60 replies to this topic

[Joe Bosworth]

One of the most successful of racing two strokes were the series of H-Modified Saab engined sports cars built for SCCA racing by Martin Tanner of Saginaw Michigan. He built T-1 through T-7 and won severall national championships with them.

T1 was built in about 1956 originally with a Crosley 4-stroke but very quickly convert4d to Saab power. This requireed some re-engineering as H-mod was for 750 cc engines so the Saab needed to be made a bit smaller. T-1 was loosely styled in the general shape of the Mk2 and 3 Elvas.

T-2 looked quite4 a bit like a Lotus Eleven while T-3 and later had a lot of miniature Lister look to them.

Martin was fairly old when he built the T-xs, my memory wants to place him in his fifties but when he got to that point in his seven cars I won´t swear to. He had many facets to being successful, paid for by his business interests. His interests went from boat building to bridge champion and beyond.

All of the cars were beautifully built, maintained and raced. I think that he did most of the work on them by himself or at least with only a small group of helpers.

I am pretty sure that I have seen refernce to most of them still in existence in historical racing in the US but would be interested if someone could detail this.

Regards.

[Duncan Fox]

Lee,
Back in 1963 Nev Waters raced a TQ speedcar at the Windsor RSL Speedway which was powered by a two-stroke Johnson outboard engine.

Grahame ,

here in NZ we had a clever gent by the name of Dennis Smith who raced a tiny v4 Johnson powered single seater in 1966. It weighed something like 230kg It had a Renault gearbox. It was so light the wind would blow it all over the track ,

I saw it in the early 70s at a house not far from where I lived in Bucklands Beach Auckland and it had morphed into a baby CanAm style sports car with 4 huge tuned pipes out the rear . I had forgotton about it until I saw it at a Manfield Classic meeting about 15 years ago . It was just as impressive then as it was when I first laid eyes on it actually moreso as it belched huge flames from the 4 exhausts ,just as spectacular as its performance .

Denis Smith was involved in a Kiwi built car project that was to have been powered by the Hamilton Walker rotary engine. That project like others here sadly failed.

[bradbury west]

the Hamilton Walker rotary engine.

That was a very interesting design. IIRC. It was featured in Autosport many , many years ago. I think there is an interweb site for it. A very talented man.
Roger Lund

[David McKinney]

What Duncan doesn't mention is that Dennis Smith's original Spider single-seater lapped Pukekohe in comparable time to 2.5 Tasman Formula cars

[Francois78]

Good morning . As mentionned previously , there is the "formula 500" class at the Olympics ( SCCA runoffs ) . The motor is a Rotax 500cc 2 strokes , 2 cylinders ( a Fuji and a Kawasaki are also allowed) .

See them in action here :

http://speedcasttv.com/scca/


Some pics from the SCCA runoffs 2009 :

[Duc-Man]

Make that 12 pistons, and I'd agree with you. This engine has long interested me, but I've only read about it, never seen a drawing. As I understand it, there were six paired cylinders, with a single casting that incorporated all twelve heads, and an ingenious intake one side, exhaust the other crossflow arrangement. Can anyone point us in the direction of some better info?

I found something about it in english. Bottom of the site.

[Allan Lupton]

I found something about it in english. Bottom of the site.

That system works for a single pair, but for a multi-cylinder arrangement you need the crank axis to be at right angles to the line joining the cylinder centrelines.
As drawn there is no obvious way that the exhaust port could open before the transfer ports then close before the transfer ports as the pistons cannot be timed separately. With the crank as I just described, v-shaped conrods give the exhaust piston a lead over the inlet as done in the Trojan and (according to Sloniger/v. Fersen) Zoller did it that way.

[Amphicar]

Nobody has mentioned the Chaparral 2J so far - it certainly had a two-stroke engine, albeit not driving its wheels.

[RA Historian]

One of the most successful of racing two strokes were the series of H-Modified Saab engined sports cars built for SCCA racing by Martin Tanner of Saginaw Michigan. He built T-1 through T-7 and won several national championships with them.

No, just one, HM in 1958.

[ghinzani]

Surely theres stuff on the hills and sprint tracks? Not the modified gearbox kart type like the Sceptre I hasten to add, as we've discussed them before.

[Bjorn Kjer]

The SAAB which was front engined , a little outdated design when it arrived , was allthough perhaps not a WINNER , but a winner .