Here's the Quarter Master clutchless setup for Dirt Late Model racers. It includes the bellhousing, high-torque starter, flywheel, drive hub, an oil pump belt, and all the necessary mounting hardware.
You've probably heard the old saw about cutting one pound of rotating weight out of the driveline is the equivalent of cutting several pounds of lead weight attached to the car. And it's true. That's why smart racers as well as chassis and engine builders work so hard to shave ounces of rotating weight even if they will have to add an equal amount back in the form of ballast on the car.
One group that has taken that to the extreme is Dirt Late Model racers. Utilizing a Bert/Brinn-style transmission eliminates the traditional clutch and allows the use of an extremely small flywheel. This cuts rotating weight, but the smaller diameter of the flywheel also reduces the leverage the starter has, which can cause issues. A high-torque starter can handle this, but it also puts tremendous force on the area of the bellhousing where the starter is mounted. Aluminum and magnesium bellhousings have been known to crack and fail because of this stress.
Since most Dirt Late Model chassis work with a mid-plate for mounting the motor, the bellhousing kit requires only making sure you have the right bolt pattern to attach the bellhousing to the mid-plate and engine block. What brand of chassis you're running doesn't really matter.
In fact, Dirt Late Model racer Chris Hargett says he has had starters fall off the car on the racetrack as a result of cracked bellhousings. "I finished the race," he says, "but pity the driver behind me." And welding up bellhousings midseason is also a common occurrence.
Hargett, however, says his troubles ended when he began using a dirt bellhousing kit from Quarter Master designed to handle the abuses of Dirt Late Model racing. "Before, I was going through two starters a season and having to take the bellhousing off midway through and weld up the cracks just to get it to last," he says. "But I switched to the Quarter Master stuff when I was getting ready for the 2005 season, and I haven't had any trouble with any of it. I'm still running the same components I put on the car back then."
To find out more, we followed along as Hargett installed a new Quarter Master dirt bellhousing kit in a new car being prepared for the 2009 season. The bellhousing is magnesium for the greatest strength at the lightest weight and fully CNC machined to ensure the best-possible fit of all components. This bellhousing is designed to work with both top- and side-mount oil pumps and works with Bert/Brinn-style transmissions. It comes packaged with a lightweight 91-tooth flywheel and a reverse-rotation starter. In all, installation took approximately one hour and only standard shop tools were necessary.
