TUNING FOR SPEED - P IRVING - anyone got a copy they want to part with ?

[RFguy]

TUNING FOR SPEED -  P IRVING - anyone got a copy they want to part with ?

 

there are a few around about $50 online.

 

-glen

[IBob]

That's going back some: didn't he and someone else circumnavigate the globe on an HRD.....HRD being what went before HRD-Vincent, then Vincent???

[Thruster88]

Tim has told me about that book, I think he has a copy.

[turboplanner]

1 hour ago, IBob said:

That's going back some: didn't he and someone else circumnavigate the globe on an HRD.....HRD being what went before HRD-Vincent, then Vincent???

Yes, he wanted to go to England for something so he rode there via Canada (using ships for the water crossings). He got a job with HRD and he was the driving force with the Vincent dominance. I bought a Vincent 500cc Comet; 44 mph in first, 77 in second and put a gugeon into the bore at 173 km/hr. I used his principles for building race engines and you could pretty much do what he said, assemble the engine and sometimes double the power.

Jack Brabham wanted Repco to build a formula 1 engine based on an Oldsmobile V8 They hired Phil, and he and a Repco engoneer built it and won a World Championship season straight out of the box. I dopn't think anyone else has ever done that.

 

Bear in mind though that when we increase the power output through better breathing and timing for race engines we are not concerned about long life or failure of components in the medium the medium term, so an engine for NASCAR racing might put out 700 hp, one for Sprintcar Racing 1000 hp, and one for drag racing several thousand hp. All are designed to last until the flag drops, so the drag race engine life might be 15 minutes which could be a season.  For an aircraft we are proably looking for 1000 hours without any forced landings as a starting point so there are two considerations: Phil's and the aircraft engine life.

 

Edited June 9, 2021 by turboplanner

[RFguy]

There's quite a bit in there on understanding roles of rings, slots , holes etc in various combinations of piston design.

 

[IBob]

You did well, Turbo. I had a Series C Comet, the unmodified unit was really a bit of a dog with a top speed somewhere in the mid 80s as I recall.
About what you'd expect, I guess, as it was essentially a Rapide or a Shadow without the rear cylinder.

I was living in London, and the clutch would progressively heat up in the stop/go traffic: the hotter it got the more it dragged and when it dragged you couldn't get it into neutral which caused it to heat and drag more, which eventually left just two options: stop and wait for quite some time, or ride down footpaths and median strips. I did a fair bit of the latter before graduating to a Goldie......

[turboplanner]

13 minutes ago, IBob said:

You did well, Turbo. I had a Series C Comet, the unmodified unit was really a bit of a dog with a top speed somewhere in the mid 80s as I recall.
About what you'd expect, I guess, as it was essentially a Rapide or a Shadow without the rear cylinder.

I was living in London, and the clutch would progressively heat up in the stop/go traffic: the hotter it got the more it dragged and when it dragged you couldn't get it into neutral which caused it to heat and drag more, which eventually left just two options: stop and wait for quite some time, or ride down footpaths and median strips. I did a fair bit of the latter before graduating to a Goldie......

I can't remember which series mine was but I used it for travelling out in the country, so just about all at highway speed. Mine topped out at about 110 mph.

Edited June 10, 2021 by turboplanner

[408059]

Glen

 

I have two copies received as gifts. Happy to part with one and I'm in town.

 

Steve

[spacesailor]

And silly me. Had A,!

Black Prince Vincent. ( 1000 cc   )

Picked it up for 20 pound.

It ended up as a race engine in a Norton Featherbed, frame, called the,!

NorVin.

Often told,  no such bike, but l had a news-paper advert, with the Norvin for sale add.

spacesailor

 

[IBob]

Imagine what that would be worth now, Spacesailor!

(Now, there's an idea for a non-aviation topic: vehicles we had that would now be worth gold.)

 

And yes, I heard of the NorVin: the Featherbed frame and Roadholder forks from Norton were considered the best production units at the time.
The Vincent had a sort of undulating motion with it's suspension, though note they had what amounted to the monoshock under the seat for the swingarm decades before it gained popularity elsewhere. Pity about the cast aluminium girder front, the earlier tubular steel ones looked far sweeter..........

[tillmanr]

Phil Irving was able to achieve great success with the grey head Holden motors. He was a truly important innovator.

[spacesailor]

My favorite for a money maker IS

1937 250 Empire Star BSA. ( first with foot change gears ( still had the bolts in the tank for Hand gears )).

I Was offered a thousand pounds, AND the pick of any New BSA in the BSA dealers shop. 

Alas my mothers boyfrend took it down to the scrapyard for a couple of bob (  shilling,s ).

spacesailor

[IBob]

I came across most of a Brough Superior SS80 in the little front yard of a row of houses in Southampton. Kept going back but there was never anyone home, then one day it was gone. This was the sidevalve version of the SS100 that did for Lawrence of Arabia....(

[spenaroo]

Ive got a PDF of it on my computer somewhere.

ill have a dig around when I get home

 

[turboplanner]

Be careful selecting the edition; some of them have been edited by other people and don't contain all Phil's information.

[spenaroo]

here you go

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1isMc9mZis7tlcLf1SAgFFqU_skBiLB5C/view?usp=sharing

 

Edited June 11, 2021 by spenaroo

[RFguy]

thanks for posting. good for people to read.

I'm getting a paper copy from 408059 ! fantastic.

[facthunter]

Eric Debenham rode the Vincents solo  well. The rear suspension is a derivative of the Bentley And Draper frame used on some Broughs  The Damping in the originals left something to be desired.. Not everyone adapted to them Hence the (relative) abundance of things like the Norvin with home made featherbed frames. Nev

[IBob]

Nev the frames were not home made, they were from Norton, along with the Roadeholder forks. Perhaps you meant home made in the sense of combining the two.

And the fact is that, while the HRD Vincent were a special bike for their time, with many excellent and some unusual innovations, they were quite complicated, required a fair degree of maintenance that not just anyone could do, and were eventually pretty much left in the dust by the likes of BSA and Norton.

[facthunter]

 I Bob I don't dispute the first Norvins were Norton frames, but the survival rate of Vincent engines is high and Most of such bikes I know of are privately made frames . I know where they are made and there's others..

  It's not easy to get big power out of a Vincent motor. The ports don't flow well to start with  and it's not easy to change that.   The so called Irving Vincent is a complete re design and of much more capacity. IT flies and sounds awesome. (First time I've ever used that word".  The fastest Norton (genuine) has an AJS Motor in it. (A vertical twin) Nev

Edited June 12, 2021 by facthunter