Monthly Calendar Report for November 2009

When calendar entries are as DROLL as they are this month, the Monthly Calendar Report seems silly.


Ardun heads.

But hands-down, the winning calendar is my Oxman Hot-Rod Calendar, a 1932 Ford Roadster with a supercharged Ardun-headed Flat-head.
The Ardun cylinder-heads were a special conversion for the Ford Flat-head by Zora Arkus-Duntov (and his brother Yura), who later developed the Chevrolet Corvette.
They addressed the two main problems with the Ford Flat-head V8, namely: —1) that it was a flat-head, so therefore it —2) breathed terribly.
But -A) it was a V8, and -B) it responded well to hot-rodding. Plus they were cheap and many were available.
So after WWII, they became the motor-of-choice for hot-rodders, so much that a HUGE industry sprang up to supply parts that would wring more horsepower out of the motor.
But a flatty as a performance motor is all wrong.
A flat-head is side-valve, so that the intake-charge has to negotiate contorted passageways. Down from the intake manifold, and then almost 180° back up toward the poppet-valve, which is along-side the cylinder, and facing up.
A better-breathing arrangement was overhead-valve, wherein the intake manifolds were still on top, but the valves facing down, allowing a more direct path for the intake-charge.
The path of the exhaust-charge in an overhead-valve engine was also more direct, but in a flat-head it was contorted just like the intake path.
Worse yet, on the Ford Flat-head the exhaust was plumbed through the block so it exited at the block sides. Even worse, the center two exhausts were siamesed into a single port.
(Some flat-head V8s exhausted out the top; e.g. the Cadillac V8.)
The Flatty was a chronically poor breather, plus it tended to overheat with its exhaust going through the block.
The Ardun head addressed all that, and beyond that was hemispherical.
The arrangement in schematic looks much like the Chrysler Hemi®. Still a central single camshaft in the crux of the V, with pushrods activating rockers on two rocker-shafts.
Suddenly, four exhaust ports per side (instead of only three), plus four intake ports aimed directly at the intake manifold.
Plus the combustion-chamber was hemispherical, with hemispheric valve location.
The intake valves were actuated backwards by rockers on a common rocker-shaft.
The exhaust valves were actuated by longer rockers on a second common shaft.
Valving was turned 90° relative to the crankshaft.
This is like the Chrysler Hemi®. Most overhead-valve engines line the valves all up in a row, parallel to the crankshaft.
Also like a Chrysler Hemi, the sparkplugs were so deeply recessed in the rocker-covers, to access the faraway combustion-chambers, tubes had to be used.
And the compression-ratio could be much higher, although ya needed leaded gas back then to avoid knock.
The angle between valves was pretty open; almost 90°. Nowadays the combustion-chambers are pretty flat; still hemispherical but the angle between valves is almost flat.
(And by now it’s four valves per cylinder, with overhead camshaft valve actuation.)
And I also see that the pistons look very antique. By now the pistons are little more than a ringland, with shoulders for the pin. —The old-style pistons in the schematic would be too heavy to rev sky-high like recent high-performance motorcycle motors.
And the way to increase compression-ratio in a wide-angle hemispherical combustion-chamber was to cast a pop-up into the piston dome.
But this encourages pre-ignition (knock) at the pop-up edges.
But with a hemi-head, the Ford Flat-head was no longer side-valve; i.e. no longer a flat-head.

The four holes are sparkplug tubes.

But there were problems.
The heads were aluminum castings, and the bronze valve-seats could work loose due to differing rates of heat expansion.
Plus there were weak spots in the aluminum castings.
Another problem was cast-iron pushrods. Later pushrod technology uses tubing. Cast-iron was too heavy, and could bind valve-springing at high engine speed with extreme cams.
The valves were also heavy, and inhibited higher engine speeds.
Many of these problem were solved by C & T Automotive of
N. Hollywood, CA. A second production-run of Ardun heads was produced by Don Orosco, to an improved design.
Later development was done by Don Ferguson Sr. and Jr.
The later heads are the ones to get.
The Ardun head was somewhat experimental, but a vast improvement on Ford Flat-head performance.
The Ardun head is long ago, so they are now pretty rare.
The car pictured has Ardun heads, and also the largest supercharger made by Supercharger Company of Turin (“S.C.O.T.”), which explains the moniker.
So the car pictured is fairly special, even though its color is rather droll.
Plus Ardun heads in a hot-rod are a bit off; they’re more a racing application.


Double water-towers at Buena Vista, VA, March 1956. (Photo by O. Winston Link.)

The November 2009 entry of my O. Winston Link “Steam and Steel” calendar is his famous twin water-towers picture.
Watering steam-locomotives was a time consumer.
And the steam-engines had to be watered, since they were boiling water to make steam.
And the steam was being thrown out the stack. It wasn’t being condensed back into water.
The water was stored in a giant cistern in the locomotive’s tender. From there it was pumped into the boiler, usually injected.
A boiler producing steam worked against adding water — the water had to get past steam pressure of 100-300 pounds per square inch or more.
The water-tank in the tender would empty over time, so had to be refilled. Usually this was done by stopping the train at a water-tower so the locomotive(s) could take on water. Although occasionally ya’d see water-pans between the rails, and a passing locomotive would dip a scoop into it at speed.
But scooping water on-the-fly wasn’t as successful as stopping and refilling at a water-tower. Often the scoop broke off, or the water in the pans watered the lineside foliage more than got into the tender.
So here we see two water-towers, spaced so a train with two locomotives could water both engines simultaneously.
That’s half the time needed to water each engine individually.
Diesel-locomotives dispensed with locomotive watering. Ya hardly see water-towers any more. —Usually just never torn down.
The train pictured has only one engine, a massive Y6 articulated; 2-8-8-2.
It hasn’t stopped to water. It’s just blowing by.


1969 Cougar. (Photo by David Newhardt.)

My Motorbooks Musclecars calendar has a 1969 Mercury Cougar.
HO-HUM!
Not that good a picture, also not that good a car.
The Cougar always played second-fiddle to the Mustang.
It was Mercury’s demand to field a pony-car; based on the Mustang, but with individualized front and rear.
The front clip demonstrates a tendency toward the bloated cruisers that came later.
Cougars were eventually based on the mid-size Torino platform — more like the Buick Riviera.
But the first Cougars were based on the Mustang platform, as is this one.

A Bud Moore Cougar.

The earliest Cougars were raced in the SCCA Trans-Am series by Bud Moore Engineering of Spartanburg, SC; application of stock-car racing tricks by old NASCAR racer Bud Moore.
Moore was an entrant, and previous Indianapolis 500 winner Parnelli Jones was among his drivers.
The old tractor suspension layout isn’t as agile and nimble as independent-rear-suspension (“IRS”), but can be made to handle well if sturdily located.
Moore went on to race Boss 302 Mustangs in the Trans-Am series, and his were the fastest cars.
Years ago I was at Bridgehampton Sportscar Course out Long Island, and the two Bud Moore Mustangs were on the front row; Jones and George Follmer.
Jones and Follmer came flat-out over the crest of a hill into a blind downhill turn, 160+ mph.
Neither was giving an inch, and I will remember it as long as I live.
The Mustangs would bottom their rear-suspensions at the foot of the hill, and throw up a shower of sparks from their track-bars.
As Jones used to say: “If your car isn’t out of control, you’re not driving fast enough.”
But first Moore raced Cougars; hide-away headlights, and sequential taillights.
Although his Cougars probably didn’t have that.
Years later I found Bud Moore Engineering in Spartanburg. I went inside and thanked them for some of the greatest car-racing I ever saw.
But that was the Mustangs, not the Cougars.
Moore even did some bodywork to his Mustangs to reduce their frontal-area. Um, that’s cheating. A NASCAR staple.
The license-plate on the car pictured says “428,” and its surround says something about eating Ferraris for lunch.
Well, yeah; in a straight line.
A 428 is a big and extremely powerful motor, and would indeed skonk a Ferrari.
But don’t throw a corner at it. For that ya need a Ferrari.
Way too much weight on the front-end, and the rear axle is a log on rubber-bands.


I1s Decapods at Weigh Scales, on a Pennsy branch north of Shamokin, PA. (Photo by Lew Bowman©.)

—The November 2009 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs B&W All-Pennsy Calendar is a Pennsy Decapod (2-10-0) pushing (helping) a heavy ore train past Weigh Scales, PA. (Another Dek is waiting for it to pass.)
There’s no date on this picture, but my guess is about 1955, among the final years the Pennsylvania Railroad was using steam locomotion.
Freight locomotives were fielded on Pennsy after the Decapod (nicknamed the “Hippo;” because they were so large), mainly the M1 Mountain (4-8-2) and the J1 Texas (2-8-4). —The Dek is 1916.
The Mountain was a Pennsy design, but mainly worked well at speed over Pennsy’s wide-open mainlines, like its Middle Division between Harrisburg and Altoona (the Allegheny mountains).
The J1 Texas was not a Pennsy design. Pennsy needed new power for WWII, having worn out locomotives.
They had not developed new steam power due to electrification and all the technical input it required.
The War Production Board would not allow Pennsy to design a new freight engine, so the railroad tried a Norfolk & Western A (2-6-6-4), and Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad’s T1 Texas (2-10-4). —The T1 won. (Pennsy abhorred articiulateds.)

No Belpaire firebox; a Pennsy J1.

The J1 was not a Pennsy design. It lacks the trademark Pennsy Belpaire firebox.
It’s essentially Lima Locomotive’s (“LYE-muh;” not “LEE-muh”) 2-10-4 SuperPower design.
It has all the appliances Pennsy normally eschewed; like feedwater preheat.
And a trailing-truck booster.
Other engines were designed and used earlier, like a 2-10-2 Santa Fe, and also the L1 Mikado (2-8-2).
But the Santa Fe’s were used mainly west of Pittsburgh.
The J1 was a poor match for Pennsy operations; SuperPower tended to be for high-speed operation.
Pennsy had heavy gradients that made a train run slow.
But the J was powerful, and fit well with moving long trains of loaded coal-hoppers out in Ohio from Columbus to Sandusky.
There it could cruise at a good clip.
They were used on Pennsy’s Hill out of Altoona, but down-and-dirty at a crawl wasn’t what they were best suited for.
But at least, their boiler had fantastic steam-capacity. They wouldn’t run out of steam like a Dek might.
The Decapods hung around and weren’t scrapped. They were well-suited to dragging heavy freight-trains up mountains; like in PA.
A final assignment was to lug heavy ore trains up to an interchange with Lehigh Valley Railroad in Mt. Carmel, PA.
One of the most spectacular train-photographs I’ve ever seen, ran many years ago in this calendar, a Pennsy ore train on the Mt. Carmel branch in the snow.
It was taken by Don Wood, and the lead Decapod is hurling a giant column of backlit smoke and steam into the sunlit sky.
I’m sorry I can’t find it. I’d run it if I could.
“Weigh Scales” because that was where the railroad had weigh scales to weigh the train.
Weigh Scales is on the Mt. Carmel branch.


1937 BMW 328 roadster.

—The November entry of my Oxman Legendary Sportscar Calendar is a white 1937 BMW 328 roadster.
I wouldn’t fly it, except the BMW 328 is a very significant car.
It had a tubular frame, and independent front suspension.
Competitive Alfa-Romeos of that time were still buckboards with a beam axle up front.
The car was light, and had an 80 horsepower six-cylinder engine, which later became a British Bristol engine as a war reparation.
A 328 won the Mille Miglia (“MEE-ya MEE-ya”) in 1940 — a slap in the face to the Italian car-racing fraternity.
In some ways it was revolutionary.
BMW seemed a backwater until the late 1960s, when Car & Driver Magazine began trumpeting the BMW 2002.

A 2002.

It was a great car.
A lowly two-door sedan, but it had independent rear suspension, and a MacPherson strut front end.
Just about everything has come to that chassis layout since — at least the MacPherson strut front end.
The rear axle on many rear-drive Detroit cars is still solid with an integral differential; same layout as a Model T.
And the unpowered rear-axle on a front-drive car is often a solid beam tying the two wheels together; it’s not independent.
But it’s much better located than even a ‘70s musclecar. It won’t bumpsteer.
Even the solid rear-axle on a rear-drive Detroit car is well located. Its only disadvantage is its heavy weight — its momentum,
The 328 was a major step forward for BMW. —A very desirable car.
And now BMW is perceived as a premier car, although I think it woulda failed without Car & Driver Magazine.


A string of Humvees on a Norfolk Southern train. (Photo by Cori Martin.)

—The November 2009 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees calendar is rather dumb, a load of armored HMMWV vehicles on a Norfolk Southern train in Chillicothe, OH.
I suppose the calendar judges were impressed the picture depicted the railroad’s role in our military effort.
That’s always been true, and not just for one railroad.
We probably wouldna won WWII were it not for the railroads.
Eisenhower was so impressed with the German Autobahn system he instituted an Interstate highway system.
But the interstates can’t move freight like the railroads.
I have train videos of old steam engines dragging mile-after-mile of military equipment on railroad flatcars.
Just about every train video I have has a long train of tanks, Stryker vehicles, or military trucks.
I’ve seen military equipment loaded into gigantic cargo jets for transshipment to Afghanistan.
That might be 10 vehicles. One train is carrying hundreds.
Railroading was so instrumental in our war effort in WWII, German saboteurs were sent to blow up the Pennsylvania Railroad’s crossing of the Allegheny mountains.
And many of our bombing runs in Germany were rail yards.
About the only thing interesting in this calendar picture is the lighting, and the fact it was shot from a locomotive.
The lighting is cloudy dawn. The photographer did well to capture it.
But the train could just as well be coal.
I have a train video of loaded coal-hoppers similar to this; the locomotives are pushing.
But being a video, the cars are jukin’ and jivin’ side-to-side.
Ya don’t see that in a still.

I’m not flying my Ghosts WWII warbirds November calendar entry because I think it’s stupid.
It’s only a Hawker Nimrod trainer, a biplane (“BYE-plane”).
Its landing-gear doesn’t even retract.
It’s not one of the fabulous WWII warbird hot-rods, like the Mustang or the Corsair.
The engine is only 600 horsepower! The Mustang is 1,695, a Corsair is 2,000, a Bearcat is 2,100, a P-47 is 2,535.