ORIGINAL: supertiga
Kiwi
That was our shade next that Duke lived under.
Yea the baldie was not much good for AMA fast, My problem was one good run and they were shot! They did make a fantastically fast slow rat engine with a 9X8 TF PP run a click rich.
I kinda hurt Dukes feelings with my comments on the Baldie and he confessed to me that he really didn't understand what was going on with the Schnurel porting.
I was running a K&B 6.5 in Rat and had done some reshearch and some talking with
John B at K&B and had some ideas.
The front and rear port passage angle was my idea and the case finish I had told him it would look nice if he could simulate the Magnesium look of formula car castings in aluminum.
Once he grasped the porting his main concern was that the casting/machining of the angled ports were going to run the cost to high for real world combat fliers.
THEN he said
"David, I see how to do the ports"
How?
" Top secret and not going to tell you"
Please?
" No, you will see in a few months"
Well the idea he had was the tall 6 bolt back plate!
Killer engine.
The cranks that broke at the back of the thrust washer was due to no radius on back of thrust washer to match the radius on the crank and the washer would cut into the crank radius causing a stress riser.
The two engines, both the Baldy and the first two "Marks" of the 6-bolt engines, went through different heat treating also, in which the brittle ones broke just like G21/35 shafts did, through the intake port. There was a dull-looking black colored shaft (speaking of the threaded portion), the bronze colored shaft, and the final, shiny black one, for both the Baldy and the Mark III.
The bushing .36-what can you say?
The only good one I saw was hand built by Duke For Tommy(one of out team) and ran great..........as long as Duke started and needled it!
I had a case of Baldies and bushed .36 that I stored in a 5 gallon bucket of oil and they developed some kind of black oxidation and are now maybe good for parts.
THESE WERE NEW ENGINES!
The only lubricating oils I would have kept aluminum engines in would have been the ATF for Ford transmissions, and Shalers Rislone additive.
I do have some stock of Fox and ST and other parts plus the oil ruined engines so let me know what you need.
If you have one of the suction / "stunt" sprinkler venturis for a 35C Tigre, I could use that, for sure.
Dad tried to convince me to try the K&B stallion as it was basically a Green Head.
Just didn't sound like it was worth the trouble to me.
He was happy with the ST .35C
The OS .35 I used were the stunt engine-massaged of course.
Few pics of some old combat engines and even a Fox Rocket (similar to .36X)
I started out with a Nobody and a Torp 29. I got the plan for it directly from Don Still, in 1953, along with a "Victory" stunter plan, when I met him in Houston, added a Half fast with a Torp 35, and a Strawn Streamer Creamer, modified for lightness (no hardwood LE), my first year in competition. I missed getting the first Fox Combat Special at the time, and at first was very hesitant about Johnson's 35s.
The Torps used a fairly soft steel cylinder that needed a lot of castor, and K&B fuel only had 20%. After adding some Blast to boost the nitro, I wore those old Torps' compression seals down fairly fast (add in the dirt they were ingesting in crashes as well, of course). The Black Head Fox was my first of any kind of engine named a "Combat Special", and I had three at one time, the most I had of any engine in the 1950s. I lost all of those one way or another, but got a replacement from eBay (two, in fact). I also had the Series 3 Combat Special, just one of those, and about that time, got a Johnson also (early 1960s).
I still have the same Rocket 35 Red Head (no emblem on the bypass) I got back when it was sold next to the Black Head that it shared cases with. And the modified Sterling P51 it was bought to use on is still around, almost 50 years later. From the Black head through the Mark VI, I had at least one of every Fox engine used in Combat, unless you want to count the 35X and the Blue Ribbon 35 as being seriously different (one had twin needle bearings, was the only difference). I had to replace the Mks III and IVs I'd had with eBay purchaes (one each), and never did get another Mk VI, either kind.
Both of the Baldies I used for Slow Combat are still in my stuff, but one is all apart, while the other is together. The only Mk V that I had was traded for a backup Mk III, before I ever broke it in. I had two or three of th eplain bushing Sport 36 Foexes, and the one that ran best had been a (used) RC version, with a different looking front end on it. But they were the worst unbalanced shakers from Fort Smith since the Black Head Foxes and Rockets. This is the second time I've written this, but what I wrote yesterday never got added into the message thread.
It disappeared after I clicked the "OK" button.