The first attempt at building a hot motor consisted of sticking a supercharger on a nearly stock Triumph 350cc twin motor and running it on methanol. Optimisim was soon replaced with pessimism when piston crowns regularly separated at the oil control ring as a result of high revs. A few calculations were done and a short-stroke crankshaft was built in the engineering labs and mated to a modified 500cc barrel to make a very over-square 350 to reduce mean piston speed. A whole load of other mods were carried out at the same time and a prolonged cycle of "blow it up, fix it, improve it and blow it up again" was entered into. The engineering work during this period would fill a book by itself.
Eventually, Icarus became extremely competitive at a national level over the quarter mile and at world level over the standing start mile but the time and money to go further was beyond my means, interest waned and racing was abandoned.
