Sir Eddy's Rocket

Many thanks to Pete Kellod

Hi Paul,

Please accept my condolences for the loss of your dad.

I had the pleasure of racing against Ed in the 60's at both Westwood, Seattle and Portland. Your dad was the absolute wonder to us the first time he came to Westwood on his 650 Norton Twin. This was the early part of the 60's and we were running the races, paying for the track time and doing everything by ourselves. To make the events more interesting for the public, who pay the bills. We shortened the races to 7 laps and then the 2 or 3 of us, Stu Timbers, Jack Heanski & Ben Hircock (Victoria) and local stars Ted Havens, Dave Wildman and myself would decide, in advance, who would win the 7 lap heats and we would make a very visual race "Competitive." Then at the end of the day, we would have the "Final Event" and that was "Look out for here I come."

Well, this fellow showed up, from Portland, never saw him before, and he went out and went like hell. He was very quick but all over the road. The first race, Ben Hircock was to lead and win, and your Dad, well he just took off and charged to the front. We were in a small group, behind your Dad, looking at each other and pointing to Ben, "Go after him and win," Ben, replied by shaking his head and pointing to his engine, said "No."

Fortunately, well for me, l had the fastest machine and just managed to nip you Dad at the finish line. Your Dad was a great racer and after he got the "Dunstall" Norton, I could never beat him at Portland, he was first every time, Seattle was 50/50 and Westwood it was close.

Well, that is how I remember it. I have had some correspondence from him occasionally and want to say, he was a Racer, a Gentleman and I enjoyed his friendship.

Now, Ted Langton-Adams, passed away quite a while ago, but I have many of the original photos.

http://www.modernmotorcycling.com/Westw ... /index.htm

Place your cursor over the photo image and note the image number. I will be pleased to send the original images to you at any time.

Pete Kellond.

Wow, 70-75hp from a pushrod 500 twin. As much as the factory J.P.N. F 750s..
No wonder you need to build it strong enough to spin past 10,000rpm..
What fuel classes are you considering?

My Triumph had a 63mm stroke billet crank, and standard 650 rods, it would rev easily and safely to 10,500 rpm. The valve gear is the limiting factor. It wasn't a pleasa nt bike to r ide , but it was exciting. It crashed me all over the place. - Just nasty, and all top end.
I still ask the question about w elding aluminium heads - how are they heat treated without changing shape ? Looking at that photo, I would probably be inclined to relieve the area around the valves. Often wondered about doing that modification, but I once welded a Triumph head to centre-plug it with 10mm plugs, and it softened. It had been ported a lot, and the inlet port cracked in the bit just in front of the valve guide.

J.A.W. said:

Grumpy bastards sometimes seek to have their rude-brusque-arrogant lack of common courtesy excused as 'not suffering fools gladly', or so I`ve been told , by some bloody fool...'L.O.L.

Click to expand...

+1. Great thread going here.

In the deep south this is what we call a "Shit Eatting Grin". I'd not worry about Sir Eddies head fill in job though any insights on the processing appreciated. Its automatic when ya can just twist the front tire up to lean into another to leave em further behind. Mr. Singh was a motorcycle racer that got wins and busted up almost as much as Eddie did.

Great Pic Hobot! I was trying to put that one in the email posted from Pete. I thought I had it right but NOT!
I appreciate you stepping in and helping out online as well what you are doing for the bike.
To answer the questions on the head heat treating...
I don't believe that it has been done but I may be wrong, I will ask Les on Friday and let you know.
Any Charlie Toy fairings ans seats sitting in the rafters of anyone's shop?

Hobot,
I just got time to read through the post on the HP calculator and streamlining.
Great stuff! I agree with your statement below that we are looking @ 140's with an average street fairing.

HP vs Speed calc's, RBRacing has helped Peel project in a number of areas. Their hp-speed calculator implies mid 140's mph with street type fairing.
http://www.rbracing-rsr.com/aerohpcalc.html

Thank you for the post!

Well, if you are looking for a cigar/streamliner, maybe these guys have something hanging in their rafters.. http://www.teamvesco.com/bodiesbyvesco.html

Great article about my pops our Sir Eddy.

The first 650ss bikes, and the pre-unit Bonnevilles were of course not as fast as they got later on. The Bonneville kept getting bigger and better carburettors etc. year after year. The 650ss was not developed as much, but did eventually get some much needed oiling system modifications and finally larger carburettors right before it was axed.

For a few years after the 650ss came out it was successful in production racing out of factory-backed Syd Lawton's dealership. But in 64' lawton switched to running a Triumph Bonneville in the same races and won them with that also. Which backs up how important preparation and having a good rider is. The much more rare 500cc 88ss, same bike but smaller bore and stroke, also won it's share of production races.

When Heinz Kegler was with Norton over in England helping them test and develop bikes, he had a special 1962 650ss that had been tweaked by the experimental department. It had a Model 99 flywheel and pistons and a hair bigger camshaft and 389 monobloc carbs. He said they took it to the MIRA track which Norton often tested bikes at and it ran 127 mph with ease. The bike needed good fuel for it's higher compression. He rode it across Europe for Norton on the autobahn etc. back and forth to trade shows etc.. Heinz said that it was a prototype for what Norton was thinking of doing to the 650ss in subsequent years. At one stop somewhere in Europe he got a bad tank of fuel which detonated and screwed the engine up a bit. He made it back but he said it's power was way down.
So the 650ss had a lot of potential, and if AMC had not wiped Norton off the face of the earth at the end of 1962 it may have come to be....

I would check some records for Westwood. Before the 650ss came out there was the Manxman, and Edward Bilton-Smith built one up and eventually had it in a Manx chassis and won at least one season Championship.

He started off with a stock Manxman and modified it for drag racing first, and won a large number of trophies with it. Then he road raced it for a number of years all the while modifying it for that, which eventually led to swapping the engine/gearbox into a Manx chassis.

The engine was built up from all stock Norton parts as that was about all there was back in 61'-62'; 99 pistons, a stock cam which was reground to a smaller base circle, head ported by following suggestions in the "Tuning for Speed" book, and careful assembly.

He said it was important to keep the standard gearbox in the bike with it's low first gear, as he would beat all the Manx Nortons and other Grand Prix race machinery that had close-ratio boxes to the first corner ever time.
First photo is of bike in fairly standard trim, second with Manx chassis.

Check out pics by beng » Tue Sep 18, 2012 7:30 am about half way down the post.

post172730.html?hilit=heinz#p172730

Please see the attached pictures of the high dome pistons for the "Full Squish" head and how the high volume oil pump was modified to run off the magneto drive chain.
Pretty Cool Stuff!

Unbelievable ; a day and no estatic post'ers !

A ingenious solution there , young man . Wished Id thought of it Myself . Now THATS a Oil Pump . Indeed . looking good .
another hour or twos work , abnd it all should be finished . :shock: :? , 8) .

What are the spot-faced holes in the back of the cases, under the oil pump, for? Maybe fittings for the oil jets to cool the pistons? Inquiring minds need to know.

Ken

'oil jets to cool the pistons'

Isn't that what methanol is for ?

Thanks for the pictures. Who sells the oil pumps ?

Your both spot on... Dad wanted to make sure this is cooling everyway possible. The pump was from a buddy of Les Barkers at Nutter Racing Engines in Vancouver WA. Dad machined it to fit and designed how it would work. We will have pleanty of oil...

Ok Alan brings up the question of what fuels are planned to run on?

Japan researchers found it takes 0.6 liters a min. oil jet to cool piston crowns 100'F in our size jugs. Pump must also be able to suck out the extra oil it sprays inside.

This brings up question of how Sir Eddie provided to lower case pressure inside and not suck oil out too.

Being that the motor has the left crankshaft throw rotated "backwards" to create a 270/450 deg. firing cycle the crankcase pressure will be reduced dramatically from the 360 deg. firing order of a Norton. My dad vented the crankcase into the right cover. We will also be running a 4 quart tank to help with cooling and oil supply.

The fuel class we will be running is Gas. The gas can only be purchased at the meet and your cap is sealed and can't be broken our your run will not be recorded. GAS...

NRC make very high quality oil pumps that are designed for dry sump racing engines. I can't tell for sure, but the pump looks like a single pressure stage with either one large or two smaller scavenge stages, and should be more than capable of scavenging all the oil the pressure side can pump. Doesn't matter how much goes to lube the engine and how much goes to the oil jets, it won't be more than the scavenge side can return. These guys aren't idiots, so I can't picture them designing a pump that wouldn't be able to pull out all the oil it could pump in, and then some. On their race car pumps, they typically oversize the scavenge pump sections enough to pull out all the whipped up oil as well as a decent vacuum in the sump. Of course they also usually have a large air-oil separator with lots of baffling that recovers the oil before it gets to the breather vent, which we don't usually have much room for in our motorcycle oil tanks. I also don't think we have to worry too much about whether Sir Eddy could figure all this out for himself.

I just re-read this, and now I'm wondering if I'm really becoming the cranky old bastard my family accuses me of. Oh well, I'll post it anyhow.

Ken

definitely "cool stuff" thanks for posting... after being in Afghanistan for the past 4 months I'm ready to get myself one of those Newcastles. I mean,,,,,,uh,,,,,,,awesome custom oil pump application

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