09-26-2017, 08:44 AM
The REAL reason Mac produced the Mc5 stroker Mc6 conversion was that a few early Power Products AH58 engines appeared, and began tearing the Mc5's up in Wisconsin, Florida and California. Bob Palmini was terrorizing the Mc5's in CA. Mark Allen's pop, Ralph, was a retired PP exec, and got a pre-production '58 in Eau Gallie, FL and ate every Mc5 in Brevard County with it. my Pop called Mac and told Bob McC. what was happening. He already knew! We had a pre-release Mc6 kit within a week and a half. If you look at my avatar, the third kart back is Lanny Rothery's Bug Standard converted to live axle, and sporting that same Mc5/Mc6 conversion. It was so early the paper template to cut the plug boot hole, nor the rubber boot were included in the kit. The head on this engine never did get turned around, and it ran that way for over a year. The second kit we received had the rubber boot and the paper template. I ran that engine myself until I got my first Mc20, nearly a year later. Nobody knew how to break in a thin ring engine, and we must've stuck them ten times between the two 5/6 conversions. Between me running the '5 and installing the conversion kit, I managed to get hold of a very early PP58. It vibrated so badly that I removed it after one weekend and put the Mc5 back on my Wasp. I had my Mc5 converted to a '6 and installed within a couple of weeks. Ted