CNC West Dec jan 2019

40 www.CNC-West.com CNC WEST December 2018/January 2019 O bsolescence in auto racing is wasteful and costly, so the faster TRD U.S.A. Inc. (Toyota Racing Development) can manufacture, the less chance its highly engineered race engine components will become obsolete. Speed in part production provides the race engine builder’s engineering group more time to develop new and improved components, test multiple iterations of them and ultimately achieve higher perfor- mance on the track. It was this need for speed that drove TRD to complete- ly rebuild and revamp its Costa Mesa, California, manu- facturing facility and incorporate a highly advanced, fully automated machining cell. Besides speed, the cell gives TRD part processing flexibility, consistency and precision all while increasing overall output. For flexibility, TRD’s automation allows it to pull a ma- chine “offline” from the cell as needed. The shop can then use it independently of regular production operations for such tasks as part development or simply to run the one or two occasional parts that require manual loading. According to Greg Ozmai, group vice president of op- erations at TRD, the main benefit of the cell – manufac- turing wise – is that it “has increased our level of compo- nent precision while also increasing our output capacity” to provide maximum time for component engineering. In terms of output, TRD gained greater lights-out pro- duction capability compared to its previous manufactur- ing structure. TRD’s primary focus is on race engines for Toyota’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series program. Toyota, TRD and team partner Joe Gibbs Racing won the 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Championship with driver Kyle Busch and the 2016 Daytona 500 with driver Denny Hamlin. TRD’s headquarters in Costa Mesa, California, encom- pass two buildings and employs over 200 people. In ad- dition to supporting Toyota’s NASCAR program, TRD also provides engineering support to Toyota’s NHRA and grassroots racing projects. In its support of Toyota’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series program, TRD is responsible for all aspects of the race engine – from design concept to manufacture, assembly, development, testing and failure analysis. It has all the in- house abilities to design a bespoke racing engine from a clean sheet of paper and build it to achieve a set of perfor- mance goals. “We benchmark every one of our engines and test them for performance and durability,” said Ozmai. “We have a full failure-analysis lab on the premises equipped with a scanning electron microscope and several other pieces of spectrometer-type devices. If there are any developmen- tal improvements we can make along the way, we are well equipped to do so.” For the 2016 NASCAR Spring Cup Series, TRD sup- plies engines to five Toyota Racing Camrys – four from Joe Gibbs Racing and one from Furniture Row Racing. TRD manufactures all the core components of its en- gines. And with the recent addition of high-speed, high- precision MIKRON machining centers from GF Machin- ing Solutions and automation from System 3R, TRD’s manufacturing is in a prime position for future increases in demand. “We have the ability to produce over 400 racing en- RACING ENGINE DEVELOPER PUTS THE “AUTO” IN AUTOMATION Article & Photos Courtesy of Chuck Bates - DGS Marketing Engineers