Howdy all. I'm building a copy of my grandfather's 1927 Model T sprint car. The unique feature is that it was a very early supercharged engine. This is the only pic. It shows a T engine and trans. I can't identify a supercharger. Miller and Duesenberg would probably have been too pricey for this racer. GE and Switzer were making superchargers at the time. If GE, it would have probably been on the other side of the engine. Can anyone please shed some light on what might have been on this car in 1927? Thanks!
That's a helluva intro! I know the Germans had a few supercharger manufacturers back then. I'll dig out some info....
Thanks for scouting around. Hopefully, someone will dig something up. It might help to have some figures on the T engine so we know about what size we are looking for. Displacement is 177 ci, bore is 3.75, stroke is 4, 50 to 70 psi. "Normal" cruising rpm is 1600 and max is about 1800. 22 hp.
I would take some close up pictures, and contact the American Museum of Speed in Lincoln Nebraska. (Part of Speedway Motors). Those guys have more model T speed parts that anyone, and they may know what you have.
Check out the book- Model T Ford In Speed and Sport- There is a whole section on superchargers for the T racecars. Check out my website for pictures of a Gregg supercharger on my ohc SR Fronty www.buymegivemetakeme.com Go to the Late 20's Fronty-Ford link
I just took a preliminary shot at Google Advanced book search...I simply put in "supercharger" without even bothering with the other versions of the word and put dates to 1922--1927 and got a bunch of neat stuff, from a surprisingly wide range of popular, industrial, and engineering sources. Some stuff is full view (including a neat picture in Popular Mechanics), others at least identify the source so your local library can get it on interlibrary loan. By the way, putting your grandfather's name into such a search would be worth a shot... there might just be an ancient news story out there.
Wow, spendingtheinheritance, what a find! I've had a few strokes of luck but nothing like that. That Gregg is what I would most like to do but the odds of finding one, much less affording one, are pretty slim. I wish I could take pics of the car and send to the museum but this car was destroyed in the 80's. It sat in a junk yard in Breckenridge Texas for a few decades. By the time I went to find it, the yard owner had died and everything was hauled off for s****. The guy was hording s**** metal anticipating world war 3 and skyrocketing steel prices. He had about 5 acres of heavy metal: tanks and military vehicles, fire trucks, boats, cranes, etc. As a young kid, back when kids could really play, I would sneak through a hole in his back fence and have a ball climbing around on all the stuff. There were some Roots blowers in the 20's. Here is a nice Bugatti set up. One of the only reasons for doing this car is that the supercharging made it unique. I may have to accept the reality that I have to use a modern blower that looks like it could have been correct for the period. Mercedes was supercharging in the 20's and the modern Mercedes blowers resemble old Roots and are dirt cheap.
Ooooooo, this is a cool subject!! Gosh I hope you find the one you want but in the meantime we're all benefitting from the knowledge in this thread. I'd like one day to have a blown flathead.
Wow. Cool find, John. Still tough to see what is going on with the supercharger, though... Or maybe my eyes are just getting bad.
John, you are fantastic! Where did you find that? I thought I had been all over the web. Even contacted the photographer's heirs. This car just got more expensive. Spark plugs on the driver's side of the head would mean and OHC head of some brand? Does anyone recognize the front end? The steering gear? The driver, Bob Stilwell drove Maserati 250's in the early 50's. BTW, the Mercedes supercharger pic I posted earlier is actually a 1926 model. At sold for a tad over $8,000. The point is, it looks something like current Eatons.
Most of the early Bugatti blowers were made by the Zoller company. Get the Zora Arkus-Duntov bio for more on mr. Zoller. Good stuff here.
Looking at the pic of the Driver's side that John found, does it look like the hood is about a foot longer than stock? Engine moved back about a foot to get a supercharger directly on the crank, like the big euro cars of the day?
It's in a book ***led Jazz-Age Boomtown (here), which is a collection of Basil Clemons photographs. The whole collection is at the University of Texas at Arlington (here). Don't give up on the car being Dodge powered; the fact that McCathren was a Dodge dealer would be motivation enough to adapt the Dodge engine to the more common Ford race car parts. Here's a thread about the Morton & Brett Dodge OHV head.
Research is a dangerous thing. For some reason, i had this car pictured as somebody's red neck hobby in the early 20's. Not so. These guys were serious. July 4, 1927, they won a race in which were entered a Laurel, 4 Fronties, 3 Millers, and a Duesenberg. Supposedly, the Duesenberg was driven by Eddie Hearne, who had 5 Indy finishes of second, third, fourth, and 2 others in the top ten, driving for Duesenberg.
I share your love for early supercharging. If you are certain of the date of your car, it would not be powered by a Schwitzer blower, as they were not launched until 1928 (ref. The Reunion book, pp 188-195 ACDClub.org). In fact, I believe Duesenberg's first racing application of supercharging was Nov., 1925. I am unaware of any superchargers which were available for aftermarket purchase in 1927. I have previously posted my W. W. Brown (Kansas City) engine, from the same era, with his one-off supercharger. Hopefully this photo will linkup and help you in your search. Please post anything more you discover in your search. /J. Baeke Hopefully this photo will link up [/URL]%20%20Uploaded%20with%20ImageShack.us[/IMG]
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