Homemade 4-cam hemi dragster- alky fire up

Tom Dicktakes' homemade 4-cam hemi. Based on a Donovan 417 block, Tom has spent 40 years building the 4-cam heads out of his garage with a Bridgeport and an Atlas lathe. Here's a fire up on alky after Tom put the motor back together after it hurt the bottom end last year on a test run at Sacramento raceway.

My usual job is to start it and then check oil pressure and cylinder temps to makes sure there isn't any of them running too lean. We were down a guy today, so Tommy had me manning the fuel for the first time, hence my constant look of concern throughout the whole video. You can't see it, although you can see the red air tank on the bottom- but I'm standing by a pressurized fuel tank so after the motor is primed and started on gas (the squirt bottle) I bring in the alky with a regulated valve on top of the auxilary fuel tank.

While the motor is running I'm monitoring the amount of fuel by the RPM (an electronic tach is in the seat) and the misting at the pipes. You can hear the engine pick up as soon as I dial back the alky a bit. I'm also trying to get a look at the oil pressure at the top end of the motor. All my pointing is to show Tommy that we're down on pressure. We shut it down because the pump feeding the top end with oil didn't come up to full pressure.

You stop the motor in reverse- I reintroduce the gas in the primer bottle as I slowly close the fuel tank with the alky, so it runs on the bottle and I can shut it down with gas.

More work in the garage! Next time we should do another fire up to make sure the top of the motor is getting enough oil, then if it works, we'll be ready to take it out to the track again and run it on nitro.

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• top
• fuel
• hemi
• dragster

[mrmikerd88]

How can I get in touch with Tom. I grew up across the street form the park he worked at. would like to say hi

[voxnut]

@mrmikerd88 I would say the best way would be to come out to Sacramento Raceway on Oct 1st where we'll be testing the car. Tom isn't online and I'm sure he doesn't want me to give out his address or phone number.

[j58bear]

May I ask where you got the scoop by the way?

[voxnut]

@j58bear I believe Tom bought it from Joe Amato's team, but don't quote me on that. I'll ask him next time we get together.

[johnmartinez95]

hey man im about to make a dragster but its gonna be smaller then a real one and its gonna have a go kart motor on it can u give me some ideas plz

[voxnut]

Your best bet would be to check out what is going on in the Jr. Dragster world and take ideas from that. Best of luck to you.

[richardxx9011]

Guys if you can donate a whole shit load of money to me until i reach 100-120k so I can make this at home id be happy. Thank you lol.

[mrmikerd88]

@voxnut I will not be able to make it to Sacramento. Let him know that I am very happy to hear that he got the car running. Tell him that I used to live across from the old play ground at the park and see if he can remember who I am. I will try to find a way to get in touch with him. Thank you for responding.

[j58bear]

Wow! you guys have done a very amazing thing. im suprised i havent seen this thing on the front of hot rod magazine. anyone who disagrees has no appriciation for others. I mean how many people can design and fabricate heads to put 4 cams in one engine. my hat is off to you guys.

[victorybydefeat]

cool