Technical I love the twin engine stuff .....gotta question !

Eddie Hill's Pontiac powered.....Roy Gay's 4 slick twin engine monster....Freight Train...Ivo's twin/quad nail head dragster...even the twin engine Tornado of the 60's.....and the list goes on & on.
My question pertains to firing these puppys-off!
They didn't have electric starters mounted on the engines.....were they fired on ONE engine and that one in turn started the other?
Were they BOTH fired one-at-a-time?
Were they ALL push started?
Just HOW did the 'starter-guy' do it?

I never saw a twin engine 'anything' in all my years of going to the races
(I'm sure I woulda filled my pants on the initial fire-up!!)
Thanx
6sally6

 

Pretty much most were race cars and were push started or in later years some tracks had powered roller starter to spin the back tires
Push the car to get the motors turning, hit the throttle till the exhaust started to mist fuel, close throttle and hit the magneto switch to light

 

Early Funny Cars did have starters on the engine and usually a battery pack outside that would plug in. Chassis were a lot wider in those cars to accommodate an onboard starter . Once the chassis became narrower, then the use of a remote starter was used, Dont recall seeing a funnycar being push started

 

In the early 50s, there was a twin-engined dragster called the Bustle Bomb. Now, as my memory of 60+ years ago goes, it had an engine in the front of the driver and one in the rear. Olds in front, Cad in back. The front engine was started and pushed it to the line, and, somehow, when it left the line the other one started. And, yes, it was very competitive for its day.

 

No onboard staters.

 

Never seen or heard about the power roller starter deal. Seem' s like a good idea. Was it a rarity and when did they come in and out of favor. Any incidents happen with those?

 

Wait... I only count three magnetos. Maybe the fourth Buick engine was a compressor for the airbag suspension.

I'm new to all this.

 

I would imagine they were an accident look'in for a place to happen!
Just imagine......several dragsters waiting in line to be fired.
Nobody wants to be "THAT GUY"... and hold everybody up.....
2-3 track officials hustling around keeping the program moving (prolly motor head teenagers are 'involved'....)
All the noise and surrounding noise of a drag strip
Loud and staticcey loudspeaker with the announcer and his constant (and entertaining) chatter
Car owners & mechanics & 'friends' of the owner(s) & mechanic(s) gawk'in & talk'in and IN THE WAY
First one fired and he's waiting to run & IN THE WAY of the dragster behind him etc.
^^^They are prolly hungry and thirsty and wanting to 'see' the cars run^^^
Yeah....I bet there were plenty of uh-ohs during the day
But.......off the chart kewl fer sure!
6sally6

 

Billy "The Kid" Scott broke his back at Long Beach because of a roller starter. You hand-pushed the car on to the rollers, then started it and you revved your engine and they unhooked the power and you stopped the rollers with your own brakes, they locked the rollers and you drove off.

It had rained before that meet and no one had raked up the sand trap and the rain had hardened the surface. He used up his drum brakes slowing the rollers down and at the end of the run his parachute didn't come out and he bounced thru the sand. Ended up in the hospital for a few days.

 

Yep, the track can get pretty hectic. I've seen a lot of crazy shit happen in the pits of both drag and circle tracks. I'm guessing they used wheel chocks at the front? Then there's no front brake drag cars. One brain fart and shazam! I mean what could possibly go wrong?

 

That was good FF.

 

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...ed-to-roller-starters-in-drag-racing.1263753/

 

Anyone remember the McMullen Austin.
Two Chevys inline for street use.
Looked like fun in traffic.

 

Thanks. Great read.

 

We built a two engine racecar powered by inline SBC’s connected with a chain coupling so both engines spin together all the time. It starts off of one starter and a large battery. Only the rear engine has a starter. They’re not high compression engines so one starter is enough.

our next project is a side by side twin engine car with the engines connected by a glimmer belt like for a supercharger. It will only have one starter and probably won’t work.

 

Great info, cool thread

 

There are four. The one you cannot see is shorter.



The forward-most is shorter, too.

 

I think that @dreracecar is more familiar with the quad Buick of TV Tommy but as I remember it it started with one engine and roll started the other 3. I was really little when I saw it but that how I remember it.

A lot of how they started multiple engines was dependent on how the engines were coupled. I remember a side by side twin that had both engines clutched, you fired the engine that was not connected to the transmission then engaged the clutch on the other mill. I imagine that the engines that were coupled front to back pretty much had to be pushed off.

 

I looked all over, and saw no starter. I suppose that it/they might have not have been mounted, I have no idea.

 

No one has mentioned it but they did have a porta starter a long time ago.

I do not remember, I remember getting up close in the pits while Dad chatted with Mr Ivo. Seems like I was told that it fired one mill then rolled the others to life. That must have been at least 60 years ago.

I think that dre rebuilt one of them either the original or a copy. or both.

 

Use a chain. A 60 pitch double throw will hold it.

Lots of side by side setups are gear drive. You can source the setup from a boat. Depending on how it is built one will have to run backward. I have seen them set up with a gear setup that allows both engines to spin in the same direction. I do not have my good computer set up, if I did I could draw it out for ya.

That said I would chain them before I would try a Gilmer belt.

 

Here is a build on the HAMB: https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/toymakers-twin-engine-dragster-build.533613/

 

Snout starters on a blown engine, or pair, are a possibility, too.

I have started alcohol and nitro powered engines with a snout starter (and I don't think my ears are ever going to stop ringing.)

 

Hello,

When Tommy Ivo brought his twin to Lion’s Dragstrip in the late 59 time period, he was getting ready. By the end of December, he was in competition mode and showed up at the huge Riverside Raceway Drag Meet as known as… “The East vs The West” event. It was the biggest event in So Cal for the times.

The black cladding then turned into the more popular red cladding.

Tommy Ivo at the December 1959 Riverside Raceway drag meet, staging to run against the Valley Home Services supercharged SBC, a fast FED.



Then, when that meet was over and the new year settled in, he started setting top speed and low e.t. records at various So Cal dragstrips. He topped it off at the Bakersfield Smokers March Meet #2. Where he did an unusual thing…




Jnaki

Finally, while gathering all of my films together, a friend sent me an actual sound recording of the Tommy Ivo Twin, without any announcer’s background babble and it fit the 1960 Lion’s Dragstrip single run on film. Now, we can all hear what the twin Buick FED sounded like in 1960… hot and cool at the same time, and very fast.

First to break the 9’s with an 8.95 and 8.98 E.T. :
1960
Tommy Ivo Twin … actual sounds 1960… Thanks, Mr. Nailhead…

 

Niagara drag strip in Niagara Falls had on in the 60's I remember and it always worked great.

 

Ahhh...I see it.

At any rate that is a beautiful hot rod and an engineering masterpiece. I like it.

Being a fan of inline sixes, I am familiar with Sissel's Six Session twin six that is a front-to-back arrangement. Were there ever any inline engines that were side-by-side?

 

One of my favorite twin, FED dragsters, as seen at the CHRR at FAMOSO in 2016.

 

For those of you who have never seen the roller starters in action this video from US30 drag way in 1973 shows the in action.

 

No pics, but one of my favorite twin engine fuelers was Jim Busby's rail w/ 2 inline ford DOHC indy engines. Didn't run much, & was cut up, or so I heard. Neat idea.
Marcus...