Hi Bill,
..............
Anyway, regarding 1100 stackers, I am afraid I won’t be much help. The first race engine I worked on was the 1000 BP but I don’t think that engine or at least the engines that I worked on were stackers. Regarding the 1100 stackers I think they were most likely built at Plant #6 but I think that Roy Rauchle may have been responsible for that project. Consequently, I have no idea of how many were built but I faintly recall the machine shop building a bunch of stacks and that’s all I remember. I did develop a 16 degree 3-stacker that had a broader power range than the 6-stacker with ~10% more bhp but good old ..... said the old man wouldn’t like it so the stacks were hid behind the stove at Plant 6 so Karl wouldn’t see them. Stupid is as stupid does.
Regarding the Synthane reeds (fiber reinforced sheet in a Phenolic resin), we purchased the sheet stock (brown color) and manufactured them in the machine shop at #6. I was tasked with the job of working out the dynamics of the reeds in that confounded center reed block with the objective of making the stainless reeds work in a race engine because the Synthane would burn when the engine backfired. I spent lots of hours with a strobe light peering through a fiberglass window in an 1100 crankcase but it wasn’t until I started working on the Twister that I finally figured it out. We would build an engine and install it on Bob Hering’s boat and it finally dawned on me that when he (Bob) would decelerate to set the boat for a turn, the SS reeds would chip. So I went back to the dyno engine with the hole in the crankcase and ran the engine at part throttle, mid rpm range, the reeds would hit the reed stop and the reed would curl up and slam back into the reed block tip first. I knew enough about aerodynamics to understand that the damping characteristics as a result of reduced air flow at high rpm was causing the reeds to curl up and come down tip first. My first attempt was to reduce the length of the reed stop and I even tried eliminating the reed stop entirely. To cut this short I finally lengthened the reed port so that when the reed curled up and then hit the reed block the tip of the reed didn’t hit the reed block and the problem was solved by making investment cast reed blocks for the TII. Are you bored yet? Anyway, if you know anyone running an 1100, the solution to reed chipping is to lengthen the reed port so that the reed barely covers the port in the closed position.
Let’s see, regarding S/N’s I have no clue and I do not remember Jan Schoonover.
Finally regarding the C6, .............. As it turned out he was doing his best to encourage competition between Ted and I while at the same time he was always looking for information ............... I think you indicated that Ted said the 6C put out 200 bhp, ............ I think that was a bunch of bull. When I finally got permission to build a new crankcase for the TII (Ted got the same permission a year earlier) we finally had a competitive engine. Later we went on and solved some of the piston problems and the last two engines we built were for the record run at Kaukauna ran at ~ 7500 rpm (new porting, new pistons, etc.)
Stay well!
Dick
From: bw@
Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2013 1:03 PM
To: Lanpheer, Dick
Subject: stacked 1100's .....
Hi Dick,
Don't know if you were involved with 1100's back in their day, but have a couple of questions:
how many were built
who built them
were they shipped as stackers or were they stock engines that someone converted
did they have stainlees or phenolic (sp) reeds
did plant 6 stamp a serial number date on the front covers when they built an engine like this
do you know who built Jan Schoonover's 1100's
For some reason I think Jimmy Kubasta was involved, I think he was sent by Bill Steele to a few guys like Jan and Jimmy converted their powerheads to stackers?
BTW - you didn't finish answering my question about HP. I asked why you say the TII series was about 175 and I remember Morgan was telling me the C6 was 200.
Hope you're doing well.
Bill
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