Mystery Solved

When we last left the mystery of the Geschwender V4 for aerial applications, I stated that either the world may never know what happened, or that I just needed to start emailing people.

Well, about two weeks ago I emailed the best lead I had, Mr. John Worden of Alternate AirPower. I told him of the article that I had found, and that I was curious if he head any idea of what ever happened to the V4 conversion. Honestly, I didn't expect much when I emailed the guy since I wasn't interested in buying a reduction unit, nor was interested in purchasing the business.

To my surprise, about three days later, he emailed me back. He said that he had a few photos of Geschwender belt drive reduction units mounted on V6's, and that he may have photos or drawings of V4 conversions. He also said that he suspected that Mr. Geschwender made a few V4 conversion units, but stopped the project when the V8 conversions became popular. Finally, he asked me to send him a scan of the article from the magazine, and he said that if I was interested, he would look through all his documents for anything on the V4 conversion. He also emailed me this picture:

It appears that the V6 this belt drive reduction unit is mounted on is of the Ford "Cologne" family. The first Cologne V6's were essentially just Ford V4's with two extra cylinders tacked on the end.

So I scanned and emailed him the article, and today he emailed me back:

"Conrad,

Thanks for the article - I have searched through my Geschwender documents and was only able to find the attached brochure on the V-4 conversion. Judging from the pictures I would guess that he used a 1 inch or 1.5 inch 3/8 pitch Morse Hy Vo chain. The reason I say this is I have an old blueprint (not very legible) for a very similar looking 2.44 ratio unit for a Kawasaki 1000 engine. This unit used a 1 inch wide chain and roller bearings on the propeller shaft. I might be able to shed some light on why the V4 unit did not become more common:

At the time that these units (both the V4 and Kawasaki) were being developed, Geschwender Aeromotive was primarily working on FAA certification of a V8 conversion for crop dusters. There were financial difficulties and Fred Geschwender did not see eye to eye with the
directors of the company. It appears that Fred was the technical part of the business but surrounded by a greater number of managers (I have several years of meeting minutes of the board from this period). There was also an attempt to get Cessna involved with an alternate engine - this may have been the motivation for the V4 conversion. In 1980 the company declared bankruptcy and Fred parted ways. Fred also developed a belt drive unit for the smaller engines - this would have been much more affordable for customers. Soon after Fred began to concentrate on the larger engines for the 3/4 scale warplane builders.

John"

This is the aforementioned brochure:

My favorite part? "Maximum output of the automotive racing version of the Ford V-4 engine as used by SAAB in their Sonett sports car is a remarkable 164 horsepower at 7500 rpm."

So unless I can find another source of information, it seems that a combination of management difficulties, financial difficulties, and success of other products all contributed to the demise of the Ford V4 for aerial applications.

Too bad. I would love to build a Dornier Do 335 replica powered by a pair of these.