The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The HiPo Shop stove bolts at Indy 1950

I have an extensive library to support my habit of the study of old machinery, especially automotive and engines.
In re-reading a June 1950 copy of "Motor Service Magazine" billed as the blue book for automotive service shop operators, I found an after the fact article on the 1950 Indianapolis race describing the cars Etc and their features.
This being in the day of the Offy and the open wheel cars, I was pleased to find some more unconventional power trying out for the field and thought stovebolters might find some pride in what was written.
Evry car in the field was offy powered but one which was a Supercharged cummins diesel that dropped out in lap 52 with a broken vibration dampener.
Let me quote on the Chevrolet entry: " Paul Cantarano of Los Angeles had a rebuilt and hopped up Chevrolet engine that would run like a scared rabbet despite it's failure to get into the race.Another job with a Mercury engine in it did qualify, but was bumped out of the line up by a faster car.The performance of the Ford built v8 engine in car No 82,owned by Bob Estes and qualified by Joe James at 124.176 surprised a lot of people.It was equipped with Ardun overhead valve heads--compresion ratio said to be aboout 15:1" Goes on to describe the heads.A picture of part of the Chevy engine shows a 6 port-crossflow head with downward angled intake runners carrying what looks like a Hilborn sprinkler system.The stovebolt turned in a speed of 121.065.
Top qualifying speed was 136.013.The race was flagged at 345 miles because of rain and the winner, Johnny Parsons had an average speed of 124.002 in a naturally aspirated Offy.
I'd like to see the detail that went into that Chevy engine.Stacked up well against the hemi-headed overhead valve Ford.
He probably had splash oiling and babbit rods too--don't you think???

Looks like this car was auctioned off, with a 216.

http://www.rmauctions.com/CarDetails.cfm?SaleCode=MO04&CarID=r112

What! No Allison Aircraft? lol

that sounds like a wayne head 'cept they were a crossflow 12 port head. And that was their era. Leo Santucci's chevy six cylinder hopup book mentions something similar to that race and a third place pikes peak hill climb special of the early fifties. I have been trying to find something about the hill climb car on the internet but to no avail.

Wayne heads were to the chevy sixes as the Ardun head was to the flathead ford. Interesting to see how close the two motors turned in track times. For the wayne head on the chevy- check out the internet for "Wayne head"; "Wayne-Horning head" some were made for the GMCs too. Some were cast iron, but most were aluminum. Usually with nitro fuel they would produce over one horse per cubic inch. The onset of the 265 V8 chevy motor killed all interest in the hot six head. so they just went away. In the early 2000s someone bought the Wayne head dwgs, molds, etc and reproduced a few, they were all snatched up quickly, even a registry is being developed trying to locate the existing originals as well as the recently reproduced heads.

You did know that the Ardun head (ARkusDUNtov)was designed/mfg'd by the same Zora Arkus-Duntov of small block chevy & corvette fame? It took chevy boys to really make the fords run. Ol' Louis Chevrolet designed/produced the Frontieac (sic) OHV head for Model T motors in the twenties (commonly known as "Fronty" heads).

A lot of the wayne heads were run on oval track cars, and most are still found racing at Bonneville.

I seriously doubt if any were run with babbited rods, as the popular setup on high output early chevys was to run GMC rods and full pressure oil pumps.

very interesting. Thanks