Their experience, their racing heritage, and their highly experienced staff of machinists and racing engine builders offered a unique set of blended talent to solve inherent block weakness design in the currently available engines where bore sizes were intended to be increased. Many production cast iron and aluminum blocks suffer from a design weakness of cylinder stability by nature of poor support at the upper deck area. The manufacturing process of "cast in sleeves" provides for economy of scale in low horsepower engines, but does not accommodate high horsepower, high boost, or larger bore sizes. Darton has engineered a superior patented (patent #6,799,541) solution by using a unique designed cylinder sleeve which when siamesed and nested, creates a solid deck of sleeve flanges held in tension, reinforcing the upper deck area and provides for individual replacement with what they call Modular Integrated Deck (MID).
Even in wet sleeve designs of the past, water is never efficiently processed or flowed between the block and head to provide for maximum heat dissipation in the combustion chamber. Inherent in open or closed deck engine blocks of cast iron or aluminum is a certain amount of water stagnation. This is like pouring water through a funnel, there is really no flow or velocity until the water exits the spigot. In the case of blocks and heads, the casting ports are designed for ease of casting not efficient flow. Now with Darton's "MID", Swirl Coolant Technology the cooling medium is ported and directed to significantly improve heat transfer where it is needed most, in the upper cylinder wall/flange area.
Additionally this adds another protective barrier for the o-rings in the lower register of the sleeve extending their lifespan even longer. This coating resists abrasion from the hot turbulent water flow that is created in the water jacket area of the block. This aids the elimination of hot spots in the compression area allowing you to make more power. This coating makes the MID sleeves impervious to problems most commonly found in all wet sleeved blocks. Adding the phosphate coating to the MID sleeve is just another way Darton is constantly evolving sleeve design and the way the industry perceives the way you can sleeve a block.