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Re: [Spridgets] What engine?

To: Michael Rowe <mdrowe@optonline.net>, Spridget Chat Group
Subject: Re: [Spridgets] What engine?
From: charles christ <cfchrist@earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:27:00 -0400 (GMT-04:00)
a business i worked for a long time ago built engines for randy canfield who
at one time was SCCA national champion in H-production for a number of years.
decyphering who built what engine can be very easy or very difficult.   one
shop of the time (i have one of their 948's stashed awaiting rebuild) painted
qualifying engines "blue" and racing motors "red"!  i was very suprised by the
odd colors for BMC engines as most chose black that i was aware of.   the
answer!  the really close to the edge of "grenade" (fast but very unreliable!)
engines were painted " blow up blue" , and... the racing engines were painted
(still fast but very predictable as far as reliable was concerned) "racing
red"! that same place painted axle ends the same way to tell soft from hard
axles!
there is a lot to look at as far as what do you really have.   the missing
engine tag indicated the block had the head gasket surface machined to true
the surface.  you may or may not see remnants of the two retaining rivets in
the deck.  i remember cold chiseling off engine tags and throwing them away on
certain engines before milling the decks and yet other ones carefully removing
tags and re-riveting then after machine work was done...... ask "hopper" or
"flounder" how hard to keep a head gasket in an engine if it's not just right.
hmmmm i still have a few good cooper "S" BMC head gaskets stashed...and then
you get into who's regrind cam is it........norris was a good cam source from
a long time ago.  and before 3 into one headers and through the tunnel exhaust
was popular , longman was a great header company.   but that was a long time
ago in a far away galaxy.....now i wished i had one of the many nifty alloy
period valve covers i remember seeing that i reguarded as"evry one had one" at
the time.....
mike , you are very close to me.   possibly you have one of the "gutekunst
fabricators" engines i worked on? or later bob griffith whom now is known as
"BHP development" (he did a lot of the top secret nift neat-O head porting and
balancing work for gutekunst before branching off on his own , also he drove
the gutekunst SCCA national run off winning G-prod spridget  as well as the
GT4 (i think?) blue and white mini #4 prior to that in SCCA national events).
honey hill farms racing built the color coded engines.

chuck.

lurk-lurk-lurk.....back to alfa romeo GTV6 & formula ford work......
-----Original Message-----
>From: Michael Rowe <mdrowe@optonline.net>
>Sent: Jun 9, 2009 12:26 PM
>To: Spridget Chat Group <spridgets@autox.team.net>
>Subject: [Spridgets] What engine?
>
>I have an engine with the tag removed (??why??).  I was told it is a 1098,
extensively reworked by some famous engine builder from years ago.  What
should I look for to determine what it is?
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