Keeping Secrets
Feature Article from Hemmings Muscle Machines
January, 2005 - Daniel StrohlCharlie Yapp distinctly remembers the 1992 Model A Ford Club of America national convention in Dallas, Texas. It was the one at which he made grown men cry. Not intentionally, and not by any mean-spiritedness. Charlie just wanted to gather some like-minded enthusiasts of hopped-up Model A four-bangers for a seminar and a meet and greet. "But these guys, old men, they had tears in their eyes," Charlie said. "They were labeled outcasts by the restorers for so long that they felt they were the only ones interested in modified Model As. It made my heart warm to hear their stories and get the thanks for bringing this to light." Indeed, for the decades prior, back to the era right after World War II, it seemed as though hot Model A 'bangers had disappeared from the automotive landscape. Hot rodders had, by and large, switched over first to Ford flathead V-8s, then to the Cadillac and Oldsmobile overhead-valve V-8s that showed up in the late 1940s. Those engines were light, powerful, rather inexpensive and easily available at the time. The four-cylinder, 39hp (Ford advertised 40hp) Model A engine-with its babbitt bearings and half-pressure oil system-became obsolete, relegated to the restorers. And the restorers zealously guarded their ideas of how a Model A should look, sound and perform. Thus, one of the first hot rod engines-an engine that enjoyed an incredible amount of popularity from the moment the Model A block first rolled off the assembly line-became little more than a footnote. But the racers and everyday kids who built cars around those engines didn't forget. Though many got rid of their old speed equipment, they didn't forget setting records on the salt at Muroc and El Mirage. They didn't forget how they could buy and build an A engine for next to nothing. They didn't forget how many different manufacturers offered so many ways to build those engines-from just an increase in compression to using Chevrolet four-cylinder OHV heads to wild DOHC setups. And when Charlie Yapp wrote a pair of articles in 1990 touching on that almost forgotten segment of the hobby for Restorer, the Model A Ford Club of America's magazine, he brought back a flood of memories for those racers and now-grown-up everyday kids and sparked a barrage of responses. "The Model A Ford Club of America and the Model A Restorers Club, they're purists, they do not like hot rodders," Charlie said. "But they had already seen the speed stuff creeping into their world, so they wanted me to take charge of this movement so they could control what they had." Charlie wrote to about 32 of those responders with a homemade newsletter produced on a typewriter and a copy machine. A month later, 200 fellas wanted to receive the newsletter, 400 the following month, and 800 by the end of the first year. Charlie, who ran a photography studio at the time, saw something going and founded the Secrets of Speed Society to publish what became Secrets Magazine, which continues in a refined form today. But the magazine and the club, which Charlie named after 1930s speed chronicler Murray Fahnestock's "Secrets of Speed" column in Ford Dealer and Service Field Magazine, proved only the beginning. The scope of the magazine eventually widened to include Model T performance, and Charlie decided to reproduce one of the more popular speed parts available in the 1930s-the Riley Two-Port head. George Riley began marketing his F-head conversion in 1930, advertising 80hp from the design, which placed two intake valves in the head and left the exhaust valve in the block. He continued building his Valve-In-Head conversion until 1933, despite Depression-era setbacks and foundry problems that left about half of the cast heads worthless. In 1933, Riley began selling the Riley Racing Four Port, which made much more power in exchange for reduced streetability. Yapp bought one of the Valve-In-Heads, better known as the Two-Ports, in 1998 and decided the head could be reproduced in cast iron, with some modifications. The water jackets required a new design-the original Two-Ports were prone to cracking right in the middle when steam pockets gathered there-and just about every small part required some tweaking, but the rest of the engine remained close to George Riley's vision, close enough to allow the original Two-Port parts to interchange with the new parts. The head, using a "pork-chop" combustion chamber design, now helps the engine develop about 105hp. For those keeping track, that's more than two and a half times the stock output. Charlie offered the head first to his initial 32 subscribers; most ponied up a $1,500 deposit on the spot. Altogether, he sold 66 heads during that first run, enough to convince him to make the heads on an annual basis. The success of those parts also convinced him to start casting other parts under a new venture called Scalded Dog Speed Parts. The catalog contains the Lion L-head for Model As and the Lizard L-head for Ts, as well as intake manifolds, side plates, water inlets and other dress-up items. "I've made it a goal to add one or two parts to the portfolio every year," Charlie said. Charlie personally became interested in Model As as a boy in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1965, when he and a friend, Tom Boss, developed a game. They would open his father's new World Book Encyclopedia to a new page, blindly drop a finger and try to replicate that subject. The first time through, they made Marconi radios that could broadcast 50 feet; the second time through launched Charlie's interest-and subsequent career-in photography. That game cemented their desire to apply what they had learned, so when they later dug up a Model T frame in Tom's neighborhood, they decided they had to learn more about old cars. "Well, we went over to the Bottoms where a fella sold old cars, and I wanted to buy this old World War II jeep. I couldn't afford it, so Tom and I went half and half on a 1929 Tudor sedan," Charlie said. "Tom's mom bought me out, but then Tom got tired of it, so I bought it back. I had five by the end of high school." Lack of funds kept Charlie out of the purist circles and more interested in the hot rod aspect of Model As. "I always enjoyed the purist thing, but when I was young, I could never afford a restoration," Charlie said. "Besides, I enjoyed the hot rod mindset-it allowed you to be creative. These guys building these engines, there's no two who found the same way to do something." After starting both S.O.S.S. and Scalded Dog in the Chicago area, Charlie and his wife Donna (who is responsible for coining the phrase, "Put a leaping lizard in your Tin Lizzie," and thus for the artwork on the Lizard T head) recently moved to a quiet house among the woods near Cincinnati to be closer to their grown children. Horseflies from the stables down the street buzz Charlie's head in the new 30-foot-by-60-foot pole barn. Photography equipment occupies one corner, while A and B engine blocks and speed parts lie in another. A pallet of Lion heads sits in the center of the barn, while a tarp hides all the yet-unpacked boxes of inventory. Offices for the magazine occupy the back of the barn, while a bare and rusty Model A chassis, complete with drivetrain, waits outside for Charlie's planned speedster conversion. "This is a business," Charlie said. "It doesn't make a lot of money, but it pays the mortgage." But he's in his element. Once he sees that you're actually interested in speed parts for Model As, his eyes light up, and he's more than willing to explain the differences between A, B and C heads (A heads are the unmarked civilian versions used from 1928-1931; B heads were marked with a B and used in late 1930 and 1931 on police cars; C heads were used on 1932-34 Model B engines) or discuss the difficulties in finding a foundry in southern Ohio willing to cast such low production runs or the history of the various aftermarket and high-performance Model A heads. For example, he's currently in the process of starting a registry for HAL heads. Harry Hosterman, a Columbus, Ohio, speed equipment dealer, made a variety of head designs for the Model Ts, As and Bs, in every configuration from L-head to DOHC in the 1920s and 1930s. HAL engines often were the nearest competitors to the legendary Offenhauser engines, but like many other speed parts from that era, enthusiasts forgot about them. When a man in Seattle came across a HAL-engined car a few years ago, he started collecting information for his own purposes, but soon realized, with "people falling all over themselves to send him pictures," that he should turn the project over to somebody who could publish the information, which is where Charlie came in. Charlie also has become somewhat versed in the nature of combustion, working on the design of the three heads. "Our theory is that with the spark coming out the dead center of the piston, the flame front goes toward the valves," Charlie said. "But it's really just witchcraft. We've had people tell us this isn't a modern design, it's not the way to go. But screw 'em. This works." Shortly after the formation of the group in 1991, the president of S.O.S.S. feared Charlie would soon run out of material for the magazine. But 14 years later, the quarterly magazine still prints new how-to articles, product descriptions and vintage advertisements for speed equipment. Charlie said he does fear reaching a saturation point sometime in the future. S.O.S.S. has remained steady at about 2,600 members, more or less, for the last several years. And while new products like the Lion and Lizard heads are currently selling well, demand for the Riley Two-Port drops off a little every year. This year's run amounted to 12 total assembled heads. "I think the only way to keep this active is to constantly find new products," Charlie said. "Ford made six million Model As, and there's something like 600,000 left in the United States. So there's a market out there; we just have to get to them." For now, though, Charlie said the fastest growing segment of the Model A hobby is speed parts. Look at your traditional Model A restoration parts supplier, and they very well might now carry reversed-eye springs or dual-carburetor intake manifolds. Gasket companies are now starting to offer copper gaskets for Riley Two-Ports and the reproduction Miller OHV heads. And to Charlie, that still spells success. This article originally appeared in the January, 2005 issue of Hemmings Muscle Machines.
Source: http://www.hemmings.com/mus/stories/2005/01/01/hmn_feature25.html
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