to towerbousing cracking went to a fabricated steel tower with Konig clamping system and Konig gearcase too.

It was reported to be incredibly heavy where the twin block C Alky weighted in a 140 lbs it was reported to be around 185lbs produced about 170 horsepower and it was run on a DeSilva class F runabout it took 6 people to launch it including 2 people on starting ropes starting both engines at once with USA west coaster Charles (Chuck) Walters as principle driver. It was incredibly fast and could compete with the class D padded block high compression 3rd port Alky Merc 4 bangers of the day and even the class F 6 bangers too but the grumbling kept it in D in Region 10 during its development. What crashed the project was the NOA rule changes by the mid 1960s and it was so freaken heavy no one wanted to help launch it anymore! With the project coming to an end the complere engine blocks were split up, remounted on Anani midsections, gearcases and run as individual class B Alky engines around the region with different drivers until that too died out.

As this monster twin block 644cc Class D Alky (methanol-nitro-caster fueled) Twin Block Anzani is parted together in 2010 I will post pictures in stages of this horrendos hybrid one of a kind Anzani engine for readers.

[SpiritOfSelkirk]

ALL ABOUT DUAL EXHAUSTS PER CYLINDER ON ANZANI RACING OUTBOARDS:

The other things I was sent was a "Rams Horn" dual exhaust system for Anzani WHERE Ron Anderson from Region 10 (west coast) USA developed to use. They used megaphones to start off and then the driver would mechanically switch a gate would switch in the Y shaped horizontal elbos to expansion chamber exhausts. Again it was all incredibly heavy and the expansion chambers reverse supercharging effects were too much for Anzani crankshafts tapered big end pins throwing the crank out of phase so they stayed with single megaphones.

By the early 1970s using a single tapered megaphone per cylinder using nitromethane increases in the methanol caster mix to set records with Wallin going as high as 107 miles per hour before they ran out of 12 foot hydro dynamics and slowed down as not to end over end flip. According to Anderson and Jim Hallum they could have gone faster but no 13 to 14 foot hydro was in the works before Anzani racing came to an end. Was 115 mph possible? According to them if they could hold a crank together, yes they felt it could.

They were hoping for Harrison crankshafts but that came to an end of supply too.

Anderson also made his own one piece connecting rods from plate steel of a grade that also were way better and stronger than the Anzani rods.

Bill Tenney had his own design of Anzani dual exhausts systems too but instead of a horizontal Y he used a more compact and lighter over and under "shotgun" design that was lighter that originally used 2 different length and taper of megaphones to suit the race course type-length. Tenney also went to a combo megaphone and expansion chamber combo system using this exhaust gate switching exhaust elbo system but also found it too heavy as well as crankshaft killing so it was abandoned for single megaphones and more nitro. Tenney never got any Harrison crankshafts by the time everything Anzani ended.

Tenney never went to multiple carbs with huge existing enlarged ports the west coasters did. Tenney stayed with single Vacturi carb per engine but went to a 6 instead of 4 in cylinder transfer port configuration that also produced rdiculous horsepower on the dyno on some 30% nitro in the fuel producing some some 475 horsepower per liter on a 322cc class B Alky 6 intake transfer port engine. When Tenney had the 1967 garage fire that engine melted leaving only the 6 port cast iron block salvagable as well as a class A Anzani with the prototype 6 port system in only one cylinder to see if would work and it did!

Bill Tenney, Jim Hallum & Ron Anderson were the most noteable when it came to Anzani development where Bill Tenney showed the way and Anderson and Hallum put the 250cc into the 90 mph ranges and the 322cc engines over 100 mph to some 107 mph runs as well setting records in the process. Tenney supplied a volume of racing engines to the east coast and midwester parts of the USA but the few that were out in the USA west coast area brought on the great speeds ultimately.

The remarkable Anzani twin block coupled 4 cylinders total engines belong to the Tenney and Anderson&Hallum with midwest driver Flloyd Harris Jr. driving C Alky runabout sucessfully and Charles (Chuck) Walters driving for the west coast effort in class D Alky runabout. All are or were remarkable men not just for Anzani but for outboard racing concerning these Anzani engines by their accomplishments.

[SpiritOfSelkirk]

"Ramshorn" twin tube exhaust engineering. They kind of look like the name. The prototype exhausts leading to the trying of expansion chamber exhausts were done with exhaust gas directional mechanical switching via cable hookup for the driver to actuate from a throttleside kneeling position next to a deadman's throttle and steering wheel. Bear with me that the picture is dark and better ones will be added in the spring of 2010 restorations get going.

[SpiritOfSelkirk]

The USA - NOA class D - 644cc Twin Block coupled engine platform and engine coupler transmission is pictured. Sorry that it is very dark as well, better pictures will be done in the spring of 2010. The Anzani mounting plate engine adaptors are clearly visible putting both Anzani engine blocks over the transom in with the driver's cockpit to prevent overhanging over the transom side rearward making for less structural weight easing the steering and preventing exhaust metal of the pipes cracking and breaking.