How Racing Engine Parts Are Made! CP Carrillo Factory Tour & Behind The Scenes (Rods & Pistons)

kind of where the magic happens everything is different in this shop this is a full custom racing piston shop every piston is actually oval we're about to show you how high performance rods and pistons get made at the CP corello Factory and headquarters here in Irvine California and we're here with Lake speed Junior I'm your doorman got a real Stark Industries vibe in here I like it are the rods and pistons kind of made in conjunction or do they have separate line areas which one are we going to see first we've manufacture them and sides of the shop so we're going to show you how the Pistons get made first we have a variety of different forgings this is what we call Round forging which is similar to Lake's original um round style piston and then this is what we would call an x-style piston um not fully boxed it's just got some small ribs in there because most the compression Heights are really short and this is used primarily for motorcycles you also have this one it's a little different color it's 40 32 material this is for one of our crate engine projects that we do and then we somewhere around 250 to 300 different piston portions so with the acquisition of Arius and everything else that we do we have some really large stuff in some small stuff and we do everything from mid to high 50 millimeters all the way to six inch in diameter air compressors airplanes so this is the initial Milling operation uh one cool thing about the company is that we went from having a lot of different stations doing lots of different operations to using palletized or Tombstone systems and and horizontal Milling machines so you can load multiple machines as a single operator and you can do Machining in the back while you're loading the front and then it'll cycle through and it helps with your production for all these machines sort of doing the same thing they're just different things are all those three machines right there are actually doing the identical something they're tooled up the same there's nothing different about them this particular one we actually do a lot of the the old school big area style Parts on there and then we can flip and flop however we need to based on quantities and you know just all the other variables that come into play if a machine goes down or you're servicing one or whatever the case will be they also do billets start with slugs of aluminum and we manufacture any shape we want out of that so that that way we can either do prototyping or we might do something where it's just not gonna be frequent enough to forge it maybe you don't want to invest the money in the tooling or maybe there's changes to it like an NHRA Pro Stock thing where you change it so frequently you don't want to be locked into a fortnight here's before and after on that the slug gets loaded in there and it comes back out looking like that but it doesn't have the pinhole or yeah I mean you you can actually run the Piston operation like this isn't the Piston operation this is the Billet operation you could run the Piston operation simultaneously without removing it from the machine if you wanted to just based on what we're doing for this particular thing that's not the way that we're going to do it on this one so you're just basically bringing the slug to where the the foraging already is and then going well there's no forging it's a bill I mean it's a forged piece of extruded bar stock and you know we have a variety of different sizes some of them are huge and some are small some are short some are tall that's the fun stuff for me because that's where I get a design anything I want and bounce ideas up back and forth off the customer and really get progress made in developing things and figuring out what works and what doesn't so after the initial Milling operation apparently we stack them so we have a rough Milling um basically we take apart and we remove as much material from it as possible so that we relieve that and the Machine as little as humanly possible down the line listen all the different live Tooling in there and that is that one's cutting ring grooves roughing yeah so it's facing the top of the Piston it's turning the OD it's it's roughing the ring grooves and a variety of other things so that that way when we finish the part on the Finish lathe there's not a whole lot of work to do and there's not a lot of material to be removed so that's what it looks like prior to going into the machine coming out of the machine you'll get all your different things that we just mentioned basically it's similar and in most regards to the other parts are just different in size or there might be some dimensional characteristics that are different but in general that's what you're gonna get to look like when it's coming off of this operation I think people can use their imagination yeah there's there's so many different thing is going through here it's not just like a factory where the same four things get made all the time I mean we we do have an oem building across the street and granted they've grown and we have a variety of projects that we do over there but they are set up to run large production runs of the same stuff whereas everything is different in this shop this is a full custom racing piston shop so um and then as you'll see on the connecting rod side it's kind of a combination of both primarily all racing with some OEM type Rod development as well but when you start off with that stuff you have to commingle it with your racing machines and parts until you can build the case to invest enough money to segregate it move it over to something else this is a Milling operation where we do the top of the Piston it's just one of several machines that we use for that put the valve release in the top of the pin pin we do profiling on the top of the Piston if the Piston has this is called an inverted Dome a dish to us and our terminology is completely round and that's done on a lathe this is an inverted dome which means that it's not a positive dome but it's negative the valve reliefs and all the other little clips and doodads on the top of that piston are done in this machine here so this this is an inverted Dome because it isn't it doesn't go around out to here yeah it's done on a mill so it's okay yeah so a dish would be spun on a lake okay for us some rather large billets Hemi Hemi style enormous yeah so this particular operation is finishing everybody's on lunch right now so the good thing is we get a crash their operation area and talk about whatever we want uh the bad thing is it makes us look like nobody's working right now but that's pretty normal we usually film these when at the end of the day or during lunch because we can't get in people's ways where we can't see really what's happening about 210 employees right now so it so it's grown quite a bit uh this particular operation uh takes a piston so Lake why don't you grab one of those looks like it's a similar this is rough and this is finished so you got all your ring Groove finish you got your accumulator Groove you got your cam and Barrel shape on the skirts all the chamfers and the radii under the oil ring and the radii on the bottom of the piston and any other deburring little stuff that can be done on a lathe this is kind of where the magic happens when we talked about the things you can see and can't see even though you can kind of see the difference here the the difference in what you actually get done on this part is is pretty uh amazing because that's what determines how it runs in the engine that's the shape on the skirt the clearance and the ring grooves that's the diameter of the Ring lands what touches the bore what doesn't and all the other bells and whistles fishing critical stuff yeah yeah so no piston is round uh every piston is actually oval and it's also got um a barrel shape is what we call it where it's smaller under the low ring that it is down here because it grows more in this area than it does down here and then if you look at the bottom of the piston this has the majority of the materials so it's going to grow more in this area than it is here so it's actually an oval in this direction and it's smaller here than it is here and that's that's just the general statement you can make about all pistols wow what are y'all getting into the juicy details right so you have it all factored into essentially when it expands B round is it an iron block is it an aluminum block is it Force induction is it naturally aspirated is it a cold cooling system is it desert is it an offshore boat what are what are we doing and that's going to dictate everything that we need to know about the dimensional changes that we make to the park do you change the profile between 26 18 and 40 32. uh yeah we we and we do it with four Gene structural changes we change it with 40 32 a lot of the 40 32 Pistons that we manufactured today are generally used for either Street applications or vintage applications right so uh without with that being said there there's there's a lot of other differences besides just the material a lot of the parts are longer uh the forging selections are different and stuff like that too so uh but yeah there's generally you know your growth rate's going to be a little different you run things tighter something I'm noticing is that there's one of these start slabs at every single station here yeah the detail is impressive yeah I mean we could still use a little organization if you ask me but that's okay you know we're working on that we're about ready to reorganize the whole shop move things around and get real clean um but in general yes we use that for everything because it's necessary to have a good flat surface to measure on otherwise what are you measuring too if you're enjoying this video hit that subscribe button because there's all kinds of stuff on our channel that you would be just as into as this maybe even more if you click the little bell it will tell you when we post something at least it should I don't know give it a shot anyway back to the video we pride ourselves in having good equipment and good people and good measuring devices does everything get measured before it moves to the next station oh yeah and uh lost times in sequence and serialized as well the traceability efforts are becoming better and better on racing over time and the traceability efforts on the OEM side or uh as good as you can possibly have so those nice scooter always says you can't improve but you can't measure you got you want to make it better you gotta be able to measure it you got to measure better than you do today in order to make a part better tomorrow than you did today so it just depends on what it is and and how it's going through the production facility um part of the reason we're reorganizing the shop is because as you can tell we're walking from one side to the other right now uh and we want to go in a circle if we can right so um with with OEM becoming more and more involved in what we do we've had to juggle some equipment and do some things around here so uh over here this is where we remove the registration of the part off of the bottom and we match the weights and we do some of the drilling for the conventional pin oiling methods and so on and so forth this machine here is another Mill that does the top of the Piston like the one that we were just talking about two operations ago and then the other ones down this line cut the bottom of the piston and match all the weights they get home actually they get to bird and then home because we try to keep the guys from cutting themselves up with parts so um yeah and then once they get to bird and Hound we wash them and we do some inspection and then we approve it to go out the door and we go to the other building where we ship home so shipping used to be in this building but with the growth of the company we've actually got another building down the street so we got a guy shuffling Parts all over the all over the city blocks around here so the Pistons are I don't know for a type of like how it's made thing they're relatively simple because they only go to a few different places and then they're like yeah you gotta you got a piston it's got way more operations it's steel uh there's a lot going on you got Fasteners involved and all the other things on the rod side that's interesting because on the when you look at them a piston is much more intricate but as far as like the manufacturing process the other way out of the jab session that the rod and piston guys always have right it's like you know the rods are just holding the crank and the Piston together and it's just a simple thing and then the Pistons got so many exotic shapes on the top because all the cylinder head different cylinder head variations that you have out there so um but it's a lot easier to make now don't get me wrong when we first made them there was way more operations than there are today and anything that you do the least amount of times you can remove apart from a machine the better off you are uh and your tolerance stack is tight so we've worked on that uh and come come a long way and uh the rod side is making significant progress as well let's go see all the rods get done with the connecting rod we actually start the operation down the street and that's where our forging so all our raw and finished materials are in the other building and basically we we do some boring processes over there so that we can prepare to put them on the machines over here so these machines are all doing a similar thing we refer to it as profiling which takes the majority of the material off of the connecting rod and gives it the general shape that you're looking for here's one prior to and here's one after so when you hear Ford's drive versus cast Rod when you go to force Rod it starts as one of these slugs well forged Rod versus a Billet Rod too right so the thing that we try to pride ourselves on is the fact that everything we do is forged so we actually get the grain flow to go the way that we want it to go uh Billet Rod has a straight line ring and ours don't so it's a hundred percent machine so when it's done you can't tell the difference between a fill it and a forged Rod but these are like Billet Force rods it's 100 machine support yes and that's different than either one of the other things you've got them combined here yeah so uh that's the way it's always been uh and then we also manufacture aluminum connecting rods now um there is this for like a Pro Stock deal or something oh that's actually an import you got a lot of rods going right now though the the rod side you know as the industry was up and down and you know we were coming back from a pandemic uh we're fortunate enough to be very busy in a nice to have industry right so um we're thriving we're having record months finally it's slowing down a little bit on the Piston side the rod size still pretty hectic I think we're 14 weeks or so for a set of connecting rods and we're down to about five weeks for Pistons right now so oh wow um what are those itty bitty rods for uh it might be for like a Hayabusa like a little motorcycle racing so this is some of the area where the the final boring is done some rods actually get serration on the party line so that they are stuck together and that way some are sleeves some are serrated a variety of different methods that we use we have some reverse entry connecting rods like that where the bolts come in from the top and then the majority of them this is a bullet connecting rod I don't remember if you have these or yours or not I think that's what I will have in the six liter for the Yukon okay yeah so similar material trim process there's some steps that are able to be skipped so that that way we have to spend it's kind of a win-win for the customer because it's a lesser price and it's something that we came up with to compete in the lower share when I say lower I'm just talking price on quality um so that's what a lot of Ls stuff a lot of Big Blocks and a variety of others that are coming to market right now Romero how long have you been with Carrillo 40 years 40 years a lot of these guys have been working for the company for a long time so Camaro's the one that actually helped us get your rods prepared for the CMM and he's the one that would rework the rods as well if we need them to do that what is he doing now uh recalibrating the home gauge to make sure that we are measuring things properly when toning and then we also check our home gauge against the CMM to make sure that those are the same and we have to let them sit in there showing their under size six tents and it is what it what it is we have to re-own it give it a little more to come and do so when it's under size in the QA lab it probably raises a flag and it makes them say oh wait a second so he's checking the gauge and now he realizes that those are both accurate the same so the part is undersized so they're going to go back out and make sure that they re-home the thing and get it where they need to be so it's double verified yes double check always wanted to make sure before he goes oversized yeah better double triple quadruple check in the underside yeah the metal tanker offer metal footer honor the tanker offers way easier than to put her on her yeah but he knows how to do the putter honor part too though okay that's good yeah you know we've got a lot of equipment that's older refurbished constantly made team still works and does well for everything that well this is where we actually do the shocking of the steel what is shock painting Shop painting is when you take small steel balls and you use them hard in the surface remove Machining marks and other things and remove areas of high stress so if it's done correctly it can also be done incorrectly it can be done too much so there's a variety of different things that can be or are done with shop cleaning features a color that goes like this but we normally know a rod looks like I've seen it looks like this but like I said but that Machining process can put residual stresses and things in there so then you start being it and it takes those stresses out gives it that gorilla look that everybody's own please know and no you know so as he starts to get that thing going and we can feel the shot flying around in the air we should probably start yeah usually our vibratory deburring is right here because back back in back in the old days you know the guys would do it all by hand and then vibratory burning came online and then that allowed us to actually take employees sisters and drivers and but unfortunately that piece of equipment's down at the moment so generally that's where we do all of our diverting with a vibratory debris final assembly Raphael's been doing this for a long time and uh you know basically preparing the parts so that that way we can get them ready for the customer foil them down demagnetizing them and getting them ready to go if you like this kind of tech stuff make sure you're subscribed click the button you click the little bell and then it'll just tell you when we post something that's it and you can check out the lake speed engine playlist for all kinds of technical engine information including the differences in the Pistons of the real nitty-gritty of Fist and design we have a video in there with Brian we go on his computer shows all the 3D stuff you'll love it what are you talking to her no I wasn't talking to her was I talking to you are you gonna go watch the Piston Video Shelby she loves 3D piston design and all those other things cool socks