From the outside, the 2002 Camaro body and chassis looks like a typical Comp car. But when the engine is revealed is when your mind locks up. They are running an engine combination in a class of one: it’s a 4-cylinder engine made from one-half a Donovan BB short block; displaces 236-CID; uses SEFI (Sequential Electronic Fuel Injection) to feed it via a custom-designed, hand-made intake box/manifold made by fabrication wizard Billingsley; and is topped with a Reher-Morrison prepped DRCE2 head.
 This oil tank takes up where the right side of the V8 block would be – makes up for some of the weight distribution. Note the ribbed panel in the background. That is what covers the “open” right side of the engine after the block is halved. |
 The SEFI system uses top-grade hardware. This Aeromotive fuel pressure regulator maintains the fuel pressure to the 65-lb/hr injectors to 70 psi. |
At first you might think this “FrankenEngine” combination may have originated from one too many late night bench racing session fueled by an excess of adult beverages or other mind-altering methods. But the team had a definite method to this madness.
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Voges started drag racing in Super Stock, and had run in that class for five years with a 260-CID 18-degree head V8. Basically he had done all he wanted to do in the dial-in class and that type of driving. He now wanted to compete in an indexed class he could drive flat-out and as he put it, “learn to race at the starting line and the finish line.”
He told DRO, “This year I wanted to move up and was looking for a Comp class to compete in for a reasonable cost.” Sensibly enough, he started examining a 4-cylinder-engined car. So far, so normal. He and Jay wanted to give their four cylinders a fighting chance and as he said, “we knew that Pro Stock had some of the most well-developed engine technology.” So why not try and adapt it to the car? The outcome was to merge the cost-effectiveness of racing only four slugs with the superior Pro Stock engine tech. Thus they found themselves on the engine path not taken.
TAKING THE “OTHER” WAY
Voges Motorsports first bought a roller tube-frame chassis from ace IHRA Pro Mod racer/builder Tommy Mauney. He had built the car for a customer who competed in the IHRA and had run 8.60s with it. The Comp index is currently 9.66, so the car was a proven ride, and the basic chassis setup was done by Mauney. Billingsley had crewed for his racing dad for 15 years, so he knows his way around a chassis, and handles the engine/chassis tuning on race days.
Next they called Reher-Morrison to discuss getting a DRCE2 head built and prepped. Voges said that when R-M asked them what the team planned to do with the head, he explained his 4-cylinder idea. There was a pause on the end of the phone line, and then R-M told them they had one-half of a Donovan BB V8 engine already in their shop! It seems another customer had been thinking along the same lines, but had abandoned the project at the block stage.