There is no picture with this story because sight cannot capture the essence of Ed Cooper's magnificent obsession.
Stand next to his Unlimited Hydroplane when the engine is fired in Mission Bay's East Vacation Isle pits this weekend and feel the ground rumble under your feet.
And then there is the sound, which, frankly, is indescribable in this era of muffled engines.
The powerplant of choice in Unlimited Hydroplane racing these days is the turbine. Fast, yes. Reliable, yes. But as for sound effects . . . whoosh.
Compare that with the turbocharged, V-12 Allison piston engine powering Cooper's boat. Fast, at times. Reliable, not exactly. Sound effects, off the chart.
“I don't think these engines ever snuck up on anyone. . . . I don't think they could be labeled stealth,” Cooper said yesterday as he spoke lovingly of his engines, which 6½ decades ago powered such aircraft as P-51 Mustangs and P-38 Lightnings in World War II.
“I think that's part of the beauty of them . . . the sound. They are America. They let you know they are there and running.”
Be the listener a block or a half-mile away from the 2½-mile Bill Muncey Memorial Course on east Mission Bay.
For more than a decade, Cooper has been the lone supplier of “thunder” to a sport that labels itself “Thunderboats.”
“If I didn't love doing it, it would made no sense doing it . . . not close,” said Cooper, who is one part boat owner, one part tinkerer and a third part Don Quixote.
Following the end of World War II, Allison and Rolls-Royce engines from Allied fighters and bombers powered Unlimited Hydroplane racing for more than four decades.
Then, as the supply of piston engines dried up, surplus turbine engines from Vietnam-era helicopters became abundant. Every team except one eventually made the switch.
Cooper held out. At first, he was embarrassingly slow. Then he got more speed out of the engines than anyone thought capable. The longer he held out, the more popular he became.
Cooper the outsider is now the coolest guy in the pits, even if his engines usually stop running before the end of the day's final race.
“It's so cool when it runs the way it should,” Cooper said. “The power, the sound, the feel. The problem is there are so many moving parts, my engine just isn't as reliable as the turbine . . . which is why we're flying jets today.”
Cooper's U-3 recently blew four engines during a two-race trip to the Northwest. Cooper had planned on a leisurely vacation over the month between those races and this weekend's season finale on Mission Bay.
Instead, he loaded all the broken parts into his truck and detoured to his shop in Evansville, Ind. Cooper rebuilds his engines himself. A month later, he had three engines ready for Mission Bay.
Turbines are easy. They are compression fans, an injection system, a combustion chamber and a transfer case that connects the engine to the prop.
Piston engines are not so easy. They are thousands of parts – pistons, rods, valves, springs, gears, lifters, crankcases, gearboxes, more gears, plumbing, etc.
“The beauty is in the near impossibility of making it work perfectly,” said Cooper in a true Quixotian statement. “We've asked this engine to do far more than they ever were asked it to do in wartime.”
What fascinates Cooper is the enduring nature of the engines he has. Some of the Allison parts were machined in 1939. He has the part numbers to prove it. Yet they are absolutely interchangeable with parts manufactured in 1944.
“Most of these parts were built with sand castings and not computers,” Cooper said. “But the tolerances are almost exactly the same. You can replace a 1939 part with a 1944 part and they will fit exactly.
“Think about that. These engines were assembled in Indianapolis by women workers. But the rods and crankshafts came from Cadillac, the ignitions from Ford and Bendix, the magnesium parts from Maytag – and everything fit as perfect as can be.”
Cooper's boat was the sixth-fastest qualifier yesterday with a fast lap of 155.084 mph. Jeff Bernard paced qualifying with a fast lap of 158.612.
Nine Unlimiteds and 16 Offshore Powerboats are in the pits. There was one accident on the drag boat course: Mark Worentine's Top Fuel Hydro flipped and disintegrated during its run. The driver suffered a stiff neck and a gash to his lip.
Racing in the Unlimited Hydroplane and Offshore Powerboat classes begins today. The championship heats are tomorrow afternoon.
Bill Center: (619) 293-1851; bill.center@uniontrib.com
