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1936 Auburn Supercharged Engine Found Under a Porch

My family has been into supercharged Auburns for years. I think my dad is on his 5 or 6th right now. Here is a picture of him taken taken in Auburn Indiana in the late 50s.. This car was owned by Shelly Smith who was an owner of the Ithaca Gun Company of Ithaca NY. It had a Scintilla racing magneto installed ( see letter 1 , see letter 2). My dad paid around 2500.00 for it at the time, He restored it and sold it a couple of years later to Jim Goodwin of Frankfurt Indiana. Mr. Goodwin's family still owns the car. Here are some pictures of an engine used in Supercharged 35-36 Auburns. Last week (mid May 2007) a contractor was tearing down an old porch attached to a house in Salem Massachusetts. Underneath the porch covered with tarps was this engine. The engine had been sitting next to the house and the porch got built above and around the engine. The porch was at least 50 years old so the best estimate is that the engine was placed next to the house sometime in the 1940s. Well, the contractor finds this engine in the way of his project and calls the local junkyard to come and get it. While the engine was sitting in the junkyard, a local mechanic walked past it and thought it was neat. He brought it back to his shop and did some research to figure out what it was. A friend of a friend relayed the news to my Dad and we were on are way to Salem with my truck in short order. This engine is a time capsule for restorers (although it might look neat in a hot rod). It has 95% of it's original parts (including the carb & dist). The motor spins freely as does the blower. The pistons, head, valves look like the engine had very little miles. We are hopefull that with a bit of effort it will fire up. Here is the top view of the unique original thermostat. Here is the bottom view of the thermostat.

What distinguishes a regular Auburn straight 8 from a Blown one?

If I missed anything please email me to correct this.

The blower, drive & manifolds, obviously.
Carburator.
Dual Point Dist vs. Single point - you can tell by the outside mounted condenser on the dual.
Rods.
Crank is counterweighted - externally there is a small bump in the pan to accomodate this.
Oil return in left side of block for blower
Balancer has 1 pully instead of 2 as the belts are run different because of the blower drive

Some brief notes on 35/36 Auburn Supercharged Engine Colors

There seems to be some disagreement over what color these engines were painted when new. My dad says that in the 1950s between him and my uncle Ted (Ted Billings) they dismanlted 1/2 dozen of these engines and none of them were green. He says they were gray. Here is a letter from the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Company where they say the color was gray. I will say that when we got our time capsule engine home (pictured below) the color of the pain on the block looks to be grayish green.

Here are some pictures including a restored engine sitting in a speedster, click for a larger view

Updated on January 3, 2008