How’d I get a TAG engine? Short story: Now I gotta find that little pile of papers and stuff. Two house moves will kill any file system of the first order.
(dig dig, root root) Ahh – here they are . . .
Picture this – May, 1993, Terri and I, as fools for their respective company’s, used to work half days on some Saturday’s. Me south of her in downtown L.A. and her north of me in Glendale. I’d drop her off, go into L.A. line up the ducks for the next week, futz around till noonish, and head back north to pick Terri up. Nothing to do at her office ‘cept read some racing rags I’d bring along. One such rag was Autoweek, May 17, 1993.
There – in the stuff for sale was a smallish ad – “TAG McLaren F1 Engines. Own a piece of history.” The Motorsport Collector [Paul Zimmerman].
Bang – I am on the phone. Terri hears me rattling around outside her office (way before I had a cell phone) and asks – what are you doing? I reply – buying an engine. Oh, she says, what ever. And goes back to work. Heh heh.
At the end of July a large Air Express International semi truck pulls up to house just after dinner and with a lot of racket – and paper work – delivers one tiny strapped down engine on a pallet. Cool.
I call Freeman Thomas. Freeman, among other things such as designing the Audi TT, and part of the “concept car” that was a thinly disguised VW Beetle – which it became (good story on that too), shoots over with several German magazines showing his desk in the Porsche design studio. He hooks me up with a fellow at Porsche, Serge Dubuc, who in turns meets up with Metzger – the racing boss. Metzger gets someone to pile through the files and gives Serge a bunch of test papers, line drawings, and articles, all in German. These include a summary of the podium motors. Copies only, drat.
Its from those papers I note that my motor, TTE-PO-22, has two numbered wins at Imola and Prost’s DQ. 1.8 kilos under weight. Tut tut laddie.
In August I’m on the road to Pennsylvania, but on the weekends, we’re on our own. New Jersey English Town drag strip here I come. There I meet an acquaintance, Cruz Pedregon, and garner a funny car piston and connecting rod from him. Insane Flaming Frank Pedregon’s son. I bundle those up and send them off to Serge at Porsche as a thank you.
He replies the other Porsche engine fellows are amazed at the size of the components and beating they take for just a few runs. For instance the wrist pin pounds an oval clearance into the piston and the rod shows both compression and stretch marks. I was told they use aluminum rods because it does work with the motor rather than fight it and break as titanium might.
Big Funny Car engines are 500 ci. Parts that break the most often: exhaust valve push rod lifters. That’s why the exhaust valves are quite a bit smaller, at least then, than intakes – they need to exert tons of pressure to penetrate the cylinder pressure. Lifter size? Exceeds 1 inch. Then.
Terri is a good sport and let me place the motor on a stand in the family room. Gotta tell you – that is one amazing piece of engineering. I just enjoy looking at it. Compared to the rest of the car . . . it’s tiny. Doesn’t look like it could get the job done. But it did.
Cheers
Doug
Yeah no kidding!
How the hell did you get your hands on that?!?
Peter
Sent from Mail for Windows
From: Lashdeep Singh via Ferrari
Sent: December 24, 2021 8:05 AM
To: PeterGT4
Cc: The FerrariList
Subject: Re: [Ferrari] Twin-Turbocharged 1983 Ferrari 308 GTS Quattrovalvole for sale on BaT Auctions - ending December 22 (Lot #62, 108) | Bring a Trailer
Doug, you just broke the List!!
Greatest post here in years!
Peter ponders “Let me guess, this is a paperweight on your desk?”
This is my paperweight . . . Prost’s engine with two wins. Alas, disqualified
on the second win.
1985
“The San Marino Grand Prix ended in farce when Alain Prost was disqualified two hours after
crossing the finishing line in first place after his car, which ran out of fuel on the warm-down lap,
was found to be two kilos underweight.”
Cheers
Doug
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