Buffalo Motors [1909]

 

In addition to the already splendidly varies and many sizes in regular heavy-duty and speed types on which the makers of Buffalo engines have based their claim of "an engine for every sort and size of boat," the Buffalo line, built by the Buffalo Gasolene Motor Company, at Buffalo, N.Y., will include two new engines for 1910. These are an improved V-type, eight-cylinder, high-speed engine, giving extremely high power in concentrated space and the sought-for and valuable advantage of a much lower center of gravity than any other type of engine affords, and a four-cylinder, 4¾ x 5-inch high-speed engine which will give a speed engine of a size smaller than the present 60-hp. Buffalo speed engine and which is designed to transform runabouts and medium-sized launches and racers into much faster boats.

These two new Buffalo speed engines will add one to either end of the present Buffalo line of speed engines—making the assortment for 1910 consist of the new four-cylinder, 4¾ x 5; the four-cylinder, 6¼ x 6¾, 60-hp.; the new six-cylinder, 6¼ x 6¾, 90-hp., and the new V-type, eight-cylinder, planned as a concentrated power plant for the speediest of racers.

The new Buffalo V-type has been given the same careful designing and testing and has embodied in it all the improved applications of safe marine practice that has characterized the other engines of the Buffalo line. This engine consists of two four-cylinder engines set at an angle of 90 degrees from each other and 45 degrees from the horizontal, both engines operating a single, four-throw crank shaft. The cylinders being thus tilted, with a battery of four cylinders on either side, the resultant lower position of the engine in the boat is apparent and the much lower center of gravity is obvious. The connecting rods from two opposite cylinders will operate on one crank pin. To obviate any possible contact between the two connecting-rod boxes on the crank pin, the pin will be turned with a double fillet, which will provide a separation on the bearing surface.

The crank shaft will be made extra large in order to gain additional bearing area on the crank pins. The crank shaft will then be drilled through laterally to eliminate excessive weight. In every part, both in the main sections and in the detail, the engine shows capable designing to stand up not only under excessive speed but also under excessive strain. In order infallibly to hold this new concentrated motor of high power it is being fitted with a clutch of special design and special material. It will be provided with double high-tension ignition. The oiling will be force-feed direct to the cylinders and to the bearing surfaces, including the crank pins, which absolute oiling system is used on all the Buffalo engines and which has proved signally effective on high-speed engines, as was evidenced by the performance of the Buffalo speed engine in the champion Hoosier Boy.

In order to secure extra factors of strength in the new engine, with the idea in mind to turn out a speedy motor, which, like the engine in Hoosier Boy, will not only show speed but endurance on long runs, special steels and alloys will be used. Just what these special metals are the Buffalo Gasolene Motor Company is not yet ready to make public.

It was only last Spring that the Buffalo Gasolene Motor Company placed a speed engine on the market for the first time. One of the first speed engines turned out—a 75-hp. Engine—was placed in Hoosier Boy, owned by J. W. Whitlock, of Rising Sun, Ind., and racing under the colors of the Buffalo Launch Club, the Hoosier Boy won race after race and became Champion of the Great Lakes and Central West. To give further test to her engine Hoosier Boy made a thousand-mile run from Rising Sun to Peoria, Ill.

The new V-type is designed as a far more powerful engine, has the added advantage of a lower center of gravity which will give a steadier boat and will permit of greater speed on turns, to say nothing of the fact that the new engine will occupy little more than half the space. The pronounced success of the first Buffalo speed engine in making a champion racer of Hoosier Boy augurs well for greater things from the new V-type.

The new four-cylinder, 4¾ x 5, light-weight, high-speed engine that will be added to the Buffalo line for 1910 is provided to fill a demand for a speed engine with a lot of power in it, but small enough to fit a boat which could not contain the Buffalo 60-hp. Speed engine, hitherto the smallest speed engine in the Buffalo line. For the man who wants to turn his runabout or medium-sized boat into a craft fast enough to compete with most of the racers, or who wants to increase the speed of his present medium-sized racer so as to contend with the fastest in his class, this new engine is placed upon the market. It is a marine adaptation of an automobile type of motor. The cylinders are cast in pairs and it has double ignition.

For 1910 the Buffalo line will include twenty-one different marine engines – surely a varied line to choose from. All of them are of the four-cycle type, the Buffalo line for eleven years having built its reputation of four-cycle engines. The 1910 assortment shows a 3-hp. Engine; a 4-hp.; a 5-hp.; a 6-hp.; a 7½-hp.; a 10-hp.; a 12-hp.; a 15-hp.; an 18-hp.; a 20-hp.; a 24-hp.; a 30-hp.; a 36-hp.; a 40-hp.; a 54-hp.; a 60-hp.; a 65-hp.; a 90-hp.; a 100-hp.; the new V-type engine and the new 4 3/8 x 5 lightweight, high-speed engine.

In the regular type the Buffalo line will run the wide range from 3 to 100-hp. And from two to six cylinders, in the slow-speed, heavy-duty type the range will be from 4 to 54-hp. And from one to six cylinders; and the lightweight, high-speed type will provide the new four-cylinder, 4¾ x 5, a four-cylinder 60-hp., a six-cylinder 90-hp., and the new extremely high-power V-type engine. The two new speed engines, the engine that made the Hoosier Boy champion and a representation of the engines in the regular and heavy-duty types, will be shown to the public at the Boston boat show in January, in spaces 68-72, at the New York show in February in space F, on the arena floor, at the Buffalo show in March and at the Detroit show.

"Buffalo quality" is a term familiar to users of marine engines and has been made famous by the actual performances of Buffalo marine engines the world over. The high reputation of the Buffalo is broadcast. The engines have a proven capacity for work and wear. Their mechanical perfection, their reliable, ever-ready, constant service, and the zealously maintained Buffalo quality that is in them had brought them into world-wide use. They are made in a plant at Buffalo that is remarkable in many ways. It is a plant that strives for and attains absolute interchangeability of parts. Every part of every Buffalo engine is trued down to 1-1000^th of an inch.

This, together with careful designing and accurate allowances for heat expansion, is what gives the perfect Buffalo compression and its results of conserved power and constant untroubled service. The cylinders are ground and all wearing surfaces are ground and hardened. Undoubtedly it is the careful workmanship on Buffalo engines, combined with their many mechanical improvements and the highest grade of materials, that has earned their high reputation for durability. One of the splendid features of the Buffalo engines is the complete water jacketing, not only of the cylinders but of the cylinder heads, the valve chambers and the exhaust.

The world-wide use of Buffalo engines in racers, cruisers, in fishing fleets, work boats and craft of every kind is well known. They are in the Fiji Islands, in the Mediterranean, in South America, on the inland lakes of Africa, in the coast boats of Asia. The supply ship that carried relief to Peary in his pole finding party through the ice floes to the northernmost point of navigation was powered with a 36-hp., heavy-duty Buffalo engine. The remarkable performances of Hoosier Boy powered with a Buffalo speed engine are too familiar to the public to need rehearsing. Last Summer Lawyer Vince H Faben, of Seattle selected a 100-hp. six-cylinder regular type Buffalo engine for his new 75-foot cruiser-yacht Maude F. Of this engine Mr. Faben wrote:

  "I have personally worked out the engine all Summer and have permitted 
  no one to run it but myself since it was installed, and she is working
  perfectly. To say the least, the engine is assuredly all that you claimed
  for it. I have never taken off the cylinder head, nor have I had occasion 
  to clean a spark plug since she started to run, nor have I been compelled
  to crank her, as she starts very reliably from the plug by simply turning
  on the electric current through the spark coils."

MotorBoat readers should send to the Buffalo Gasolene Motor Company at Buffalo, N.Y., and get its catalog, which tells the detailed story of the Buffalo engine.

(Transcribed from MotorBoat, Dec. 10, 1909, pp. 180-182)