Roots Blower Sizing
#61
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From: chicago
Yes. A bit of a hijack, but kind of related because it's where our blowers came from. The 2 stroke detroit's are incredibly durable engines, and very well engineered. They were built to be universal, the front can be the back, anything from one side will fit on the other, you can join them together, throughout the same engine series almost every part is interchangeable. Compound supercharging was common practice (turbos feeding roots blowers). They were never intended to be a long term use engine, but were so well built they just wouldn't die, and gathered a very strong following, only phased out many years later by more efficient, environmentally friendly engines. Speaking of engineering, modern performance gas engines have nothing on 1950's diesel tech. Overhead cams, shaft mounted roller rockers, piston oilers, bushed solid roller lifters, turbos, etc. Sounds Familiar huh?
#62
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From: chicago
#65
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From: Michigan
I don't want to hijack this thread so I will be short, some of the older ferry boats that run the straits of Mackinac still us these Monsters, I had a chance to go into their shop and look at their spare engines. very impressive for sure twin Turbos feeding twin blowers on a v-12 platform. I like to take these older slower ferrys to the Island just because! but it did make me think of the pioneers of racing taking these blowers off the Detroits and modifiying them to fit the 4 strokes. At the time I was running a roots on my boat. Made me respect their Heritage. Done now.
Great thread Joe!
Great thread Joe!
#68
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From: Vancouver BC
Yes it does. That's a 1954 GM EMD 2 stroke train engine in a 110' tug boat, and she pulls like a mofo.. The 567 series, which is 567ci per hole, was the earliest and smallest version of these engines. I think they were designed and first used in trains in the late 1930's by the same guy that developed the smaller detroit 2 strokes. The later versions are still commonly used in trains today. One of the other boats up here has a pair of 20cyl 710's. They make abour 3600hp each. There are also some four stroke engines made by other manufacturers, that copy the basic engine architecture because it is such a good design.
#69
same here, i had a pair of 525SC's for years and thought they were the shiz, ran pretty much flawless and turnkey for nearly three hundred hours. Was planing on building a pair of clones for the 38 Scarab but on chatting with the builder its prolly gonna be BM 250's (or similar) for a multitude of reasons. I had always thought a cooler and pulley would have been a good mod for the Donzi but see now that the 525SC's was a comfortably well thought out and built engine but not a whole lot of room to grow with that set up. I will say one thing i did like the whine they put out lol.
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Throttles- Cleveland Construction 377 Talon
08 OPA Class 1 National Champion
08 Class 1 Geico Triple Crown Champion
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10 OPA Class 1 National Champion ( happy now Ed! )
Throttles- Cleveland Construction 377 Talon
08 OPA Class 1 National Champion
08 Class 1 Geico Triple Crown Champion
08 OPA High Points Champion
10 OPA Class 1 National Champion ( happy now Ed! )
#70
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From: On A Dirt Floor
I was thinking that last night when you guys sparked me to read up on those vintage diesel engines. Man, the engineering they were doing back then. I find it very impressive, those men from that era, really had limited resources, and yet, were so innovative. Pretty awesome.
Manufacturing was relatively cheaper and we had a workforce that didn't mind working labor and getting dirty.
Big difference from now where we all want office jobs.



