The Smith Collection at Speedway Motors - Start Your Engines!

Pre-V-8 Chevy performance buffs often bolted in a larger-displacement GMC six. The one on the left with a Nicson Engineering head, a McGurk manifold mounting five Carter one-barrels, and a Magspark ignition would typically have powered a drag or Bonneville car. The 300-incher on the right uses a Wayne cross-flow head, Hilborn injection, and a Vertex magneto, and powered a sprint car.

This engine is a mystery. Bill Smith got only the Rajo head with a single-carb manifold attached. Restoration Manager Jim Schuman installed it on a Chevy block with an Offy dual-carb manifold and Fenton headers. Rajo made overhead conversions for Model T and A engines. Schuman thinks this head, with higher compression and larger valves, was built around 1951 by someone else using the Rajo name. The setup was probably designed to run on the single carb normally and kick in the dual carbs when the need for speed arose.

One of many approachs to cranking more power out of the Chevy small-block V-8 was the Moser DOHC conversion. Run at Indianapolis and in sprint cars, the Moser had a cog-belt cam drive, fuel injection, and a Vertex magneto. Bill Smith raced once with the Moser engine in a dirt track car that won the USAC championship.

Does this look anything like a small-block Chevy? It is, with hemispherical combustion chamber heads by Leo Lyons. Fuel injected and magneto-fired, setups like this competed at the drags and circle tracks. Bill Smith got this one from Mauri Rose, who had planned to run it at Indy.

Think you've got an early Chevy V-8? Try 1918! That's when Chevrolet built its first one, with overhead valves and 55 horsepower out of 288 cubic inches. This one is from the Imperial Palace Collection, with which The Smith Collection sometimes swaps displays.

Ford engines and equipment naturally occupy a good portion of the museum space, but these two might be considered ancestors of the small-block Chevy.

The Ardun OHV conversion for the Ford flathead was designed and built by Zora Arkus-Duntov in England some years before he was lured over to help develop Chevy's V-8 performance program. Ardun heads were first used to boost the power of Ford trucks and later became a hot rodding favorite over here.

Hot rod engines were much less complicated in 1928, when these two four-bangers could have been powering a sprint car or a fenderless runabout. On the right is a Robert Roof SOHC head and valve conversion with a Stromberg side-draft carb. The engine on the left also has a Roof overhead cam conversion with the owner's name, Barr, cast into the cover and fed by a Winfield carb.

NASCAR legend Smokey Yunick was involved with Chevrolet in developing this experimental single overhead cam small-block. The one at the top used a cog-belt drive, while the other is gear driven.

...along with more recent offerings like the "4X" Corvette Pikes Peak Hillclimb car (the company can supply all the components you need to build one just like it).

And we can't forget the hundreds of pint-sized toys and pedal cars on display in the toy room.