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This was an interesting project I was invlolved with with two very interesting brothers, Dave (Mech) and Jeff (Driver) Mckeown. One night they showed up here with a request to help in planning and machining a stock car 6 cylinder for the Midstate Classic Stockcar class. I had not been involved in Stockcars persay except for a pure stock engine for Paul Rowe in a late 60s Chevelle. Paul had done fairly well with it but had moved away because of his career.
Still Dave persisited." I think you could help us here" he said. Since it was a 35 chev Body it seemed only right to do a Chev 6 cylinder. He knew what kind of power he needed and what kind of RPM he needed to run. This was a big help and I spent most of that night running combos on my simiulator program to see what would work. By the end of the week i had come up with a good combo that was do-able i thought. I showed them the plan. Dave had been investigating on his own and brought in an old head from a pro down south. He asked me why they did certain things (which we aint gona tell ya!) using some plasticine I made a rough duplicate in his head and showed him the whys and wherefores of it on my flowbench. "Could you make a set of those and put them in there?" I asked. "Yup No problem" was the reply and about three days later he showed up with it all done. Now Dave in case you didnt know is a superb craftsman so his first attempt at this was already far superior to the sample he had showed me. All that was left was for me to finsih porting the head, make the valves from some cores he had brought at my request, do the race valve job and set the spring pressures on my BERCO spring balancer. I resized the rods after Dave installed the super bolts , I machined a bit on the pistons we had choosen and pressed them on the rods after a street type balance. I honed the block and decked it and prepped it for assembly. I also sent out a cam for a custom made version with a grind I had choosen. I felt it would work pefect in this engine. (turned out I was right too) My Cam grinder phoned once for permission to modify the LCA slightly but other than that all went well. Because they were using the car to give CampTrillium (a childrens Cancer camp) attention and funding I donated my work to the project. i DID NOT BUILD THIS ENGINE. Dave assembled it with tender loving care. We planned figured caculated and tested a lot of things on this motor. This was our prototype and we really didnt know how it would work. Let me tell you how in the words of the man who eventually bought the carand took it to the US (and gave it the Four America rename)
"The first time I saw the car was during a classic stockcar meet at Brighton Speedway in Ontario. My buddy was running one of his cars around the track and Jeff was out practicing with Four CT. I knew my pal had @#$%#thousands in his motor and Jeff was giving him all and maybe a bit more that he could handle. I knew right then someday i would own that car so that is how it all happened."
Mike Sweet, Sept 2007 by phone
You should know that Jeff had not driven before that year and Dave had not ever built that type pf car before and i had not been involved in planning a engine or machining an engine of this type before.
Were we just lucky? I dont think so. A lot of careful thought and serious planning went into this. Every man carried his part and the results speak for themselves. The super motor that was to replace the prototype was never built. Quite simply because it was never needed.
The car went on with Jeff and Dave to distinguish itself until it was sold to the Four America Team south of the Canadian border. It has been to serveral tracks wtih several owners since. Here it is wearing the Four America livery at IRP . It has since I have been told been sold into the Orlando Vintage stockcar group. Dave told me that you can still see my shop's logo on the carb stack "Dolmetsch Engine Development" and it is just barely visable in ths photo. This photo was kindly supplied by Larry and Fay Williams who owned the car when this photo was taken. They sent it to Dave and he gave a copy to me.
I would work with Dave on a similar project in a heartbeat. His craftmanship his knowledge and his ability to stick to the plan and not get sidetracked make him a joy to work with. I hope the NASCAR guys never diiscover his talent because if they do he will be gone south just like many other great mechanics from Canada. Like Stu Hilborn (Hilborn Fuel Injection), Mark Daniells (my first cousin who worked for Hendricks MS) Dale Armstrong (of fuel daragster and funny car fame) and Yves LaFrance (Toyota Nascar) just to name a few!
