History Auto racing 1894-1942

Wow, the more I studied photos of this car the more I fell in love with it. Some things I noticed:

the exhaust system is relatively advanced for the time

dig the screened-in side panels (note to self: incorporate that into one of your rod builds)

the radiator behind the engine bought him an "aerodynamic advantage".

also check out the flywheel - that has to weigh 150 lbs if it weighs an ounce

 

Gentlemen,​

I wish to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation for the wonderful contribution all of you have given during the year. ​

I wish you and your loved one's a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.​

​

 

Happy Holidays to all....

 

If anyone has anything to chime in on Burman's motors I certainly would not object.

Jim,

Merry Christmas! Some good Wisconsin racing engine stuff here :

http://books.google.com/books?id=L_...&q=wisconsin racing engine stutz 1914&f=false

Burman's Keeton had a T head Wisconson "almost identical" to the Stutz. In 1915 Wisconsin supposedly built replicas of Mercedes, Peugeot and Delage racing engines. This article from 1917 appears to be on the Mercedes copy, but with "forked rockers". The Delage copy looks like the Type "Y" engine, which had horizontal 4 valves/cylinder with forked rockers, maybe that's where the idea came from..... From the records, it seems Bob sure knew how to throw a rod, maybe he just pushed them harder. Do any Wisconsin replicas survive outside the 1916 Weightman Special ?

Paul

 

Merry Christmas everyone! Thank you for all the shared info and photos over the past year. I've had these two 8x10's for years, looks like a 1940 photo before the car got the #44. Driven by Al Putnam, entered by Tony Gulotta Offy 255 powered. Sure would like to know if it is stuffed in the back of a garage somewere and what is its earlier history. Best wishes for 2012. Bob

 

also check out the flywheel - that has to weigh 150 lbs if it weighs an ounce


The 1915 flywheel was 70 lbs.

Paul

 

Some research on the Stevens/Adams concoctions from Michael Ferner-looks like the car in your photo started out life as the 1934 Meyer driven Ring Free Spl
http://www.oldracingcars.info/marques/indy/stevens/

and you probably missed this but Michael repsonded to your 4/28/10 post with some photos and info
see post #3174
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=380814&highlight=indianapolis+500&page=159

 

Thanks Carl, I must have missed that info on post #3174. How did you manage to pull that out of all the posts on this thread? I know there is a lot of info on here and I just scroll through stuff, there must be a faster way. Bob

 

Glad to help Bob.
I've been focusing the past year on trying to get some basic histories on the Miller cars and so am just now beginning to be able to connect the dots whilst following Michael Ferner around!
I have an album (in progress) for each of the Miller groups-here's a link to the Post 1930 configurations that includes the car you brought up (i.e. The Ring Free car)
http://s1011.photobucket.com/albums...post 1929 config -Stevens-Gulf etc/?start=all
Best of Holidays to All the Racers.
carl

 

Burman's Keeton had a T head Wisconson "almost identical" to the Stutz. In 1915 Wisconsin supposedly built replicas of Mercedes, Peugeot and Delage racing engines. This article from 1917 appears to be on the Mercedes copy, but with "forked rockers". The Delage copy looks like the Type "Y" engine, which had horizontal 4 valves/cylinder with forked rockers, maybe that's where the idea came from..... From the records, it seems Bob sure knew how to throw a rod, maybe he just pushed them harder. Do any Wisconsin replicas survive outside the 1916 Weightman Special ?

Paul[/QUOTE]

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Paul, I believe there area at least 3 Stutz/Wisconsins from the OHC era. There is the #8 Cooper car that I believe has spent quite a bit of time in museums and the #5 Anderson mount that has been in New Zealand for years. The #3 1915 Weightman Stutz is in a private collection. I also remember the #3 1914 Stutz at Indy a few years ago. That would make it the Barney Oldfield entrant but I know nothing of the provenance. There are probably more but off hand I cannot state with any certainty.

As to Burman's 1913 Keeton, I am not sure what if any modifications he made. I bet he probably did as he was one to tinker. I had read he had to work on the car to get it ready up until the last moment. He led for awhile but two 21 minute pit stops put him behind a tad. One pit stop was to change carbs and the other was to repair a punctured gas tank (allegedly plugged with chewing gum-if you can believe that). Burman was known to get behind the wheel and run it as hard as it would go. If that meant pounding it to death then so be it.

After the 13 race, Burman hooked up with a new financial backer, William Thompson of Kalamazoo Michigan (owner of a syndicate of newspaper) and he set about to build the Burman Specials which would compete in the 1914 events, including Indy. The engines is these cars I believe they called &#8216;centipedes&#8217; although I am not sure why. These cars were built in Battle Creek Michigan for him and Billy Knipper to drive. The cars were not finished until spring of 1914 and the press stated they were of Burman&#8217;s own design but they were built by Wisconsin and the bore and stroke appeared to be the same as the &#8216;stock&#8217; Wisconsin race motors. The difference of course was in the valve train and had double valves and forked rocker arms similar to the old Delage. This may be easier to accept as Knipper drove the winning Delage in July of 1914 at Sioux City so they may have had some access to it for some time-who knows.

Following Indy in 1914, Burman hooked up with another financial backer, LC Erbes of St Paul. Erbes bought up old auto companies and had pretty deep pockets. Erbes ended up supplying the money for Burman to buy the 1914 Goux Peugeot. Burman in his hard driving style found this car was not bullet proof and they went to Johns and Milbrath at Wisconsin and took the Peugeot drawings and wanted Wisconsin to build them some new motors of the Peugeot type. They later sued Wisconsin for $200,000 for a breach of their agreement and at least one of those motors ended up in the Newman Stutz, I believe.

As to the SOHC Wisconsin much of the DNA would probably look pretty familiar to the Mercedes engineers, if the truth be told.

Then history tells us, when the Wisconsin Peugeot engines did not materialize for Burman he took his sachel of cash and paid a visit to Harry Miller wherein they built what I believe were 2 Peugeots and who knows maybe Burman may have been behind the Sub with the new Miller SOHC 4. My research is not bullet proof on this theory but may be called a work in progress, that may never be proved to any certainty anyways.

All of you guys have a Merry Christmas as well.-Jim

 

These pictures I posted earlier are I believe Joe Dickinson in his "100 HP Stutz Special" with the Weightman car at the rear in the lower one 1915. One 1915 newspaper report describes it as identical to the Weightman car although it's obviously not. I wonder how these guys were able to get their hands one these near new cars and how many there were campaigned at this level.. This book is about all I've ever been able to find on Dickinson...
Smile: a picture history of Olympic Park, 1887-1965
By Alan A. Siegel

I guess the Barber mentioned there is Irving driving the Beaver Bullet as the Eye See Bee was reportedly uncompetitive with the Stutzs.

 

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! Here are a couple more photos from the Imperial Fairgrounds from the 1930's. The thing that struck me most was the width of the track...almost like a runway

 

Re; The recent Wisconsin engine talk, not much to add but this valve timing diagram from Dykes Instruction Manual #9, 1918. In spite of what they say there are no other specs to be found in the book.

I also found the question and answer about driver winnings. Adjusted for inflation, Resta and his Peugeot took home $845,562 in todays dollars.

 

The recent Wisconsin engine talk, not much to add but this valve timing diagram from Dykes Instruction Manual #9, 1918. In spite of what they say there are no other specs to be found in the book.

Hello David,

This shows a slightly different valve timing (5 degrees) than the 2/10/17 Automobile Journal link posted above. Maybe a typo or a different engine ?

All pretty mild timing specs, but it shows they were beginning to get it on the later closing of the intake, but still hanging on to the misguided late intake opening. Most of the text from the period (even into the 1930's) state that you want to keep it closed for a bit to build up some "suction". Maybe thats why Miller thought the stolen Duesenberg 3 degree BTDC intake timing was "radical". Do you have anything on the valve timing on the 1921 Duesenberg 3 litre GP engine? Could it be the first with a BTDC intake ?


I also found the question and answer about driver winnings. Adjusted for inflation, Resta and his Peugeot took home $845,562 in todays dollars.


Might explain how Miller could charge $4000 to fix a motor in 1915....

Paul

 

Merry Christmas! Some good Wisconsin racing engine stuff here :

http://books.google.com/books?id=L_...&q=wisconsin racing engine stutz 1914&f=false

Paul[/QUOTE]

After reading the interesting account that Paul posted about the Wisconsin racing engine, we did a bit of searching and came up with three more articles in trade publications of the period about it. This is the earliest and we have the other two pages posted at theoldmotor.com which some very interesting details.

A great New Year to all....

 

Impressive stuff Dave. Thanks!

Hope you and the team at The Old Motor have a safe New Year.

 

Kurtis, Thanks and same to you and yours down under and to everyone elso who visits this page. "The Team" here just had their morning dog biscuits and are resting around the wood stove in the shop, which is at wide open throttle.....

 

Happy New Year to everyone on both sites, it has been great fun sharing info on the cars we all love.

 

For a New Year's Eve project, we are fitting a new 45/30 tooth ring and pinion (1.5:1 final ratio being chain drive it is further reduced by the front sprocket selection) and input and output shafts in a Thomas-Flyer transmission-differential. I am sharing this with you, as it is identical to the assembly that was in all of the Thomas Vanderbilt Cup racing cars and also the New York to Paris winner.

Interestingly, the input shaft bearing is a combo roller bearing and plain babbitt bearing set-up. The freshly bored babbitt can be seen in the bearing cap on the bottom of the case.

 

Thanks David for this "inside View". Happy New Years and a great 2012 to you!

 

A real hybrid, a Peugeot ball bearing bottom end and cam drive and a Mercedes SOHC with roller rockers, but forked rockers like the Delage....I wonder if the cylinders were offset like the Peugeot (or the Toyota Prius) . They had a Peugeot and Delage to copy, who's Mercedes did they have access to ? Is this the motor that Anderson set the 102.6 mph world record race average at Sheepshead Bay ?

Paul[/QUOTE]

Both Ralph and John DePalma owned each owned a Mercedes, perhaps Wisconsin somehow had access to them or as we also know, manufacturers and racers were not above spying to get information. I wonder if there was any coverage of the design in the periodicals of the time?

 

Paul/David, I believe that is the engine that Anderson drove to a first place at a speed of 102.59 at Sheepshead in October of 1915. This race had four of these Wisconsin SOHC Stutz racers. There were the three cars built originally that were driven by Anderson, Rooney and Cooper and then DePalma drove the fourth Stutz.

As to Depalma, he drove a Vauxhaul in the 14 GP at Lyons and within a couple of days WWI broke out and DePalma was called to the Mercedes factory (as the story goes). I suppose as a result of his success in the US with Mercedes racers, the powers at Mercedes factory gave Ralph one of the very fast winning cars (some say it was Wagner's mount). I also believe he was given a spare engine to the car and he had them shipped back to the states where it did very well at Elgin pretty much right out of the box. Somewhere I have an article of them shipping this mount back right after the Lyons race.

The thing though is that as successful as this DePalma Mercedes was (including the win at Indy in 1915) it did have a tendency to break. I have a number of articles wherein it is related that Ralph was having new parts and pieces made and was often in a thrash to get the 14 Merc ready for the next contest. I believe there was one time where he had a new casting shipped to a race in Omaha or Iowa (cannot remember for sure) and the casting was still green. Who was paying for these new parts as a patron I am not sure. Maybe he was without a sponsor to speak of and may have done a bit of horse trading to get parts cast or fabricated. Was he making some deals with Wisconsin-who knows?

He had lost his sponsor, Patterson due to the negative feelings that may have arisen with the Germans participation in WWI. Being that DePalma was without a sponsor he hooked up with Packard and they rebuilt his Mercedes on a number of occasions. I believe I have five references where he had the car back in the Packard experimental department in 1914-1916. I had a number of discussions with my grandfather who worked in the experimental department during this period and also worked on setting this GP motor on a rotary jack during the latter part of 1915 (probably around November). My grandfather also confirmed there was a second spare motor. Other than these two motors I am not sure of any other 1914 GP Merc motors during late 1914 and 1915 in the US. Whether John DePalma ended up with the spare motor I cannot state with any certainty as he drove one of the earlier modified Mercedes.

The next patrons that DePalma ended up with were his pitmen in some of the 1915 contests. These pitmen, Frank and Herbert Book were sons of a wealthy Detroiter and had pretty deep pockets and a love of racing. In 1915 DePalma had a SOHC Stutz built special and I believe that the Books may have supplied the cash (a guess). DePalma also bought the Luther (or Lutcher) Brown Peugeot which the Books bought and paid for and owned.

I have wondered if DePalma had Wisconsin assist in making new parts for his Mercedes during 1915 and then had them build the #20 Stutz he drove at Sheephead in the October 1915 race referred to above. I am not sure that Ralph was hiding anything from anyone relating to his 14 GP Merc so Wisconsin may have very well had a look see. If you look at the above engine it is very close in looks to the 14 GP Merc motor (albeit with a bit of Peugeot and/or Delage). Most of these designs were so heavily copied it is hard to figure out what&#8217;s what without a scorecard.

DePalma Manufacturing Co. the company he formed with Charles and Herbert Book to build sports/racing cars during this same period built some racing engines. Who cast the engines I am not sure. The Detroit Special which competed at Indy in 1919 was called a Mercedes copy but had an engine built at the behest of the Book brothers. I have never seen a picture of this engine and would love to see a pic. I have also wondered if this Detroit Special motor was a SOHC 4 similar to the 14 GP Merc motor. I also have wondered if there was any associations with Wisconsin on this motor although that is totally a guess without any proof at all to back it up. The only thing that has made me think along these lines is that the closest I have seen to a &#8220;new&#8221; SOHC 1914 Mercedes style motor was the 3.81 x 6.50 16 valve Wisconsin motor pictured above.

Who knows for sure on any of this but it is bit fun thinking about it.-Jim

 

Who knows for sure on any of this but it is bit fun thinking about it.-Jim[/QUOTE]

Jim, Thanks for letting us know all you have found out in the past, all quite interesting.

 

David, I am looking forward to your plans to post on Rod Blood and also anything regarding Packard racing. I find myself quite busy lately although with the holidays I have been able to post just a little on this fun stuff. I can only imagine the work you have been going through on the Old Motor. We appreciate it more than you can imagine.

When do you think your post on Packard racing will be posted? Happy New Year to you and all that have been involved in this thread as a poster or lurker-Jim

 

Jim, I just posted the Blood photos on the 1904 Model L including the 1000 mile record run and the Grey Wolf is next. Author Lee Dorrington may write the posts, I would sure like include your grandfathers recollections of the car on our site.

 

]Paul/David, I believe that is the engine that Anderson drove to a first place at a speed of 102.59 at Sheepshead in October of 1915. This race had four of these Wisconsin SOHC Stutz racers. There were the three cars built originally that were driven by Anderson, Rooney and Cooper and then DePalma drove the fourth Stutz..

Who knows for sure on any of this but it is bit fun thinking about it.-Jim

Jim,

I agree, speculating on why they did what they did is interesting. It is one thing to copy a design line for line and quite another to look at several, choose the best features and go out an set a world's record.
Stutz claimed 20% more power at the same speed, from the same bore and stroke, over the Merc. The valve timing is a little better, but the valves are a bit smaller. I would be interested in which bits of DePalma's Merc gave the trouble, maybe that explains the switch to the ball bearing crank. Maybe it was the four oil pumps. The ball bearing camshaft is unique, the Peugeot and Merc had plain bearings. It also looks like Stutz reduced the number of cam lobes from three to two per cylinder and sparks plug from 4 or 3 to 2.

 

as we also know, manufacturers and racers were not above spying to get information. I wonder if there was any coverage of the design in the periodicals of the time?


No Doubt. Here in the internet age we have to wait ten years for a peak inside a current F1 engine, but in 1916 you could pick up a copy of The Modern Gasoline Automobile and see an accurate drawing and description of the the state of the art Delage desmo valve gear. And a more accurate description than in the subsequent 90 years of coffee table books. Progress ?

 

Paul, although DePalma had a few problems with the valves that was not all that unusual and I do not believe that was a weak point.

At Indy in 1915, it was reported that even though he won with the 14 Mercedes mount, he had cracked the crankcase on the next to last lap. For Elgin in August a new crankcase was cast and they installed new pistons but he still had problems at Elgin in 1915, although he did turn the fastest lap. In practice for Elgin he had to send to town for new parts although I am not sure what those parts were. Also his shocks were not quite right for the grind of Elgin and he had to adjust his speed accordingly.

In 1916 after it was reported he sold the car to the Book brothers, he still campaigned the car, as it was a part of the DePalma Manufacturing Co stable of racing cars (mostly owned then by the Books I believe). In August of 1916 it was reported that the motor in his Mercedes was actually a duplicate motor, constructed in Detroit by Dutch Kline. Apparently a cylinder head had let go and the piston blew through the top of the block (remember these cylinders were individual castings-much like the Liberty would utilize).

The Detroit News in August of 1916, gave some of the details of the new motor that it was assembled in the shops of DePalma Manufacturing and all the parts were made in America under DePalma's supervision. When he started the year he had both the original crankcase and a new American made crankcase. They went with the new one and it broke at Tacoma (in its 6th race).

The new motor was shipped to Tacoma (not Omaha as I stated earlier-it helps to check my notes I suppose) on August 1 and DePalma did not have time to limber it up and finished 4th because the engine was green.

Apparently DePalma made three new motors at his Detroit shop and had slightly larger cylinders.

While on DePalma and Mercedes, I am not sure what engines they put in John DePalma's Mercedes mount but Ralph's 6 cylinder GP Mercedes had been withdrawn at Indy in 1914 even though it qualified. He had experienced severe vibration but Ralph later had that car at Galesburg in October of 1914 and they corrected the vibration (john was to drive the car). The problem as reported was that it had a touring flywheel and clutch and they went to a racing setup and they reported it to be quite fast and repaired. John ended up driving that car with the 6 cylinder a couple of times in October and November(Brighton Beach) of 1914. Ralph had the four cylinder 1914 GP Merc there as well.

If the old bodywork that carried the 6 cylinder ever had a four I am not really sure. Possible I suppose. Little though has been written of the 6 cylinder though as most thought it was pretty much a wash.

Paul as to how much re-engineering they accomplished on DePalma's new motor I do not know. Maybe that information is out there. It may be in my notes and my memory is lacking. I do not believe I have that info and am still not sure of the Detroit Special although I believe it too had single cast cylinders as reported in the 1919 Indy stats and carried one overhead shaft. It may have had one of these "new" Mercedes motors.-Jim