TEXT BY CAMERON EVANS
PHOTOS BY ERIC GEISERT
Where motorsports and street rodding cross is a delicate subject for some enthusiasts, as both have firm opinions on each other's craft. Since most rodders are racing fans, they like to support the companies for their favorite racing series, but where "as-raced" parts show up on a roadster or a coupe is up for discussion. True race car parts usually integrate poorly with street rods, but the engineering it took to design the piece certainly has its place in the rodding world.
Bringing racing engineering and fabrication together with street rodding aesthetics is the specialty of Dominator Motorsports (Oakley, CA). It is blending engineering, fabrication, and performance that got Dominator's Leonard Lopez and Tommy Enca into street rodding in the first place.
Lopez and Enca, both successful open-wheel dirt racers in their day, grew tired of what the competitive world of racing had turned into: manufacturing. Building USAC Midgets and Champ cars, SCCA GT road racers, and Super Comp dragsters on a full-time basis had turned them into manufactures, rather than creators. Moreover, Dominator's fabricating expertise was best suited to one-off designs, not just knocking out parts. This desire to rejuvenate the pride in creating beautiful and functional parts led to their work with many famous craftsmen in the Northern California hod rod scene.
Since Dominator wasn't building it's own street rod chassis at the time, Tommy and Leonard felt they weren't getting the credit for the quality work they were turning out. They solved the problem by creating the DuPont Dominator, the phantom three-window '40 Ford featured in the July '96 issue of STREET RODDER. Fast-forward to 1998, when Dominator and DuPont teamed up again to combine the excitement and beauty of street rodding with the function and form of well-engineered race cars. These are the principles upon which the latest ride, the DuPont Domination, was built. It debuted in the Experimental Roadster class at the '98 Grand National Roadster Show, and is currently on a summer tour with the DuPont Custom Finish program throughout the country.
Lopez and Enea teamed with NorCal bodyman Mickey Galloway (all are equal partners in the car) to showcase their respective talents. Lopez and Enea's experience in the Sprint Car world influenced the Dominator's chassis design, as it was jigged up on a chassis table using nearly 105 feet of round tubing. Using 1 5/8-inch and 1 1/2-inch, drawn-over-mandrel, seamless material, it is structurally uniform in all directions. Rectangular or boxed tubing would have been easier to fabricate (rather than the cut-and-cope fishmouth method used here), but would prove strong in only two directions and possibly promote chassis twist (not o good thing!). TIG welding (as opposed to MIG) provided total penetration, required no grinding, and had the smooth look this particular car required. The outside tubular tail is staggered vertically to achieve superior strength. Is this car overbuilt? Probably so, and Dominator proudly agrees.
As any dynamic racing machine would be designed, the suspension is completely integrated with the chassis. Dominator felt that attaching OEM designs or off-the-shelf parts didn't optimize suspension geometry the way Dominator's system does. Pushrod suspension, inboard coilover shocks, and upper and lower A-arms are found on the front and the rear.
With inboard shock placement, actuation is superior, providing a near 1:1 travel ratio that balances both ride and handling and an IndyCar-type streamlined frontal area. And speaking of streamlining, the front A-arms (made from aircraft tubing) actually house another set of smaller, stronger A-arms inside. With a dedicated upper control arm on the rear, the halfshaft is no longer forced to act as a "stressed member," as with some other independent rear suspensions. Because three radii can't swing on the same arch, the halfshafts were designed (by Kevin's Prop Shop) to slip in and out of each other. Dominator fabricated the Domination's spindles as an extension of the car's overall suspension geometry, achieving correct steering angles and kingpin inclination. Design engineer Richard Railton used computer modeling to act as a "backstop" for Dominator's suspension concepts, and he confirms that this system is close to mathematical perfection. A ride in this awesome roadster confirms real-world perfection, too. Dominator has developed a similar suspension system for the street rod market that includes many of these principles, excluding the painstaking geometric considerations that can only be calculated on a per-project basis.
One of Enea's responsibilities within Dominator includes understanding which racing companies have parts that can be adapted for street rod applications. AFCO Shocks, well known in oval-track circles (pardon the pun), worked with Enea to spec 500-pound springs up front, 400-pound springs in the rear, and valved shocks to compliment the spring rates (the same method used with some NASCAR teams).
The rearend comes from the racing world, too. Winters offers a non-quickchange version of its rearend that saves power and weight. Set up with a 4:11 gear ratio, the rear already has caliper mounts for the giant brakes that reduce the braking load on the rear suspension and remove brake dive. Wilwood and Dominator both knew a road-racing brake package could be engineered to work perfectly on the 2,400 pound Dominator. With 13-inch rotors on the front and 12 3/4-inch versions on the rear, the massive four-piston Superlite caliper could, as Lopez puts it, "stop a train." However, changing the pedal ratio from 7:1 to 9:1 allowed Dominator to not only keep the aggressive brake pads, but eliminate the use of a brake booster as well. The giant braked look great behind the huge Colorado Custom 18 x 8.5 and 20 x 10 billet wheels. Where traditional roadster fans want tall tires on the rear, the Domination's Michelin Pilots set a different pace of form and function.
And what would a racing-inspired roadster be without a ton of power? This issue was cured by GM Performance Parts, which supplied the Domination with a Generation VI 454 HO crate engine (Part #24506218). A .540-inch-lift hydraulic roller cam, 9:1 compression, and GM's rectangular-port heads (included in the GMPP crate package) provide more than enough power for excitement, and gives the car inspiring character. GM rates this engine at 425 hp as tested with a carburetor, but power is surely up from there considering the Arizona Speed and Marine Multi Point EFI and fresh air systems (incorporated into both grille sides). And thanks to this system's ACCEL DFI computer, fuel and spark curves are fully manageable, resulting in power exactly where you want it: everywhere!
Other tricks Dominator performed include fab'ing a special oil pan to ensure ground clearance (using a remote oil filter and cooler) and creating equal-length headers for the 454's valve and camshaft size. To enhance torque, Dominator used a NASCAR trick of stepping the merged collector into a 2 1/4-inch pipe, and them back to 2 1/2-inches. The headers' packaging was so tight that a smaller flexplate for the 700R4 transmission (from a Corvette) was modified, and the starter was relocated to fit. An Edelbrock big-block water pump integrates nicely into the package, as does the custom radiator from Steve Long.
While the engineering is an important part of the Domination, the car's body, paint, and interior are what give it its initial eye appeal. Mickey Galloway used a traditional English wheel to shape the all steel body, except for the aluminum hood-side panels, which were fabricated by hand. The 20-guage steel body was built around a 16-guage floor, and its unique cowling forms into the windshield frame with a piece of curved Toyota glass. For the grille, each bar was fab'd using 1/8 x 3/8-inch stock.
With such high body sides, painter Art Himsl laid down an exhibition of form, style, and illusion. Himsl's style works perfectly with that of the guys at Dominator, as neither is into nostalgia and they prefer the look of tomorrow. Himsl used DuPont Custom Finishes' Chroma Premier basecoat and clear, and picked from a various selection of pearls from DuPont's Hot Hues to create a futuristic yet accented design.
Much like Himsl, San Jose upholstery expert Rich Santana was given free reign to "do his thing" in the cockpit. Early OEM Mercedes Benz leather was vat-dyed to match the Domination's color requirements, and the base for the one-off seats are made from Indonesian mahogany (using steel inner structures for strength). These one-piece, modular forms don't have the common backrest/cushion layout, and flow into the multipart door panels. Santana's intricate saddle stitching matches the Domination's level of effort. Galloway's metalwork also finds its way into the cockpit, where a steel center consol is home to a "floating" shifter. Hand-lettered Classic Instruments guages round out the interior for an appropriate not-so-ordinary look.
Domination's electrical system, designed and installed by Lopez's father, Gil, is unique in that it's basiclly removable, with the main harness part of a module that can be wired and then installed. Everything is accessible (including two Optima batteries) by removing the seats, and a unique relay switch panel makes any troubleshooting a snap. The wiring harness was colormatched to the engine compartment's paint themes, showing this roadster to be a truly dynamic machine.
Considering the three-deep crowds that the Domination attracts at car shows (it won the Sam Barris Award at the Sacramanto Autorama), the general public loves this car, but not without some headscratching. Some don't know what to think of it and, though they can certainly understand the craftsmanship, might not identify with a car its builders admit has nothing to do with nostalgia. It is not just a show car, its design is far ahead of any other rod out there. Wouldn't it be interesting to match the DuPont Domination against its short list of peers? You could line 'em up for a one-lap dash around a road course, and then judge them over in the pits for traditional beauty and style. When the points were totaled, we bet this hot rod would have a serious shot at the title!
Colorcoded to the rest of the rod by Art Himsl, the engine in the Domination is a Chevy MK VI 454 (rated at 425 horsepower)--a crate motor from GM Performance Parts (part #24506218). Twin fresh-air ducts feed a computer-controlled, sequintial fuel injection system made by Arizona Speed & Marine. The V-8 was set up with an 8.75:1 compression ratio, a 10-quart oil capacity, and is outfitted with an Edelbrock water pump and a Vintage Air cooling fan.
You can't have ho-hum threads when the rest of the rod is so advanced! Rich Santana (Diamond Springs, CA) took the job, creating seats using mahogany (with steel bracing), then covering and saddle-stitching custom-dyed leather in a wrap-around method that foresakes traditional sideseams or skirting. A floating steel console (fab'd by Mickey Galloway) makes the shifter look like it is suspended without linkage. A Colorado Custom steering wheel was also used, and the faces of the chromed Classic Instruments guages were lettered by hand.
The suspension on the Domination is unlike that of any other street ro d out there. A pushrod and an inboard shock system are used both fore and aft, as are AFCO coilover shocks, Wilwood discs (12 3/4-inch in the rear), and Superlite four-piston calipers. A Winters IRS centersection is rubber-mounted to help eliminate vibration and noise.
There's a lot going on up front. Besides the directional 13-inch rotors (with the brake lines plumbed through the lower A-arms), you also notice the Dodge Stealth projection headlights. Also, the streamlined tubing used for the upper and lower A-arms isn't strong enough with its standard .035 wall thickness, so a smaller 3/4-inch by .156-inch A-arm setup was installed inside the streamlined tubing to achieve the correct strength requirements.
Like everything else on the DuPont Domination, the exaust system is unique. Wrapping its way through the tubular chassis, the 2 1/2-inch exaust was first polished to remove any imperfections, then coated inside and out to help reduce exaust temperature. Spent gases then exit through the framerail, just forward of the rear wheel.
Dominator's shop in Oakley, California, has long been a chassis supplier for USAC Midget and Sprint Cars, as well as SCCA GT road racers and Super Comp dragsters. Former open-wheel dirt racers Leanard Lopez (seated) and Tommy Enea teamed with metalman Mickey Galloway and painter Art Himsl in 1995 to produce three-window '40 Ford coupe (the Dominator, featured in the July '96 STREET RODDER), then brought everyone back together for their latest creation, the DuPont Domination roadster.
