Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
article about some early c-open karts 1960-64 anyone can add info (retitled)
#1
i'm only looking for one issue.
the issue i need features  'a special built by McCulloch technician Jim Yamane, powered by one of Yamaha’s early production vertically-split twins. Yamaha’s YDS-2 of 1963-4"

 i need a copy of all the info.
i'm trying to confirm whether the motor i have is actually the motor jimmy used in that special.
it's the correct year and has been modified for mounting to a raCING KART CHASSIS.
i did see the article in the magazine long past but so far haven't located the issue again. i think i may have been looking through someone else's collection.
any help would be great as i have someone checking with jimmy about this soon and visual reminders might help!!
here are some pix of the motor
                       
dave l
Dave L.
Reply
#2
Dave -- Frank Weir over in Ireland has every karting magazine ever published. Great reference material when he writes his articles on the "good old days of karting". I am sure he can scan you the article.
Reply
#3
Dave......never knew Yamane built a Yammy  Ha........ Tongue  !!!

Ya' learn sump n' new here all the time ......


Wig. and Weir @ Adams.....


Attached Files Thumbnail(s)
   
Reply
#4
(10-30-2017, 10:32 PM)David Luciani Wrote: actually i'm only looking for one issue.
the issue i need features  'a special built by McCulloch technician Jim Yamane, powered by one of Yamaha’s early production vertically-split twins. Yamaha’s YDS-2 of 1963-4"

 i need a copy of all the info.
i'm trying to confirm whether the motor i have is actually the motor jimmy used in that special.
it's the correct year and has been modified for mounting to a raCING KART CHASSIS.
i did see the article in the magazine long past but so far haven't located the issue again. i think i may have been looking through someone else's collection.
any help would be great as i have someone checking with jimmy about this soon and visual reminders might help!!
here are some pix of the motor

dave l

I probably have that magazine.....somewhere!  I think I know which loft it is in.  If we get snowed in for a couple of weeks I'll go up and find it.
Reply
#5
ok guys ,

have a few results which has given me a partial answer.
first Frank Weir contacted me with this email.


Quote:Dave

I have had a look thorough Kart Sport/Racing Karts 60/61 Quarter Midget and Karting 59/60, Karting World 60/61/62, Popular Karting 60/61 and I have come up blank.

I have even looked in the English Karting magazine 62/63 editions with no luck.

Jimmy was very much a McCulloch man and I'm surprised that he experimented with Yamaha power.

I'll continue to look but I'm 90% certain I don't have what you are looking for, apologies.

Please let me know when you find the article; I'm interested in the kart/engine combination; it's something I did not know existed.

Frank

He followed up with this information.

   

in the same time frame i was in contact with Doug Milliken who was lucky enough to have a lunch date with the man himself Jimmy Yamane.
below is the whole email thread.
Quote:David,
I will probably be having lunch with Jimmy early next week. If you have a photo you want me to show him for comment, now would be a good time to send it to me. Can you scan it and attach the scan to a reply to this e-mail?
Doug Milliken

i sent these pix for reference.

           

David,
What is the question for Jimmy concerning this engine? Is there some reason to think he had something to do with an engine like this? What kind of engine is it? I remember him telling me once that he fooled around with motorcycle racing before karts were invented.
Doug

my response
Doug,
b
ack in the early days many drivers including jimmy were building fairly insane power plants for racing karts. on style was to cut off the transmission section of two stroke motorcycle motors and use the engines on c-open racing karts.
this particular engine came out of an estate in texas where the wealthy owner had many rare early go kart items, actually i brought a 18 foot trailer to fit all the items i bought.
among the items was this very early yamaha two stroke motor set up to be mounted on a go kart.

i was told some famous driver from back then had used it on his c-open kart but that was all the info.
on my way home we stopped in florida to attend a vintage kart race.
in the building there was several displays of go kart collectables.
in one of the displays there was a old karting magazine around 1962/3ish with a picture of jimmy with a racing kart he'd built on the cover.
in passing i noticed it was a yamaha motor with d shaped heads.
when i got home and was unpacking  i looked at the yamaha motor i had and realized the heads looked the same.
i haven't been able to relocate that magazine so far but when you mentioned you knew jimmy i played a long shot and got in touch with you.
please show jummy the pix and ask him if he possibly remembers running a yamaha powered kart back in the early years.

below is an article i did manage to find mention of the kart in this page


https://www.cycleworld.com/yamaha-ascot-...remembered

the article section i read


"In the late 1950s California was a hotbed of every kind of motor racing because (1) the aircraft industry was prospering, pumping money into a million households and (2) engineers, machinists, and fabricators were all having fun building things from the cast-off materials and surplus of that industry.
Japan’s motorcycle industry had saturated that country’s market and was beginning to export to the US. Karting came into being, putting thousands of two-stroke engines into the hands of innovative builders like the young Erv Kanemoto. My very first knowledge of [b]Yamaha’s existence came to me in a karting magazine containing photos of a special built by McCulloch technician Jim Yamane, powered by one of Yamaha’s early production vertically-split twins. Yamaha’s YDS-2 of 1963-4[/b] could, in the right hands, smoke off the British twins and Sportsters that then ruled the streets.
At Ascot Park, an intensive “technical university” had been operating for years as engine builders taught themselves how to improve airflow and pioneering rider-engineers such as Albert Gunter and his acolyte Dick Mann quietly showed competitors the value of rear suspension on this half-mile dirt-track. Competition was close among a large group of active riders – ideal conditions for fast talent development."
"

also thank him for me for his part in developing the mc10 go kart motor.
his early work converting mcculloch s44a and s55a chain saw motors into kart motors created demand for kart motors from mcculloch.
the interest in mcculloch corp to develop racing kart motors which then played a big part in race karting growing into the sport it became!!


the answer

David,



I had lunch with Jimmy yesterday. Wednesday was all you can eat enchiladas at the Mexican restaurant near his home. I took a picture of your Yamaha and a copy of the first page of the Cycle News article you forwarded. He looked it over and this is what he said:



It was Chuck Balsinger who adapted the Yamaha to a kart for C-open. Jimmy raced against him and Duffy Livingston with a Konig. He said Chuck's Yamaha was fast on the straight, but he had a hard time in the corners because of high rear center of gravity. Jimmy never built his own kart with a Yamaha, or anything other than a McCulloch. He started with D-44s, then D-55s and then they created the MC-10. Before kart racing was invented, he ran motorcycle drags with his friend Herm Laham who also worked at McCulloch back then. It sounds like Jimmy mostly wrenched on Herm's bike, but Jimmy made some runs too. Herm had a Matchless, among other bikes. I knew Herm because he and I worked at Garrett Turbochargers together, me for 25 years and Herm for over 40 years. Jimmy went to UCLA when he left McCulloch, working in their maintenance department. Herm just died a few months ago. He and Jimmy were still close.



Jimmy is 92 now and his knees are very bad. He is having a knee replacement soon, risky at that age. His short term memory is failing. He says he can remember long ago pretty well, but sometimes can't remember what he did last week. He told me about how at the beginning of WWII his whole family was rounded up and put in an internment camp (prison) in the California dessert. That is where Jimmy finished high school. When he turned 18 he was drafted out of the internment camp and sent to Europe right after the war ended. His family remained incarcerated. Ain't that the shits. Interestingly he said he enjoyed life in the camp where he was allowed to be a kid and do as he liked and play with cars. No racing there however. He is a very interesting guy.


Doug Milliken

for those interested in the early c-opens built back in the first years of karting here is an excellent though short thread from years ago on rear engine karts.

konig videos and thread
Dave L.
Reply
#6
found the cover pix of the car craft magazine.
since this was published in 1961 chucks kart is running an earlier yamaha two stroke then what i currently own.
   

interestingly enough i just found pix of what looks like the same kart in an earlier dual mcculloch s55a form.
or possibly the uphostorey and some parts were re-used.

   
Dave L.
Reply


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)