Dan Dettmann
|
I have the December 1963 issue of Karting World that featured a test of the Shoemaker "siamesed" West Bends. I don't see any starter pulleys (or recoil starters) on either engine of the test kart so they must have been coupled together and ran direct drive. They were set up to fire 180 degrees apart. Most people who ran twin engine direct drive karts did the same thing back then. The only advantage I can see with the Shoemaker setup is it only requires a single swing mount and chain (duplex), so you save the weight of one engine mount and one sprocket hub. However with the single exhaust header it must have sounded sweet. Interesting to note that a Shoemaker ad in the same issue says that they have kits available for West Bends and Power Products with Homelites and McCullochs coming soon. I have a hard time imagining how the latter two worked out.
|
