Alan said that fuel is put into the engine with nozzels, even inside the cyl head. This reminded me of Gene Adams, who was running an A/FD in Pro Comp, probably in 1980's. At the time, the quickest A/FD had run like 6.50's. Adams came up with the idea of injecting fuel directly into the heads. The car ran 6.32 with this set up and blew everyone away. No one had any idea of what Adams was doing & it took a some time for this idea to surface. After that, everyone ran that set up including T/F. I guess you might say this was the direct injection of the day.
Lot of the WWII vets got involved in drag racing early 1950's & they knew about blowers, turbos, nitrous, nitro, etc. cuz had seen it on fighter planes.
Yep, I was at the Air Force Museum last year after the US Nationals. They had a partial cut-away of a Rolls Royce Merlin. Multiple stage supercharging, four valves per chamber, two plugs per chamber, overhead camshafts, roller rockers. I'm telling you, it looked pretty danged modern.
So, can you imagine an Army Air Corp mechanic coming home after the war, and looking at a flathead V8? No wonder hot rodding took off after the war.