Ron Grant T500 racer bottom end parts

[Canam]

I have been working for a few years to restore what I believe to be a T500 upgraded by Ron Grant for a customer back in the 1970's. When I got it it was very rusty from sitting a dozen years in an open pole barn. The body work, chassis pieces and some engine components were clearly from the 1970's. There were a few more recent additions like rear sets from the 1990's, but mostly it was in a time warp. See the report on its first chassis test here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htmZu8S-RmI&t=88s

The top end had Grant's Street Sleeper porting, slightly milled heads, pod filters, Jemco street chambers and a Boyer electronic generator ignition. No amount of work and testing seemed to be able to make the ignition last more than 10 miles at a time. Dozens of 4 -7 mile successful tests, but after 10 miles it was headed home on a trailer. I replaced the entire system with a Powerdynamo generator electronic ignition. Not exactly cutting edge by today's standards, but at least it keeps running and stays in time.

I have been looking for bottom end parts since they seem to be all stock production pieces. I have been searching for the pieces Grant illustrated in his two articles in 1972 on hopping up the T500: stuffers, lightened crank and close ratio gears.

I finally found a set of stuffers and crank and after a year of trying was able to buy them.
The stuffers are completely usuable, but the crank is only good for measuring to make another.

The origin of the gears that Grant used seems shrouded in mystery. However he published very good photos of them. When I sent them to Oily Tom, who had the specs for T500 gears, it was only a matter of time (and money) before a new set appeared on my work bench.

I have another set of crankcases which have been reconditioned by Paul Miller. These can be modified to accept the stuffers.

Any guesses on home much time and money is going to be required to get this bottom end fabricated and assembled so I can find out what the performance of Grant's "Perfect Sleeper" was really like? When I read that article in 1972 I was riding a stock 1970 T500 and suffering H1 power envy. Of course I was also suffering from insufficient resources to close the power gap. Someday I hope to find out what Grant was really selling.

[Canam]

I can not figure out how to get the photos to show in the post. However, if you right click on the image it will allow you to open the image in a new tab. You can see the stuffers, crank and gears there. Sorry for the trouble.

[tz375]

There are a few guys on here with race or hot street T500s. I seem to recal that someone tried smaller flywheels and I think it went better without the stuffers, but I may have that wrong.

Stuffing crankcases used to be all the rage to increase primary compression, until people worked out that building a better pipe is way more effective. I think he took stock GT cranks and machined down the webs. I don't know if he fitted TR rods or big ends or mains or if the rest of the crank was stock.

That's a nice project and glad to hear that you have oil Tom on your side. He does nice work.

[dollydog]

hi canam. on postimage, upload your photo, then when it says 'completed' scroll down the page until you get to 'hotlink for forums'. copy and paste that to here and when you submit post it will appear
cheers, dd.

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