The following document is an excerpt from a correspondance with John Denman, a 1960's Waterford MI dirver.

DECO bought the tooling from Continental Aviation for the 8 & 10 cubic inch motors originally used in the 1/4 & 1/2 midgets. The Continental was originally designed as a generator powerplant to comply with Mil Stds of the day to provide electrical power at Airstrips of the late 40`s. It was quite robust, and as these motors were available as Military Surplus, they became the power of choice for QMA in the earliest days.

As faster classes were added, Modified, B, AA, several new suppliers of uprated parts popped up, one of them I remeber was Jerry Solt. Jerry began offering Aluminum Rods, Oil Pumps, Adapters for Amal Motorcycle Carbs, Forged Cranks, Cams, and Pistons. Continental had veased production for many years, and stock parts were becoming scarce. Continental did make a one time run of some parts before the plant & tooling was mothballed and later sold tooling to DECO.

In the early years, (<1973) all 1/4 midgets used the small Continental/DECO motor, and the 1/2 4 strokes used the 10.25 cubic inch Continental/DECO, although the rules alowed the 1/2 4 stroke to use any brand of motor. Bill Siewart of Toledo was the first I can recall to experiment with a Honda motor in 1970. With no aftermarket parts, they struggled, and my father helped with fabricating some parts such as S.S. Rod, and custom ground cam.

2 strokes common to the karts of the day had a fundimental problem of size. QMA allowed 8.25 CI while the most developed (1970) kart motors were 7.2 CI Mccollughs. These motors could be stroked, but became grenades. We suffered the grenade problem which was common in the 4-stroke 1/2 midgets, and tried the West Bend motor. We fabricated a press together Crank, S.S. Rod, layered reeds (which Boyesen later patented!), stuffers to fill the crankcase voids, and added 3 tillotson cars at each side of the crancase, then spent hours on our homemade dyno shaping exhaust systems. This motor produced over twice the power of a well built AA, an estimated 32 HP. (We never had the dyno calibrated). We ran this motor for two years, only changing rings & rechroming bore.

We saw an early attempt with an Italian 2-stroke with a rotary valve, I cannot recall the name, but it suffered overheating, no fan. We also used a Gearbox that mounted on the axle, (no chain) which was common in karts of the day, with drop in gear changes. It was not as efficient as the chain, but we had enough power that I often sandbagged to keep from having our setup outlawed.

I think my Dad could have given Smoky Yunick a run for the money.

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