Spotlight Hobbies


Larry is on FB, nice guy. Has a wicked LSX '63 Grand Sport replica, and a few other toys

He had been working on the idea of the 'soft' head, which reshaped the combustion chamber to allow static CRs in the stratosphere - 14 to as high as 17:1. Basic idea was to tweak the inherent tumble and swirl to create a uniform charge, then ignite a small, rich flame kernel that would act like a stratified charge engine to burn lean mixtures but getting wicked expansion and maintain low exhaust gas temps, leapfrogging the Ricardo patents.

He had a very unique chamber for the Blue Crescent B429 head, something of a figure 8 appearance and IIRC, smaller valves subtly re-positioned. Power shot up, EGTs were down far enough they thought the instruments had broken. He was ready to sell the whole works to SVO, but Glidden freaked at the idea the head would be widely available and negate his chances at a championship. Mad Dog then told FoMoCo SVO he was going to walk (presumably, to Chevy) if they followed through and tooled the head. FoMoCo went with Root instead, and Glidden harvested the championships.

Several stories in Circle Track and HRM covered the idea of the Endyn 'soft' head. for the 351C. Ernie Elliott steadfastly denied that Bill was running the '"soft" head the year he won Daytona in a rout although it is rumored he did use it at Talladega, when he unlapped himself by two (!) laps with something like 25 to go. Insiders said the engine was essentially dieseling around the track, but not sure exactly how they get to that conclusion... maybe a high gear [re tarred] no one could find?

Subsequent to the bad taste from the factory machinations, he became a figure in the Honda tuner world, extracting amazing power from their 4-cylinders.

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