Trick engines Vintage engine mods Anyone know them/?

JoeStolz · Oct 28, 2024

Just Imagine.
You are a Homelite weedwacker, You and your buddies are born (manufactured) built, tested, adjusted, cleaned up and debreifed. "Men, you will be sent all over this country, ands it's your job to go to battle with many sizes, colors, and types of weeds, grass and blah blah blah..Next you are lined up hanging on a shelf with all the bright lights blinding you as yall wait to be picked for your 1st assignment.. But, when you get picked up....then taken to some messy garage in Lansing Mich. and some dude tears you apart and starts grinding on your head, FROM THE INSIDE. A few days later you are in a red rc boat rippin 80 knots across Mullet lake..
Back in the day 20ish yrs ago this was a thing if you young folks are unaware. Some of those guys really knew the majic of the 2 stroke.
And some tried and did make compaines from the efforts.
My question is...
has anyone heard of TRICK ENGINES from Lansing Mich?
I called the number and had a nice conv. with his widow.
He passed 10 yrs ago but he was really deep... He made his own hulls, modded his engines etc.
Im just looking for any more info.. CHeers Joe

Scott Tonak · Oct 29, 2024

Now you really made me feel old. Back in the late 80's to early 90's I wasn't above garbage picking an old Homelite weed whipper. Usually they just needed a good carb cleaning and the bonus was that you got about 4' of cable to salvage for drive shafts. Mount that baby in a 50" v hull with a cheap am radio and you were having fun at a blistering speed of 38 mph with an old Octura 480!! One of my buddies started calling me Whipper Dipper and it just stuck. Still calls me that today. Tony Castronovo of Enforcer/Warehouse Hobbies had all the tooling to modify the Homie's. I was visiting friends in Florida one time and stopped by his shop unannounced. He and his wife couldn't have been nicer. Tony gave me a grand tour of his facility and explained how everything was done. Boats, engines, hardware, it was all made there. Afterwards we sat around the lobby and chatted for a couple hours. Once the original Zenoah g23pum flooded the market (thank you Bruce Hanson!) the Homie's had to go back to lawn and garden duty. However I still get a kick out of seeing one running in a boat but that doesn't happen very often anymore. Tony eventually caved in to the Zenoah's before ultimately selling off to Bonzi. I never heard of Trick Engines and that's surprising because Lansing is basically in my backyard. The only guy I know from that era that might still remember how to get them Homie's screaming would be Steve Stafiej of SS Racing Engines. He's up to snuff on the modern day engine mods but I remember some of the Homie's he did back in the day that made an old Enforcer Gator stand on its tail!

Dave Gilles · Oct 29, 2024

just talking out loud here I have no actual idea but I would think that those engines would respond to the same as a zenoah. 2 stroke piston ported engines havent changed. Start at 150 degree intake. 125-135 degree transfer duration. which should give about 25 degrees of blow down. 25 x 2 + 130 transfer duration = 180 for the exhaust port duration which on a zen gives you 90 degrees after TDC. Just get the timing wheel out and cut slowly and see how it does.

JoeStolz · Nov 12, 2024

Well thanks for the replies. I called the number and spoke to the mans wife. Shw was widowed bout 10 yrs back and he stopped building. or Rebuilding these engines 10 yrs before that. We spoke for over an hour. she was so nice. I think she enjoyed talking about him and his passions as he was like most of us, very INFLECTED with the rc hobby. lol
She was giddy telling me how the local Hardware stores Loved and hated him. He would go to the bank and do a cash grab $$$ then run around to all the stores buying every Homelite hanging on the walls, leaving the retailers with no weed wackers to sell the customers that had front yards sporting grass hairdo's like the Johnny winter band or Good ole Mr. Natrual and Dr. Green thumb, HIPPIE Haired LONG grass lawns. lol I pitcue a small town where all the houses have cut grass but none are trimmed... lol
She said he would return with a truck bed full of them and turn into themad scientist. Grinding jugs to the wee hours until he was in a pile of aluiminum 6 inchs deep. She said he sold a ton of them until ... Some other engine was released. "The RC Zenoah" Im guessing. I just love the history of it all. I have little knowlege in the boat world, Mine is more in the Rc plane world. However I did help out a lady a few yrs back and bought a lot of vintage boat stuff. Output shafts, Props, Vintage turn fins and hardware. The Really good stuff not cheap china stuff. Last night I pulled out a BRAND NEW k90 from Russia!! Freggin amazing engine. I have a lot of the OPS parts Vintage Octura etc. And so much more.. Also have some really nice gas engines. Some CNC pretty ones but the older full mods and strokers that are not so "pretty" to todays standard but could be the epic sleeper. 2 stroke porting tricks come from way back, so im sure there are some insane engines in this stuff. Also found some really cool prop gauges in this stuff. Some fancy, some built by garage engineer/ artist
I have a few things on ebay but I need to lean into it make some room back. .. Here are a few pics.

JoeStolz · Nov 12, 2024

This pile of goddies is a RC boat History lesson, There are notes with some of the stuff explaining the work or directions to use. I found 6 or 7 boxes of Vintage C&H Ignition stuff from back in the day. So I call Adrian and told him Id send what I found to him, Boxes he packed when he was a much younger man.
Thanks agian for the replies above boys...
Cheers joe.