Lycoming Motor History Inquiry

[Guest BJM]

I just read the article on the Mormom Meteor in this month's Hemmings Classic cars. Which led me to wonder if there was a book out there on Lycoming history and what anyone knows about Lycoming.

What became of the company after the dissolution of ACD?

Did they start by building industrial application engines and Cord justed "picked" them to supply motors for ACD?

Since Auggie Duesenberg had some oversight on Duesenberg development, why didn't Duesenbergs have a Duesenberg motor? Did he begrudgingly accept the Lycoming straight eight or would he have preferred a big bore V8?

[Peter J.Heizmann]

BJM...a good source to check out is the AACA Library & Research Center.

Click on "Library" on the home page, or, the "Resources" drop box at the head of this page.

The Library retains thousands of historical vehicle books, literature, and, spec sheets.

Regards,

PJH..

[Restorer32]

Lycoming provided engines to builders of assembled cars at least as early as 1917. We restored a 1917 Bell which used a Lycoming 4 cylinder which interestingly had no center main bearing. On acceleration you could feel (and hear)the crankshaft flexing. Reliable and otherwise well built engines. I believe the company is still in business building aircraft engines, among other things.

[Guest imported_buggboy]

Indeed they are still in business, Jeff. Still making aircraft engines. I think they are owned by Textron (or at least used to be). The Lycoming I maintain is in a 1942 vintage Stinson L-5. Neat engine, parts are beginning to dry up for it though.

BTW, Nate was impressed at what a small world it is...

[Restorer32]

The Phantom surfaces yet again....

[mrpushbutton]

Duesenbergs had a Duesenberg engine, designed by Duesenberg, built by Lycoming.

[Ivan Saxton]

-and tuned by Duesenberg to provide whatever performance was required for the particular car. There has been a lot published on all this over the years in the ACD newsletters, apart from Elbert's book, and of course Fred Roe's book is one of the best references of all.

Fot information about Lycoming's own engines, you may lear a lot from specification pages of the January (Show) issues of MoToR. The only one I have is 1921. One engine model only is shown to Lycoming, the K, at various listed hp for different makes. Cars that used it were: Champion, Crow-Elkhart, Dort, Elcar, Gardner, Lone Star, Norwalk, Piedmont, Skelton, and Texan. Some of these names don't mean much to me.

In the early 1920's at least one Australian built car used the 4 cyl side valve Lycoming. This was the Summit. Stuart Middlehurst and I owned one jointly, and I dont think we ever ahd it running. I eventually told him that as I felt that his interest in the car was much greater than mine that he should consider it his.

I am pretty sure that another Australian car that used a Lycoming was the Eco, but that had some arrangement for running on very low octane fuel.

The big 300cu" straight eights that were used by Auburn around 1928-30 were excellent, impressive engines.

Ivan Saxton

[Rusty_OToole]

Amazing Adventure shows Cary Grant playing a chauffeur, several shots of him in his uniform. A picture from about the same time period.

Saw it on sale at Walmart for a $1 buck a few days ago (last Friday).

http://www.carygrant.net/reviews/amazing.html