I attended many tractor pulls in VT,when Gardner Stone had his dual Allison aircraft engined tractor dominating the curcuit....I loved watching the multiple engined ones like Sassy Massey and the Ferry Bros. tractors,nothing sounds sweeter than 5 BBC or mopars screaming at 9500 rpms doing full pulls!...the smoker diesels were something else too,I saw several inline 6's that had been converted to run a carb with alcohol fuel,and some stock ones with 3 turbos added to the--one made a full pull and the top half of the block busted clean off just below the pistons,and the head was hurled 30 feet away,it was awesome..
One guy,Woddy Woodward of NH,had an Alison engine on his tractor "the Animal"...I remember camping out in the 3 days of rain,rain,rain in VT when the track was a mud bog,and none of the tractors could make a full pull--he came up in the last heat the last day of the pulls,and gave it hell,it screamed at 6K all the way down the 300 foot track--took him a good 45 seconds to a minute to make it to the end,just barely creeping along--I saw the exhaust manifolds turn cherry red about halfway down the track,then you could see the heads start glowing,and then the entire block was oriange as a pumpkin--he kept the boots to it and made the full pull,winning the competition--as soon as it crossed the finish line,the front end of the motor grenaded in spectacular fashion,and the crowd gave him a standing ovation--it was GREAT!..
A month later at a fair in Keene NH,I met Woody again,he was in the pits working on his puller getting ready to enter it in the competition--I told him I'd never seen such an awesome display as his win in VT the month before--and I said "you must have bought another engine,huh?---he replied "No,its the same one!--I just had to replace the timing chain & gears and the front cover"--I was amazed that engine still ran at all!--he said "Eh,they made these beasts pretty rugged,in WWII the enemy would shoot the radiators out of the planes they used these engines in,and we'd have to just start climbing as high as we could,our planes could go higher than theirs--after the engines got so hit they seized,we'd open the bombay and go into a step dive,and that would cool them off enough to allow them to run again...those engines are polished mirror smooth inside,and take a LOt of abuse before they are junk!"...he shrugged his shoulders when I asked if it still had good power--"Eh,about the same as before I heated it up--now it only gets 45 psi of oil pressure instead of 60--oh well!"....
I'd love to have one of those 1710 CID Alison's in a truck!...the one Woddy ran had a home made intake made of 1/4" plate that looked like a uge triangle shaped funnel--he used FOUR Holley dominator carbs with the center two having 3/8" gas lines pointing down the venturis for an "accelerator pump"--he'd push a button if it started to big and an electric pump squirted gas right down the intake--those things can burn a gallon in 30 seconds to a minute like nothing!...
...2500+ hp in stock form!..
