Hiya guys I just read through this article and it was fantastic.

 

 

 

Below is page one.

 

http://www.airspacemag.com/flight-today/cit-wilkinson.html?c=y&page=1

 

http://www.airmuseumsuk.org/airshow/2004/Chailey2004/800/images/124%20Supermarine%20Spitfire%20LF.Vb%20BM597%20G-MKVB%20HAC.jpg

 

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7d/Rolls-Royce_Merlin.jpg/300px-Rolls-Royce_Merlin.jpg

 

SIXTY YEARS AGO, THE FASTEST airplanes on the planet were powered by enormous, complex V-12 piston engines made by Rolls-Royce, Allison, and Daimler-Benz. Sixty years later, some of the very same engines are still running, powering weekend warbirds, museum artifacts, and Reno racers. Only a few mechanics in the United States have the knowledge, skills, equipment, and temperament to keep them flying. These are some of them.

The Junkyard Cats

 

Follow a two-lane road running from Nowhere to Nevermind until you’re just east of Gilroy, California, and there, down an unmarked dirt road, is Dwight Thorn’s company: Mystery Aire Ltd. From this collection of ramshackle industrial sheds emerge the most powerful, reliable, and admired Merlin V-12 air-racing engines in the world. Engine blocks and parts are everywhere. Scarred junkyard cats sun themselves atop pallets of superchargers. Cylinder heads are stacked like cordwood. Every sump and valve cover is filled with eucalyptus leaves and spider nests. Crankcases are slowly sinking into the sandy soil—ashes to ashes, aluminum to aluminum.

 

How he works miracles in such a setting may be a mystery, but make no mistake: Dwight Thorn builds awesome engines that routinely win races. Looking a bit like Wilfred Brimley in bib overalls, the white-haired, 64-year-old Thorn is putting the finishing touches on a bright red Merlin with mirror-polished aluminum valve covers that will soon fill the snout of the two-seat TF-51 Crazy Horse, a Mustang that flies riders for a fee in Florida. Seventy-five percent of his work is overhauls of stock engines like this one. “But the two or three racing engines we do every year take just as long as all the others put together,” he says. Thorn charges $60,000 to $80,000 for an overhaul, depending on the condition of the run-out engine, and $160,000 to $180,000—and up—for a labor-intensive, 3,500-horsepower racing motor.

 

Exactly what do you do to hop up a Merlin? “Simple,” Thorn says with a grin. “Disconnect the boost [limiting] control. We’ve seen 150 inches of boost, which is where the gauge stops. And which is probably just as well.”

 

Most of us accustomed to more conventional motorsports assume that “tuning” separates the prime V-12 builders from the also-rans. Tuning means “porting and polishing” the intake manifold passageways to improve the flow of the air-fuel mixture, “boring and stroking” to increase the engine’s working volume, “bench-flowing and blueprinting” to ensure that the cylinders’ mechanical dimensions match—all that plus tinkering with spark timing and tuning exhaust pipes to boost evacuation of the combustion gases must be a large part of successful air-race engine building, right?

 

Nope. The category in which the V-12 engines run at Reno is called Unlimited, and the rules basically say the engines must reciprocate and turn propellers. There is no size limit, no rule against performance-enhancing devices such as turbochargers, superchargers, nitrous oxide injectors, designer fuel, exotic materials, or weight-saving techniques.

 

As a result, the top V-12 builders put their engines together using the strongest possible parts, reinforcing weak areas (such as the Merlin’s relatively vulnerable crankcase), and carefully assembling and torquing each and every nut and bolt, but with normal, stock profiles and settings for the camshafts, valves, and ignition.

 

And then they turn up the boost. The more air and fuel the supercharger can cram into the engine, the more horsepower it makes. But the higher the boost, the stronger the engine must be to withstand the unholy pressures inside the cylinder.

one of the best planes ever, would love to fly one...

Would make a great documentary series.

Rolling I agree but I don't think they would ever go for it. Looks like they want to keep a low profile.

 

Looks like they love work and are picky about who they do it for.

 

 

I didn't know that so many of these engines where lost in monster trucks....... grrrrrrr

Looks like majority go boom in speed boat racing. Thought majority of the monster truck engines were either truck diesels or seriously worked v8s...

It still seems like a horrible selfish crime to ruin something almost priceless.