The Legend Of Larry Eby

The amazing thing about him is that he was just a farmer from West Central Saskatchewan, and he was a big guy, so he had to come up with something to go faster than the other guys,” recalled Fitterer, “So what does he do? He takes two 440 motors, cuts one apart, and he made a triple 440 into a 660 with rotary valves. First guy ever to do it in the world. After that motor beat the world champion, they started building motors like his.”

Even the people who knew Eby’s passion with sleds may not have realized how innovative his work really was the sport. The part those people should relate to, is that he did it out of his own shop.

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17 Replies to “The Legend Of Larry Eby”

  1. Prairie farmer innovation. Nothing better! This is a feel good story, when they are sadly in short supply. Thanks for posting this, Kate.

  2. Did not know this and rode sleds since the late 70s. Farmboy innovation and would bet he didn’t have a mechanical engineering degree. This is a warm up shack story for sure.

  3. Boy the way my 340 ran great. Always lusted after the 9500 in the skidoo catalogue, but I was only 13 and was lucky I hadn’t already killed myself on what I had. Those skidoo engineers must never have worked at the Big 3. The maintenance I did on my machine was minimal. Always worked great; always started even at minus 40. (I don’t recommend skidoo-ing at minus 40. The minus 80 windchill causes sensations of premature death lol).

  4. Great Story Kate..
    A guy who could meld together 2 motors as described in his own Farm Shop…?? Then take it out a race against the world’s fastest and beat em…? Wow.!!

    May well have to take a weekend run up there to see some of that action.

    Being a mechanical kinda guy, stuff like this just “feel good stuff” …as noted, in extremely short supply.

  5. I just googled “rotary valves” because I remember back in the early 1990s I saw in a muscle car magazine that someone had invented valves that rotated ( kind of like the Wankel rotary engine) instead of going up and down as they do in most car engines.

    I don t remember anything about who they said had invented them, and I am wondering if those are the same rotary valves.

    I am wondering if anyone has more information about those rotary valves that Larry Eby either invented or used in his snowmobile?

    Thank you

    1. Rotary valves were used in Rotax engines made in Austria. These were used almost exclusively by Bombardier, and Rotax was eventually bought out by Bombardier. The rotary valve simply blocks the intake manifold to prevent blow back from the exhaust cycle. It allowed more radical intake port timing which increased torque. They have more or less been replaced by reed valves which do the same thing but are simpler and les expensive.
      Now direct fuel injection has replaced both systems and is far superior although much more expensive.
      Progress.

      1. I did not know about those rotary valves in the Rotax engine ( I just watched a video)

        but the rotary valves I saw in a magazine were for a v 8 engine and were very different, so I suppose what Larry Eby invented was not the ones for v 8 engines.

        Thank you !

      2. Scorpion also switched from Sachs to Rotax. They did that just before Arctic Cat bought them out.

        1. Scorpion! Now that brings back memories. We had one of those old bulbous nosed ’68 or ’69 models at the farm, black with one wide & one skinny red racing stripe coming up the LH side. Had a Sachs motor in it, 370cc single originally but bored out once or twice. The guy who sold it to us said it was about 400cc. Geared low, so not much top end, about 40 mph going down the hill towards the barn. Could pull a stump out with it’s 18″ track.

  6. Farmers.. you can’t beat ’em. My dad is an old farmer. He grew up fast and by the time he was 10 years old he was putting in 18 hour days on the tractor. By the time he was 12 years old he was the repair guy too. Anyone have a 12 year old kid they would let repair a tractor? I once worked an unpleasant five years for the federal government in Ottawa and one of my co-workers was constantly talking about a project he was involved in, “cleaning up the Sydney Tar Ponds.” Worked with him for years and I would always tell him that I could round up a bunch of Saskatchewan Farmers if they wanted to actually get those ponds cleaned up.

  7. I hate the phrase “just a farmer”. It suggests that a farmer only knows how to push dirt around. Some of the smartest people I have met are farmers. City slickers on the other hand….

  8. Speaking of farmer innovation, had an uncle (from Saskatchewan) who took a 4 cyl Model T engine, cut it in half & used it to run a welder, if memory serves. Had to cap off the crankcase & I believe he made a wooden governor for it, among other mods. Ran smooth for half a 4. Word got out & somehow made it stateside. One day there’s a knock on the door, some guy standing there wants to see this motor. Uncle fires it up, the guy is amazed. Ended up buying the motor & taking it back with him. Offered my uncle a full ride mechanic’s ticket at some school down there, Detroit maybe? He turned it down & was a local mechanic up to the very end. Smart man, good with his hands. Not bad for an elementary school dropout.

  9. Not to take anything away from Larry Eby, or any of those marvelous inventive geniuses, but I think the real credit should go to Alister and George Ingham of Ingham Industries, Lanigan, Sk., manufacturer of farm machinery who branched off to the production of the SkiBee line of snowmobiles in the late ’60s.
    They were active in the Sask Snowmobile racing circuit, improving and innovating throughout the competitions, while competing against the big dogs, SkiDoo, Arctic Cat, Moto SKi, et al.
    It was probably 1971 (give or take) when they took two Kohler 440 twins, split them, and re-configured them to quad carbs and a common crankshaft. Add to that, four megaphone pipes that absolutely BARKED! There was a problem. At the time, their tracks constituted three integrated rubber strips with bolted on metal cleats (ie. not a molded track) so when the throttle was cracked, the cleats would be sent flying. Problem soon dealt with.

  10. There were over 140 snowmobile manufacturers in the 1970’s. Everything under the sun. All optimists if not realists.
    The arab oil crisis in 1973-74 wiped most of them out and there are just four remaining. Ski-doo, Polaris, Arctic Cat, and Yamaha. Occasionally somebody scrapes together some cash and tries to compete (look up Redline or Bandit). But as soon we have a bad snow year they are wiped out. Luxury items don’t survive during poor economic times.

    1. I remember those days, I was about 10 years old then.

      There were so many brands of snow mobiles, it was dizzying… a brand called Snow cruiser were blue like a swimming pool, another called Skiroule were green like John Deere products

      We had a 1968 Olympic Bombardier, I think the engine was a 299 cc Rotax. Not fast but I had so much fun driving that thing, words cannot say. My father let me drive it from age 8, it is on that thing that I learned that you can control a vehicle while drifting, or use the drifting to change direction very quickly, something that served me when I bought my first car at age 18 as almost all cars then were rear drive and were ” tail happy ” ( drifted easily), but I was able to control it 99% of the time thanks to years of drifting on a skidoo.

      I may still have a snowmobile magazine from back then in a box somewhere, the ads in it, as I remember, show about 30 or 40 different brands of snowmobile.

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