History Dave Crane's "Quigley" SOHC - SBC ! from the 50's !

Our good ol' buddy Dave Crane is a exceptional person and a salt of the earth kind of guy, he is the kind of guy that you feel privileged to be friends with, and a wealth of knowledge on early Drag Racing,..... I just received this this morning and was blown away by it,..... If you have any other information on this unique engine or any stories, please post them.

Thanks Folks,.....

Here is the email in it's entirety,....

"A few days ago I posted some shots of a dual overhead cammed 265 Chevy built in the late '50's. I have since learned a little more about the engine. The builder was Bill Quigley, an employee at the Chrysler proving grounds in Chelsea Mi. He was into modified stock cars and built quick change rearends, tube frames, wide wheels, and apparently this one home made dual overhead cammed motor. He ran this engine for several years, driven by a fellow named Bill Heeney, on circle tracks in Butler, Jackson and lansing Mi. His forte was the quick change rearends, and apparently he built lots of them, but only one motor of this type. Bill died in the '80's, as did his two sons, all of whom were very overweight. Bill's brother, Leonard is still living, and I will be seeking him out for more info. Bill's driver has also p***ed on, but his two sons are still active in racing, and I have a line on them. The cl*** the motor was built for limited you to a two barrel carb, 300 cubic inches, and apparently stock exhaust manifolds, as that is what it has. I have spoken to several people who knew him, and there are some great stories coming out. One is that he towed the car to the track with his Chevy truck, and once there, removed the distributer from the truck and put it in the race engine. After the races, he pulled it out, and replaced it in the truck to get home. Ya gotta love it! It's stories like this that mean so much to me, and keep me pushing on with my collection. This thing is really caked with grease and oil, and my thought is that just rinsing it off with mineral spirits wouldn't hurt it, as the grease is so thick you can't figure out some of the mechanics, and I'm certain it wasn't like that when it last ran, or it wouldn't have. Other than that it will remain as it is. It's an honor to have this one and only. I have had some fun with it too.......Asking visitors, "Would you like to see my Quigley?" They kind of back away, with a strange look on thier face........Museum Dave"

 

That is too damn cool!

 

Wow man! That is friggin amazing!

 

Yup. That's gotta be worth a buck or two. I'd drop it in and drive it. I can hear them now....."WHAT THE ---- IS THAT?" Cool......

 

I love this story!!!

 

Looking forward to more on that engine!

 

Incredible! I just pulled the injected flat head out of my day dream project!

 

Now THAT is hot rodding! Awesome and chain driven too....ingenious way of getting around the rules and stuffing it to the rulemakers.

Thanks Harms for sharing this gem.

 

If you want to see more about Dave and his Museum,... this is a link to a thread about it from back in September,.... this will be the engines permanent home.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=398276&highlight=dave+crain

 

Interesting bit of engineering, thanks for posting.

I have been to Bill Heeney's garage several times back in the late 80's. Never heard of the OHC Chevy connection. He worked for Chrysler at the Chelsea Proving Grounds with Mr Quigley. Heeney drove sprint cars (and probably other types) for years at Butler and other local dirt tracks. He ended up with a bad back because of it. Didn't stop him though, from getting a car out occasionally though for some laps at Butler. There was so much racing stuff at Heeney's shop, you couuld have built a fleet of cars.

Both of Heeney's sons also work at the Chrysler Proving Grounds....although with the recent early retirement packages, one or both may have retired by now.

 

Very cool piece of history.

 

That's a brilliant piece of work! I don't want to sound critical--his talent is obvious-- but what advantage did the OHC give him? SBC engines are already known to be high revvers, and he was limited to a 2 barrel carb. Where's the cl*** advantage in terms of power?

Bob

 

So where are all the "belly****on" comments, I mean, it IS a sbc after all

 

TOO RIGHT!!! I get tired of the SBC bashing. Makes an ARDUN look pretty tame. Great pics and story-thanks a million, Harm.

 

now that one sweet invention

 

Interesting question. I'm not an SBC guy, but I bet you could make some big changes to the intake ports if you filled in the holes for the push rods. I guess the valve train would hold together tighter at high RPMs. You could probably get away with more aggressive cam profiles.

 

Scot K. Get ahold of me.....davecranemuseum@sbcglobal.net

 

Scott K.... You live close to me...get ahold of me at davecranemuseum@sbcglobal.net

 

that thing is crazy! what a cool piece of history.

 

....great questions......
id be tempted to take it apart and see how every thing works... haha...
can you post some bigger pics????
oh,, and whats the front cover look like????

 

In the text from museum Dave it states "265 ci.in. dual overhead cam engine. It is actually a single overhead cam engine. Still cool just not correct to call it a DOHC.

 

I have not been inside the motor.....And probably won't. Yes, the copper oil lines lube the cam bearings, plus there are pinholes at each cam lob that spray the lobes themselves. I suppose the cam is just used to turn the distributer and work the oil pump. I am just now cleaning all the **** off the motor so I can figure it out. It must have been stored in a filthy environment, the dirt is caked on. Dave

 

? I see two cams. Isn't that what that means?

 

SOHC V8 = 1 cam in each cylinder head. It would be impossible to have just have one cam in one cylinder head and nothing in the other.

DOHC V8 = 2 cams in each cylinder head (one for intake and one for exhaust)

 

Not quite. put it into 4 cylinder speak to avoid the confusion of having two banks of cylinders.

SOHC uses one cam for both intake and exhaust valves.
DOHC uses one cam for intake and one cam for exhaust.

If you dont go with 4 valves in the head, then the main advantage is less m*** between the cam and valve, therefore the spring can control the valve when a more aggressive cam profile is used.

 

A very interesting and quality job for any time period. Very cool.

 

So what does this actually do ?? I mean what is it about it that affects "performance" of the engine ??

and yes very nice work indeed.

 

This is what i'm trying to figure out as well. Obviously, there has to be some advantage, but i can't figure it out. If anything using two cams(and, thus having to use chains to drive them means more friction.....)

It appears that the number of valves is unchanged compared to the stock setup, so again i don't realize the advantage?

If the advantage is really more aggressive cam profiles, then this seems like a roundabout way of acheiving it?


2) Also, how did he handle the part about the stock lifters? i don't think you can just leave them in the bores, nor can you just take them out?

3) In case you're interested, this company produces 32 valve heads for the SBC a**** others:
http://www.araoengineering.com/Chevy/chevysmb.htm

i consider these to be the ultimate heads, bar none,--- even the famed aluminun vortec heads from gm, for the small block chevy.

 

This will be a good argument.
I dont think it did much without knowing more about this particuler engine. Im guessing that this engine was spun higher, for longer than the best technoligy of that time period.
Up to 10,000 rpm a push rod will hang with a OHC. Above that it isnt practical to go pushrod. It takes some power and harmonics to move all that chain. You could go back and forth on this, it does benefit from being lighter/reliable for endurance racing.
Just some quick points.

 

I can open up the pictures bigger in the email (in Kodak easy share), but every attempt I have tried to save them that big has failed.