S&S had been making a really good connecting rod for some time – it was a 7075 alloy billet rod in lengths of 8˝, 8.250˝, and 8.500˝. Since then, I have added an adjustable oil feed to the cam plate that will be included in future cases. We sat down at Reggie’s in-shop espresso bar to discuss what I wanted to do – 5.00˝ bore, relocate the sump in the flywheel cavity, removable bottom plate, room for our giant aluminum connecting rods, option for charging system delete, timing notches for crank sensor (R&R now makes our flywheels used in our crankshaft assemblies as well), and using the bolt patterns that our previous combinations had for cross application of parts. When Randy Torgeson of Hyperformance in Pleasant Hill, IA suggested I go see Reggie Ronzello at R&R to talk about a new engine case, I did exactly that.
They had a dual-cam V-twin engine that could go to 4.600˝ bore and had built engines to 155 cubic inches with that case. R&R Cycle in Manchester, NH had been making strong, attractive crankcases along with other parts from billet for years and were one of the few companies that survived the market shift. Not only were we able to incorporate all of our modifications into the new program, but we also were able to do things not possible with the parts we had before. The process took about two years and was expensive, but we were able to sell enough components to cover most of the cost on the first run. Not long before we started to get serious about proprietary engines, I found a shop that could scan our models and produce our parts. We knew we could use capabilities that CNC manufacturers had locally. Not having a CNC shop onsite didn’t slow us down. With all of this coming down on us, we were still faced with a growing niche that we had to fill in order to stay in business and to continue to race and develop new things like our in-house fuel injection program spearheaded by GMS engineer Damon Kuskie. S&S is the largest contributor to our aftermarket and we understand that they are simply responding to declining demand and refocusing on better segments as it relates to their overall plan. Our biggest problem was that S&S had ended production of the parts we depended on to keep our engines flowing. There were many others before, who like us, decided to make their own parts, mostly due to having a better idea to suit their own needs. We are not the only ones who followed this path, just like in the automotive world, motorcycle racers will be the source of much innovation relevant to their situation and requirements. As power and engine speeds increased, we modified the available parts to suit our needs, ending up with something that resembled the original part only from the outside. We had great success using the S&S cast “Pro Stock” and “Street Pro” engines and components as a foundation for our in-house engine program. The custom trend I mentioned grew so fast and so large that many aftermarket manufactures grew with it and were not prepared for the rapid decline in demand when the party was over. However, this started to die off after the custom bike craze of the 2000s was gone. With such a huge difference in demand, investment in engineering programs and tooling used by foundries for casting parts in quantity was much more suitable than individual billet parts. This was a much larger market because of gas racing components and engines also being used by the street and custom market, or vice versa. The gas racing cousins I mentioned earlier were also producing more application-specific engine components.
The birth of CNC machining and its availability to small shops and manufacturers allowed this to happen, and also fueled a renaissance in manufacturing to great effect empowering domestic machining to compete in a world market. The reason I touch on the evolution of nitro engines is because this is a great example of new, purpose-built components coming to a small niche market, thus enabling a sport to grow in numbers both in performance and participation.
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