Twister and Twister-1

[Mark75H]

I have found the difference between the first Twister and the Twister-1 at last!

The original Twister featured the "cow bell" side exhaust that turned down the side of the motor in a side chamber but did not reenter the leg; instead it goes straight out the bottom of the side chamber. The Twister-1 has the redesigned leg where the exhaust comes out to a side chamber and reenters the housing and exits through the SuperSpeedmaster's exhaust outlet below the cavitation plate on the version used in Europe and out one or two holes in the tower on US versions.

Raceman, do you have a cow bell Twister?

Brian, did you have a pic of a motor with the cow bell exhaust?

http://www.offshoreonly.com/forum/attachment.php?s=&postid=406789

[Raceman]

Sam, I don't know where that information came from, but it's not correct, at least not entirely. The Twister, as I know it, had the exhaust entering the mid just like the Twister 1. I have both engines. I've never seen a Twister that didn't re enter the housing. I wouldn't say that they never made an engine with the exhaust open, just that I've never seen one. Even the early Twister literature that I've seen shows the exhaust in the closed configuration, just like the one in the picture you linked.

There are some other differences between the Twister and Twister1 besides the color of the stickers. The Twister 1 had the new firing order requiring the different crankshaft. This firing order carried over into the T2 & T2X. There is also an internal difference in how they dump water on some of the red engines. Some of the red Twisters dump from the top of the log and some from the bottom. I have one red Twister that dumps from the top and my other one, pictured here dumps from the bottom. I believe that all the Twister 1's dump from the bottom. This required a different casting in the log between the two types.

I have a Twister1 upgrade kit which Merc sold as a complete boxed unit. This included a different block and exhaust log as well as a box full of small parts.

All of the red striped externally logged engines were simply labeled Twister, while the blues all said Twister 1

[Mark75H]

Sounds like there have become 3 types of red Twister that preceed the blue Twister-1.....

My information comes from a very very reliable and informed source. The cow bell Twister uses the regular BP mid section and SSM adapter. It was a stop gap or proof of concept motor between the open stack Super BP or 1350 decaled BP type motor and the through the leg exhaust Twisters, before the Twister leg casting was made.

It is possible that there were as few as 8 or 10 cow bell units made, I'll ask that question next.

I had heard some old racers mention the cow bell Twister, but had no idea what they were talking about.

[Raceman]

I didn't mean to imply that they never made such an engine, just that I've never seen one and that the common red striped Twister was of the other configuration. I'll check with Wally next time I talk with him. I think he was still at Lake X during that time frame.

[Mark75H]

I noticed this Twister differs from the one posted on our other thread here (I posted it to OSO). Looking at your profile view of your red Twister I see the heads of 3 bolts behind the main row of bolts......it appears that everything is different between your motor and that other one with the water dumping out the bottom. I wish I could see a view of your motor about 1/4 around to see where those bolts really are. Your the mid and exhaust log on your motor appear to be exactly like the one in the ad from the APBA rule book. (Raceman's lower unit is the optional MC-1 (or I-SSM in this ad), the lower unit on the motor in the ad is a regular SSM.)

[Raceman]

Sam, it'll take me a little time because they're not within my easy reach, but I'll get you some digital shots on the logs of both my red Twisters and the blue Twister 1 as well as another Twister 1 that's in the posession of a guy close to me at the lake.

One interesting tidbit on the gearcases: Wally was so involved in Mercury back then, with his dad holding a high position with Mercury and he and his brother both working at Lake X intermittently while the were teenagers, that he's real knowledgeable on this timeframe. I've never caught him in any fact that was incorrect, but there's one thing that he stedfastly maintains that seems difficult to believe. He says that all Twisters that left the factory with racing type gearcases (they did make some for offshore with shiftable types) had the MC1's which were almost always taken off, discarded and replaced with SSM's. This has always seemed unlikely to me because the old literature that I have now lists both gearcases as available on the Twister or Twister 1. The particular engine that's pictured here is VERY original, with alledgedly less than 5 hours total time. The original owner who I bought it from 3 or 4 years ago stated emphatically that the MC1 that's on it was the only gearcase available for it when he ordered it. So who knows, but it sure seems difficult to accept.

[Bill Gohr]

I saw one with the exhaust dumped out the bottom but I'm not sure where that engine came from. We always calle dthese Silo Engines, If what Sam says is true as far as the number of the engines, if Raceman has 3 I know where 2 are and possibly a 3rd and the one we saw at Merc I guess we know where they all are.

[Raceman]

Bill, I think Sam was referring to the ones that dump directly out of the bottom of the log as being the rare ones. All of mine go back into the housing and dump through it. I think they must've been fairly common.