Hot Singles ! - Pictures

[John Schubert]

Some 1100cc alky racers were already doing this and 1 or 2 are still in service and functional, as in FULLY functional.

Yup, Lon Stevens 6 was at Depue with Derek Gesler having aspirations in racing it. He didn’t but did test it. Sounded awesome.

[FUJIMO]

I was at the Como shop in 1971, and Scotti did not come to Renato's shop. Renato's shop was on the western shore, and Cesare was on the eastern shore of Lake Como. Probably in 1971 that became the division line, when Molinari hulls started becoming exclusive only for Mercury, and Scotti hulls for OMC. But in the 1970 video titled Bill Sirois, you will see Cesare Scotti at Renato's race shop, and all the USA Mercury guys too.

Here is the Bill Sirois video link, titled Bill Sirois "OPC" Tape.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkFc29jo6us

...Beginning of film, motor getting its prop changed, early Cowbell Exhaust...

[willabee]

Now the FUN part.....guess what I found

I know this will be old hat to the Canadians , but it should be interesting to the rest. There has been a lot of chatter about the infamous Cowbell, the inline 1350 with the open Twister/silo exhaust system. It had a very short factory life span, just the summer of 1970. I doubt that more than a dozen were ever assembled. Based on what I've read on S&F, it appears that a lot of people had never heard of this engine and very few have ever seen one..... Mark 75H says that he's still looking for a picture of one!

Well, ol' Boob Hetzel and Jimmy Kubasta were out on Butte des Morts doing some secret testing with that 18' Molinari with the lightning bolts painted on it.....they were proping out a Cowbell! These things had a great sound, one all of their own. I'm old school, I think racing and noise belong together. Although I like all of the different sounds of open exhaust engines, for me, the perfect world would be a 21' twin Molinari powered by a pair of Cowbells .

Sorry about leaving Boob's nose in the photos, but if I had cropped that honker of his out of the frame, we would have lost most of the bells to manifold connection .

Ladies and Gents, the Mercury Cowbell..........

The film was taken by Dick Snyder, the man in charge of performance propeller development at Merc. He continued filming when we arrived in Italy to set up our Paris boats. I don't know how many copies he made, I have one and posted these cowbell exhaust pics from it back in 2008 ..... and it seems like it was just yesterday!

[GENE LANHAM]

[QUOTE=willabee;3155949]The film was taken by Dick Snyder, the man in charge of performance propeller development at Merc. He continued filming when we arrived in Italy to set up our Paris boats. I don't know how many copies he made, I have one and posted these cowbell exhaust pics from it back in 2008 ..... and it seems like it was just yesterday!

QUOTE]

It seems like yesterday??

We had some of this story going pretty good, Bill--I think I dropped the ball!!

The boat with the lightning bolts is the boat driven by by Dick Williams (and me on rare occasions)

After the Havasu 69 disaster---GG wanted the boat back--(broke Dick's heart---really)

Never saw the boat again til this video--

Now if I can post some pics?--Without Tiny-Pic?? BOB-V?

[FUJIMO]

There was a Cow Bell exhaust dump, like the one pictured above, that was a couple inches shorter as well. Both design lengths very short lived.

[willabee]

There was a Cow Bell exhaust dump, like the one pictured above, that was a couple inches shorter as well. Both design lengths very short lived.

The one pictured above is the first version of the exhaust outlet, a weldment. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure the one pictured was the first cowbell to be water tested! After that came the cast version, but I believe it was the same length as the weldment.
One day Bob Hering and I were doing some testing of the cowbell using the cast version. Before we called it a day, I decided to shorten a couple of them to see if we could identify any performance difference. We could not, but those two we modified are the only shorter versions that I can remember.
On the other hand, all of this happened a while ago and it's possible I may have forgotten about a third version.

[2us70]

Did Mercury run a cow bell motor at Miami Marine Stadium? I had a flashback of a Molinari with what looked like one of those motors on a trailer next to the old concession stand. I don't recall what race or how the boat did in the event. All that stuff was way above my pay grade.

[FUJIMO]

if u saw it, it was there.

[Bob V]

This picture appears to show shorter unequal length cowbells.

[Mark75H]

They give the same overall length. The rear cowbell is fed from the even cylinders which are lower, the front cowbell feeds from the odd cylinders which are higher.

[Lake X Kid]

Here is the 1966 Molinari hull, that was the forerunner to Single Outboard Powered Tunnel Boats, becoming the dominate craft of future F1 race boats. Boat 888 debuted at the Gold Coast race in 1966, from Miami to West Palm Beach and back the following day.

Notice the newspaper article did not know it was a craft from Como, Italy. And labeled the hull a novel boat. This boat was a Mercury factory race boat, rigged at Lake X. Roy Ridgell was instructed by Mr. K, not to trailer the hull at the Miami race dock after the impressive finish. He did not want competitors and media, to get an up-close view and know anything about this new imported race craft. So after the race, Roy motored to a nearby marina, away from prying eyes.

[RogerH]

Here is the 1966 Molinari hull, that was the forerunner to Single Outboard Powered Tunnel Boats, becoming the dominate craft of future F1 race boats. Boat 888 debuted at the Gold Coast race in 1966, from Miami to West Palm Beach and back the following day.

Notice the newspaper article did not know it was a craft from Como, Italy. And labeled the hull a novel boat. This boat was a Mercury factory race boat, rigged at Lake X. Roy Ridgell was instructed by Mr. K, not to trailer the hull at the Miami race dock after the impressive finish. He did not want competitors and media, to get an up-close view and know anything about this new imported race craft. So after the race, Roy motored to a nearby marina, away from prying eyes.

Not sure if this is posted elsewhere, but here's a current day picture of the 888 - restored by Bob Schubert

[Lake X Kid]

"By the way, any of you guys got an idea on why those engines were cutting out?'

My uneducated guess is; at top-end rpm the engines were starving for fuel, because the carb's jets were to small, or the heat from the Stacks was causing electrical shorts.
Now I hope someone with the real reason why, will reveal the real culprit.

Here's a couple more...


#457 - Bobby Hering - 17' Molinari sprint - 1350 stacker - Havasu - on Sunday he set a record for distance covered by a single over a 4 hour period, breaking the one Tom Stickle had set the day before in an identical setup

Attachment 365142

#187 - Jim Merten - 16' Molinari sprint - 1250 - Miami Nationals - I might not have this exactly right because this was a strange deal, but here's the story.
We took two of these 16' sprints to Lake X, one for Merten and the other for Bill Sirois. The idea was to run the standard version of the engine for what was "U" class and then put the stacked powerhead on to run "S". Sirois hadn't arrived yet, so Merten set up both "U" boats. We started on the stacker setups and found that the engines were cutting out on both boats on top end only. We pulled carbs apart, changed electrical components and changed complete powerheads, all with no success. I called engineers back in Wisconsin, but they all drew blanks also. To make matters worse, while a bunch of us were in the shop working on Merten's boat, he and Richie Powers were testing Sirois's boat. Merten told Powers to take it for a run in hopes that might give Richie a better idea of what was happening........Richie blew it over. Looking at the bright side of things, that did cut our problem in half

Attachment 365143

We finally figured out the problem and went down to Miami. If memory serves, Merten was feeling bad about Sirois not having a boat, so they agreed that one of them would run "U" and the other "S". This picture is Sirois driving.By the way, any of you guys got an idea on why those engines were cutting out ?

[willabee]

"By the way, any of you guys got an idea on why those engines were cutting out?'

My uneducated guess is; at top-end rpm the engines were starving for fuel, because the carb's jets were to small, or the heat from the Stacks was causing electrical shorts.
Now I hope someone with the real reason why, will reveal the real culprit.

Good guess, but not the source of the problem. Keep reading the story, the reason for the misfire will ultimately surface.

[Mark75H]

Good guess, but not the source of the problem. Keep reading the story, the reason for the misfire will ultimately surface.

We pulled carbs apart, changed electrical components and changed complete powerheads, all with no success.

Changed complete powerheads with no success ... the problem would seem to have been in the boat, not the engine. Did the gas tanks have sufficient venting?