Three For the Go!
Three for the go!
The Cardani
A Debut at Barcelona
DAVID DIXON
AFTER WORKING 12 or 14 hours a day, seven days a week, since January, Jack Findlay finally put Daniele Fontana’s three-cylinder 500 on a racetrack. He wheeled the smartly finished Cardani Three out for the Spanish GP at Barcelona, but completed only a mile before the engine overheated, and he stopped, rather than risk damage.
The entire engine, which is not a copy of an MV but Fontana’s own design-“We don’t even know the MV’s bore and stroke!”-was manufactured on two lathes, one of which also is used for Fontana’s brakes, and a small milling machine in a tiny basement workshop.
The one-piece four-valve cylinder head had the ports cast in, instead of being milled out of a solid casting, and required a full month to make. Three 28-mm Dellorto carburetors are fitted, spark is supplied by 10-mm plugs from three coils and a single 6-V battery. Compression ratio is 10.5:1.
Gear drive to the overhead camshafts also drives the oil pump, while the contact breakers are driven off the left end of the inlet camshaft.
A Paton clutch is being used temporarily, and runs dry outboard of the gear primary drive. The seven-speed gearbox is built in unit with the engine.
Findlay designed and built the frame, using his Bob McIntyre-inspired G50 frame as a pattern. The power unit fits in so snugly that the forward valve cover retaining nuts had to be chamfered to clear the front downtubes. A Norton front fork is fitted. Girling spring/ shock absorbers are used at the rear. Brakes axe, of course, Fontana equipment.
“The only part copied from the MV is the rear brake lever it pivots about the left footrest,” said Jack wrily.
A massive 6-gal. light-alloy fuel tank lends a bulky impression, but the Cardani is remarkably compact, with the highest point of the engine well below a line drawn across the tops of the 18-in. wheels. It is even lower than Jack’s McIntyre G50, and more compact than his 250 Bultaco.
The unit is intended to develop peak power, a guesstimated 70 bhp, at 13,000 rpm, but because it has proved so complex to build there is no likelihood that production versions ever will be available. B
