Drag racing is a motorsport where the amount of variety pushes it beyond the “one-size fits all” category for high-performance parts. There’s a sea of different cars, classes, and performance goals that fill the pits at a race, and all of them require something different in the engine department. Many times that entails custom parts. SCAT Crankshafts is one of the companies that can help any racer with their custom part needs when it comes to rotating assemblies, specifically their ability to create custom crankshafts for any application.
SCAT produces many different rotating assembly parts already, but their capability to make custom billet cranks for drag racing and high-performance applications allows them to help many different customers. Tom Lieb, the owner of SCAT, understands the value that their custom cranks bring to the racing world.
“The billet unit is a much stronger crankshaft for the demands of drag racing and the wide range of classes that people compete in. When you look at the engines they’re building and the horsepower that’s being produced, having the correct crank that’s strong enough to deal with the abuse is crucial.”
Creating a crank for any application is easy for SCAT — they can make a crank that’s 43-inches in length and 10-inches in diameter, which covers virtually anything you can imagine. To build the correct crank for their customers SCAT asks the right questions the first time to avoid issues.
“With a custom crank, we prefer to deal with the engine builder directly when it comes to ordering what’s needed for the motor. The builder is more tuned-in with what the motor will be used for, knows how the block will be machined, what stroke they want, the kind of rod is being used, what the bearing clearances are, and so on. We need a lot of technical information and by not going directly through the builder there’s the risk of a misunderstanding that could cause an issue with the crank,” Lieb explains.
After the specifications for your crank have been laid out, SCAT goes through their meticulous manufacturing process to ensure the crank is going to be right the first time.
“We can design the crank around the correct metallurgy and heat treatments to keep it strong and add durability. When we get into the actual manufacturing, we machine all the cranks with the metal already being heat treated so it’s as strong as it can be without any extra machine stress on it,” Lieb says.
So, if you need a custom crank that can take a ton of abuse, check out SCAT’s website for all the options they offer!