More than 150 personal items from the estate of the great engine builder Bill Jenkins are up for auction this Saturday in Indianapolis, and three of the lot numbers are very unique engine items. Also up for sale is Jenkins’ Snap-On tool box, which is completely full of the Grump’s hand tools.
Catching our eye, however, were the three totally custom engine components. Lot K111 is an aluminum box manifold likely sent to Jenkins from Junior Johnson. There’s also a manifold top designed for the Busch Series V6 restrictor-plate engines that hits the catalog at Lot K224. Finally, Lot K179 is a 750cfm 4-barrel carburetor made by welding a pair of 2-barrel carbs together.
Always the innovator, Jenkins conducted extensive behind-the-scenes development for General Motors and NASCAR race teams in addition to building drag race engines. The catalog listings, however, don’t provide any background information about the items. So, EngineLabs contacted former Jenkins associate Steve Johns, who now heads up engine development at Cagnazzi Racing, for a quick history lesson — starting with the 1988 NASCAR Busch Grand National season opener at Daytona.
“Right in the middle of winter, NASCAR threw a restrictor plate at everybody,” remembers Johns. “Everyone threw their arms up in the air but Grump went to work.”
Jenkins experimented with a manifold lid for the GM V6 engine that featured four 7-degree tapered holes with the top opening the same size as the restrictor plate.
“It went on top of a box cross-ram manifold that GM was casting. When NASCAR laid the plate on there, it gave a nice little venturi to pull a little more air,” adds Johns. “We made about 15 more horsepower with that one simple thing. That concept put Mike Swaim on the pole.”
While just the lid for the V6 engine is being auctioned, an experimental box intake for a V8 is being sold without a lid.
“That came from Junior Johnson,” says Johns. “I think I remember hearing there were only three or four of those manifolds cast. And I remember we had two of them, and there was a big, ribbed cast top. I guess that’s missing.”
Johns remembers one of the manifolds was fitted with fuel injection and used on a R&D Corvette with an L98 engine. The manifold up for auction, however, doesn’t have provisions for injectors and could possibly have been used for another project.
First 4-barrel carb?
According to Johns, the spliced-together carb was before his time.
“I don’t know when four-barrel carbs came into existence,” says Johns. “But it could have went back that far! That was stuff was probably on the shelves when I started in 1980. You could daydream all day looking at his stuff. Back then, you had to make it yourself.”
In parting, EngineLabs asked for one good Bill Jenkins story:
“When we were match racing against Sox and Nicholson, as soon as he’d unload the trailer he’d draw a crowd. He’s leaning over the carburetors and asked for a pair of pliers. I reach in the drawer and hand him the largest pair of Channel Locks you’ve ever seen. Right? He wants to pull the cotter pin out of the throttle linkage. He looks at me, looks away, looks back and grabs them from me. It was part of the show”
Those Channel Locks just might be in the showcase item of the auction, Grumpy’s personal toolbox filled with tools. The box has all the expected pit-generated patina and collection of memorable product decals. For more information on the sale, visit the Mecum website.