A trivia question -- not so EASY for Breazeale

[Guest]

Tom,
Good to hear from you again!!! Maybe Jim, myself and any other old dogs can get together. The 356's are doing a great comeback. We need to pry all that knowledge from you so we can make more money. Email me, stable356@gmail.com

Alan

[tom manning]

i found this i have never seen it before but al tol me the idea came from it

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsche- ... 356-a.html

[Guest]

Jim,

Guilty on both counts, older than dirt and a memory like Swiss cheese. I grew up in the East Bay in the 50's and 60's, a fabulous time and place to become a car guy. My car fixing buddy in high school and college was the son of a VW/Porsche dealer. His dad was under pressure from the factory to avoid the hot rod element (EMPI was started at a dealership and the factory was not happy), so my buddy had to hide his race car projects at my house, where we had room amongst my dad's V12 Lincoln and flathead Fords and my ratty sports cars. Needless to say we followed the progress of the twin motor Indy car and tried to get daily reports of its progress at the Brickyard.

There was a short but glorious span of a couple of years when there were almost no speed parts to be had for VWs and Porsches, and the cost effective way to get a little $2 trophy at the Pleasanton fairgrounds autocross was to stuff a Corvair in your stripped, decambered VW or Porsche, with ring gear flipped since they ran the wrong way. That meant you needed Lukes and Shorman parts and advice, and their shop was just a great place to see wild racy mechanical stuff, way ahead of its time. One of our friends put a Corvair in his Speedster and put his Super motor up for sale for $400. For a long time there were no takers, everybody wanted a $150 junkyard Corvair with an L and S kit. That was when we learned about fried axles and fulcrum plates. Not how to fix them, but how to minimize the clunking sound on a date.

My buddy went on to campaign a Yenko Corvair, with extensive L and S machine work, and is now restoring a period V8 Trans Am-IMSA GTO car for vintage racing.

If we ever met, Jim, it was at the counter of All Foreign back in he day.

[William Crowell]

The first time I ever heard about Lukes and Shorman was in 1966, when I was a freshman at U.C. Berkeley. A friend told me that Richie Lukes and Harry Shorman were building 356 engines that could rev reliably to 7,000 RPM, and that their engines were winning all the races simply because they could rev higher than the competition. They did it by welding the caps onto the connecting rods so the rod bolts wouldn't break. I remember being pretty impressed that they could do that.

[Dan Macdonald]

This is an old topic that I somehow missed back then.
I would like to revive it with my little story.

I went to high school in Orinda, California (Miramonte '68). I had an Austin Healey 100-6 ($400), but what I really wanted was a Speedster but they were out of my price range ($1,500 and up!!).

Anyway, as one of the few "sports car guys" in high scool, one of my fellow students asked me if I would like to see his father's race car. Of course I said yes, and we drove to his house and there, in the family garage, was the twin-Porsche-engine Indy car. My fellow student was Al Stein's son.

Up to that moment I never knew it existed or that my fellow student's father was so into racing.

That's a day I'll never forget. Thanks for listening

[Alan Klingen 2]

I bought my 1964 Porsche 901 from lukes and Shorman The Car was owned by ARNESEN WHO WAS FAMOUS FOR HIS TURBINE POWERED BOATS AND HIS SPECIAL BOAT OUT DRIVES IN FACT MY 901 HAD TRACES OF HIS TRYING TO PUT ON A BLOWER TO THE MOTOR FOR MORE HOUSE POWER BUT APPARET LY IT BLEW UP TOO OFTEN. THE WAS A GREAT CAR IT WAS CHASSIS NUMBER 33. It was stolen from me at SQUAW Valley ski resort. WISH I still had that that piece of history!!Alan Klingen The Stable.

[Alan Klingen 2]

The 356 race cars had a bad habit of blowing off fan belts so Shorman devised a systm that nused a gilmer belt that was a toothed belt tat did the job. Alan The Stable.

[Martin Benade]

I heard of some semi legit testing that showed Porsche and VW fan belts slip quite a lot at high rpm. I wonder if it’s true.

[Wes Bender]

Probably a moving target considering belt tension variances.

[Alan Klingen 2]

I bought my 1964 Porsche 901 from them for $1800 ! wish it was owned by a james Arnesen of the Arnesen surface piercing prop company. Stolen at Squaw Valley Ski park. Alan Klingen CHASSIS NUMBER 8033. ALAN.

[Harlan Halsey]

The twin 911 engine Indy car was well known nationally. I was still back East then, and I remember reading about it and seeing pictures. It was a disappointment when the car failed to make the field. That was not long after the rear engine revolution that shook the Indy roadster entrants to the core, and anything seemed possible, even turbine powered cars.

[Alan Klingen 2]

That's for "Lukes And Shorman Porsche shop in ALBANY SAN Francisco Bay AREA. ALSO NOTE THEY TRIED TO QUALIFY FOTHE INDY 500 WITH A PORSCHE POWERED INDY CAR AND MISSED MAKING THE SHOW BY 2 MPH!! ALAN THE STABLE. AND FOR MANY YEARS HAD PART OF THE BODY WORK AT THE SHOP IN ALBANY, CA. ALAN THE STABLE.

[Alan Klingen 2]

THE BIG GUY'S NAME WAS "BIG BIRD". ALAN I USED LUKES AND SHORMAN VAVLE GUIDES A LOT!!! ALAN THE STABLE. ALSO WAS A GUY NAMED "little CLAUS" ALAN THE STABLE.

[Alan Klingen 2]

Also at the shop was the body of their attempt to race at INDY With a PORSCHE Powered car I think they missed the show by 2 mph!! Alan The Stable.