Projects The hopeful beginning of it all (starting a speed equipment brand and land speed racing)

I recently cast up a coil cover for my 37 ford pickup. Upon making it, I made three others and was amazed at the number of people that told me I need to make more. I am currently working on a second version which will have a more universal mounting point.

The process of making these is know as investment casting. After designing the part, I scaled the design by 1% and eliminated any machined features. I then 3d printed the part out of PLA plastic and took it to a local foundry. There, they dipped the plastic parts in a ceramic coating several times until there is about a 1/4 build up of ceramic around the part. They then proceed to put the parts in a kiln and let the plastic melt out of the ceramic coating leaving an open cavity that is the negative of the part. The molten aluminum gets poured into the ceramic shell, and after cooling the shell gets busted and shot blast into smithereens! The casting is then machined and shazam!! An aluminum coil cover is born.



The next batch will be sand cast which will make them much more capable of being produced at volume.

Cameron,
Nystromperformance.com

 

A couple of thoughts: spend the money to hire a professional photographer and make sure your logo is on every product photo so it can not be misappropriated. Write up a brief description of the product and send it to HOT ROD along with the other books still being printed. Join SEMA! Your operation is ripe for a feature in HOT ROD and/or RODDERS JOURNAL. But, unless you tell them, they’ll never know who you are! One last thought, if you score some editorial coverage, be prepared to fulfill orders. I’ve seen some businesses in this industry get hurt by being too successful!

 

Very sound advice! I need to step up the product photography on my website for sure. I was recently had a small feature in speed and kulture magazine which brought in a significant number of customers. I have up inventory before anything bigger.
Thanks!

 

We recently released our new 3x2 setup for the Scot supercharger! This was a customer request that I ended up casting up several of.
https://nystromperformance.com/coll...s/products/s-c-o-t-italmechanicca-3x2-adapter

 

We recently released our latest take on the 2x2 GM 4-71 supercharger top!
This was one of the first parts I tackled when starting to make castings. After I got a few products under my belt, I decided to revisit the design and improve it. We have changed our process quite a bit since the original design, to maximize quality and minimize hand work. Our patterns are now professionally 3d printed out if a fiber embedded resin, that is printed perfectly smooth to eliminate all the body filler and sanding I used to put into my old 3d printed patterns. They are now countersunk into an aluminum pattern plate, rather than a plywood one, which improves pattern rigidity while being packed with sand, and allows me to cast concave features into the bottom side of the mold.
I hope you all enjoy it! As always, available on our website
https://nystromperformance.com/collections/automotive-parts/products/gm-4-71-2x2-top-plate

 

Alright folks,
I'm tossing around doing a pre-order on this model A dual carb intake manifold i recently designed. These would be a pretty significant upfront investment, and i would like some assurance of sales before i pull the trigger and make them, so im putting my feelers out. I'd need to sell 15 of them at $425 a pop to make the initial investment worth it. Reach out if you are genuinely interested, and we'll see if we can make this happen.

Thanks

 

Looks pretty! How is the interest level? Do you have a banger to do some dyno testing on?

 

Post your manifold over on the banger thread if you want to reach the right guys:

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/july-2023-banger-meet-thread-happy-4th-cylinder.1296285/

 

Recently we released our new Carb Scoops on our website. We were very pleased with how these turned out, and apparently so were many others considering that the polished scoops sold out in just a few hours. We immediately sent out for a second much larger batch from the foundry which should be ready in two months. These scoops are an excellent less expensive alternative to our more involved air cleaners that we also offer. We also offer screens for the scoops on the website.




For anyone interested we still do have a few scoops left with the cast finish. Available at:

https://nystromperformance.com/coll...ucts/finned-carb-scoop?variant=40042705354827

 

As I sit in the hospital after my wife having had just delivered our first child, I find myself with some time to share an update on the recent happenings at Nystrom Performance.

We have been busy doing plenty of job shop work (most of it landspeed car related) as well as making changes to our manufacturing process on our castings to make it as streamlined as possible. Unfortunately the foundry I have been using will be shutting down in a couple short years, so it seemed like a good idea to find a new one before that happens. I found one, had them do a run of parts, inspected the part quality, and am planning on continuing sending them work. This foundry is not a short drive away like the previous one, which may seem like a bad thing, but I believe it is actually a good thing because it means that I am forced to have the parts shipped rather than spending lots of time going to the foundry and back that could otherwise be spent in the shop making parts.

We also managed to snag two more CNC machines. A few weeks ago I got my hands on a Mori Seiki CL-20 Lathe. An aerospace shop that I use to work for had bought this lathe new back in the day, so I know its history, and know that it has been treated well it's whole life. This lathe is nice and compact, and fits well into my little shop. It is equipped with a 15hp spindle that can be fit with either an 8 inch three jaw chuck, or a 5c collet chuck. This machine needs a new power supply installed before it will be up and running.

Last week I picked up a second CNC mill. A fanuc robodrill. I had no intention of dragging another machine home, but a local shop owner I know gave me a deal I couldn't turn down. It's not the new shiny machine that I was planning on onboarding next (Quite the opposite. Its dinged up, old, and in need of some serious cleaning) but it will make a good workhorse, taking some of the workload off of my other mill, until that day comes when I can bring in a newer more capable machine. This machine was fitted with a pallet changer which automatically swaps fixtures in and out of the machine so that you can load the next set of parts while the machine is still running. Unfortunately the pallet changer was not currently functional, so seeing as to how I don't really have the room and don't need another project, I will be taking the pallet changer mechanism off of the machine. I got this machine plugged into my 3 phase converter and operating a few days ago.

So, MANY more hotrod parts to come in 2024!
Below are some pictures of the machines being moved and set on place. As always, thanks for the continued support that makes it possible for me to do this stuff.

 

Awesome scores!

 

Glad to see you keeping busy and getting more equipment. Growing a business is not easy. Keep up the good work.

 

Congrats on the first child !!! & new tools as well.

 

We got our second batch of polished scoops back from the foundry, through the machine, and restocked on the website!
Available at nystromperformance.com

 

We recently brought a new product to market!
We are now offering coil covers.


This eye-catching art deco inspired coil cover is cast aluminum, designed to hold an ignition coil of 2 1/8" in diameter. Available in both raw cast, and polished finish. This cover secures the coil in place with two setscrews pushing against a delrin pad, which sits in a pocket inside the bore of the cover to keep the coil from getting damaged.

What you get:

1X coil cover

2X stainless 1/4-20 setscrews

2X stainless 5/16-18 bolts

Also available is a stainless steel bracket designed specifically for mounting the coil cover as shown, on a flathead ford. It utilizes two bolts used to mount the intake manifold. This is not compatible on engines with the water ports on the front of the head.

As always thanks to everyone who has helped keep all this going. We put alot of work into these, and hope you like them!

Available on our website nystromperformance.com

 

Have you seen Nick Arias' posting in The Antiquated? He's wanting to sell a bunch of cool molds, right up your alley.

 

Lately, I have been diligently working on a second iteration of our VS57 McCulloch supercharger brackets for mounting the infamous VS57 Supercharger on ford flatheads.

This was one of the first products that we offered when I started making parts, and I figured it was due for an update.

There were many improvements made from the previous version. More bearing surface on the tensioner pivot, bespoke hardware to alow e-clips retaining the spring assembly and tensioner. We made pulleys that match the look of the supercharger pulley. We are now making our own spring pack, and the whole assembly now closely resembles the original mcculloch made bracket. The assembly is also now cast out of stainless steel for greater rigidity than our original cast aluminum design and the original cast iron brackets made by McCulloch.

They will be available very soon, and I am extremely happy with how they are turning out!

 

Thank you for making such high quality products for the flathead.

 

Good timing as I was just about to give you a call about tensioner pulley replacements!

 

We recently restocked our polished carb scoops! Here are some photo of them on a happy customer's setup!
Available on nystromperformance.com

 

I am proud to say that after a TON of work, I have finally completed the new vs57 flathead ford supercharger brackets. I greatly underestimated how much time I would have into these, but considering the final result, I believe it was worth it.

These brackets are now available on my website nystromperformance.com All the details are on the website. Feel free to reach out with any questions.

Thanks again for the continued support from all of you helping me chase the dream of manufacturing a wide array of old time speed equipment.

 

What is new or changed on them?

 

I just completed a run of flathead ford header flanges. These are our styled mild steel flanges that I machined for three different sizes of tubing. I wanted offer something that looked nicer than just a flat laser cut flange, so this is what I came up with.

They are available on my website nystromperformance.com
You can find all the specific details there

$125 bucks for a pack of qty 6
Shipping out of Minnesota

 

Always wondered why the backside perimeter recess for effective welding on header flanges was never offered, well done !