Dunstall Vs Irving

I've got a bad sense of humour, however I had to laugh quite a few years ago. A fairly short time after Phil died, one of the dumb idiots we now (now dead himself) shot his big mouth off loudly at Phillip Island making a disparaging remark about Phil. Phil's poor widow was within earshot, so chicken brain was immediately the king sized dill. It took him a long time to live that down. There is not much respect shown amongst our bikies, even for someone as well respected as Phil Irving. Actually he was a very nice guy and very approachable.
 
You are not aware of the Repco-Brabham V8 racing car ? The motor was basically an aluminium Chrysler with four valve heads - made in a small racing shop owned by Repco in Footscray. Phil Irving was the main engineer involved - very successful in Europe. He also got involved in making a four valve head for the 6 cylinder Falcon. I'm talking late 60s, early 70s.
 
acotrel said:
, however at least he made an attempt. You couldn't buy much trick stuff back then.
I seem to remember there were some strange bits came from Repco back then and ended up in my friend's Vincent - might have been titanium valves.
Did Unity Equipe have something to do with Dunstall ?
Click to expand...

In the 60s in the UK just about anyone who thought they were someone was selling "go faster" goodies, 99% would have been cosmetic rubbish, clip ons, rear sets, swept back pipes fibreglass tanks and racing dual seats(!!!!), generally of truly awful quality. A visit to just about any motorcycle shop would allow you to inspect a vast range of stuff with exposed strands of fibreglass, chrome peeling, awful, gastric pigeon quality welds and so on. An eye opening experience. A very few sold serious go faster bits, Dunstall did a bit of both, and he did run a very successful racing effort. Unity Equipe had a fairly thick catalogue of stuff, as far as I know there wasn't any link between Dunstall and Unity apart from being in the same market. I had a look at the Unity Equipe web page recently. Most of the stuff they sell is, as far as I can remember little different from the stuff they sold in the 60s. Some of the photos even appear to be the same as I remember from their 60s catalogue!!
cheers
wakeup
ps Phil Irving also designed the Velocette Venom/Viper engines.
 
acotrel said:
You are not aware of the Repco-Brabham V8 racing car ? The motor was basically an aluminium Chrysler with four valve heads -
Click to expand...

Actually, the winningest Repco Brabham engines are quoted as V8 Oldsmobile blocks initially (a division of GM) with 2 valve heads.
Repco did their own blocks and castings after a while.
The 4 valve heads version (in F1) came later (1968) (to try and keep up with what others were doing) and were somewhat of a disaster.
 
wakeup said:
ps Phil Irving also designed the Velocette Venom/Viper engines.
Click to expand...

According to the Velo history, the Venom's 499 cc engine was conceived by Velocette’s Eugene Goodman and designed by Charles Udall ??
Phil might have had some prewar input into Velos, but he can't get all the credit for all the subsequent models !
 
Rohan said:
wakeup said:
ps Phil Irving also designed the Velocette Venom/Viper engines.
Click to expand...

According to the Velo history, the Venom's 499 cc engine was conceived by Velocette’s Eugene Goodman and designed by Charles Udall ??
Phil might have had some prewar input into Velos, but he can't get all the credit for all the subsequent models !
Click to expand...

Yes, sorry, I got a bit carried away there.

cheers
wakeup
 
I think Irving would get quite a chuckle out of what some of us are up to with his 70 year old design.
Glen

Dunstall Vs Irving
 
worntorn said:
I think Irving would get quite a chuckle out of what some of us are up to with his 70 year old design.
Glen

Dunstall Vs Irving
Click to expand...

Looks good Glen, nice sized mallet as well!

Are they Molnar cases? Did I read correctly earlier that its 1360cc? I can't quite see in your picture, have you gone for 4 or 5 speed?
 
Hi Eddie

Yes, Molnar cases . The trans is Five speed Surtees-Quaife. The engine is 1360 CC, Terry's latest and perhaps final iteration of his top ends, 38 mm inlet ports, D shaped exhaust, bathtub two plug squish heads, RD race springs,CP Carillo forged 10.5 to one pistons along with his MK5 cams and radiused followers. Ignition is Pazon Smartfire two plug in the higher output version made with twin pickups for double the spark energy. It will require a good charging system.

The MK5 cams were a result of Fritz Egli Jr. plugging all of the Vincent valve train data into the Mercedes Formula one can development program. Fritz Jr. was the lead engineer for Mercedes F1.
Right away the MK5 s made considerably more power than the other various versions of high performance Vincent cams. I purchased two complete sets as there are no more available and I might want to build a similar engine again someday.

Getting this stuff from Terry can take awhile, I waited a year for the top ends and two years for the crank. He has had some serious health issues to deal with.

Glen
 
worntorn said:
Hi Eddie

Yes, Molnar cases . The trans is Five speed Surtees-Quaife. The engine is 1360 CC, Terry's latest and perhaps final iteration of his top ends, 38 mm inlet ports, D shaped exhaust, bathtub two plug squish heads, RD race springs,CP Carillo forged 10.5 to one pistons along with his MK5 cams and radiused followers. Ignition is Pazon Smartfire two plug in the higher output version made with twin pickups for double the spark energy. It will require a good charging system.

The MK5 cams were a result of Fritz Egli Jr. plugging all of the Vincent valve train data into the Mercedes Formula one can development program. Fritz Jr. was the lead engineer for Mercedes F1.
Right away the MK5 s made considerably more power than the other various versions of high performance Vincent cams. I purchased two complete sets as there are no more available and I might want to build a similar engine again someday.

Getting this stuff from Terry can take awhile, I waited a year for the top ends and two years for the crank. He has had some serious health issues to deal with.

Glen
Click to expand...

Very cool Glen. And that lot should add up to a strong motor. I had a Godet Egli, 1330, '105' cams, squished heads, 10:1 CR, 36mm Mikuni's. It was a very and deceptively quick bike. I had a 5 speed box in that, but to be honest, I think it would have been better with 4 speeds.
Had to sell it to raise cash for a house purchase. Such is life!
 
I agree, four speeds are plenty with this setup, but the quaife only comes as a five and is a much better shifting trans than standard Vincent, plus is considerably less expensive.
Terry tells me that Godet's 1330 s use a standard full hemi style head, normally setup for 7.3 or 8 to one comp, no squish zones. Did you modify his heads or use different heads?


Glen
 
worntorn said:
I agree, four speeds are plenty with this setup, but the quaife only comes as a five and is a much better shifting trans than standard Vincent, plus is considerably less expensive.
Terry tells me that Godet's 1330 s use a standard full hemi style head, normally setup for 7.3 or 8 to one comp, no squish zones. Did you modify his heads or use different heads?


Glen
Click to expand...

Yes, good point on the gearbox Glen! That's why I also put a 5 speed in my 'standard' twin.

I'm afraid Terry is quite a few years out of date! Godet has been doing squished heads for probably 10 years now, mine were not modified, they were 'off the shelf' Godet heads. BUT he won't sell them separately, only on complete bikes. Mine was his first road bike he'd done with 10:1 CR and 105 cams (at my instruction) and he was very impressed with it. As was I. As was Fritz senior!
As 'standard' Godet had 8:1CR and either standard or mkII or mkIII cams. They had too much bottom end torque and not enough in the higher regIons for me.
 
Surely with 5 speeds you can run higher overall gearing ? - Perhaps you don't really need a higher top speed ?
 
acotrel said:
Surely with 5 speeds you can run higher overall gearing ? - Perhaps you don't really need a higher top speed ?
Click to expand...


Depends if it is a close ratio gearbox, which will allow a slightly higher top speed to be reached.
 
Bernhard said:
acotrel said:
Surely with 5 speeds you can run higher overall gearing ? - Perhaps you don't really need a higher top speed ?
Click to expand...


Depends if it is a close ratio gearbox, which will allow a slightly higher top speed to be reached.
Click to expand...

Not really, it all depends. Some 'road' spec 5 speed upgrades for old bikes have the same first and top as a 4 speed, with the middle ratios closer together. Whereas race boxes tend to have all 5 closer together, giving a higher 1st or lower top depending on your sprocket choices.
With a 1330cc Vincent engine, the power band was simply so wide, that the closer ratios were just irrelevant.
What would have been ideal (as has been mentioned on here before) would have been a box whereby the first 4 ratios were standard ish, with a 5th gear being like an 'overdrive' to allow lower revs at a desired cruising speed. But to my knowledge at least, no-one makes such a thing!
 
Fast Eddie said:
worntorn said:
I

Godet has been doing squished heads for probably 10 years now, mine were not modified, they were 'off the shelf' Godet heads. BUT he won't sell them separately, only on complete bikes.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Godet was quite agreeable to sell me engine parts, in fact we had all prices finalized for a set of magnesium cases and covers. I sent him a picture of the rolling chassis that I had built and he suddenly changed his mind saying. "my technology is only for my Customers"
The magnesium cases were very expensive but it was not enough $ to make me a customer!
It all worked out though as the TP crank I later decided to use would likely have been incompatible with the Godet cases due to insufficient material in the mainbearing area. The Molnar cases are very heavily fortified in this area so that Terry's oversized setup can be fitted.
On top of that I now believe the magnesium cases would have been a poor choice for a bike that will get a lot of use. Even though Molnar is very experienced in producing Mg cases for his Manx business, he won't do them for the Vincent cases. He feels the Vincent cases would need a redesign with heavy webbing added (like a Manx) in order to be somewhat durable in MG. He told me that even with the webbing they see lots of problems with MG Manx cases, mostly due to the effects of the great expansion coefficient of Magnesium.
 
A friend of mine is still trying to buy some Alodine magnesium conversion coating so that his manx crankcases will stop growing whiskers. Part of the problem is that we don't know enough about it's metallurgy and what happens as it ages and is exposed to moisture in the atmosphere.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top