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5-Axis Expertise Keeps DEI
In the Race for Victory Lane
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DEI now can reverse engineer and 5-axis machine any engine part that is being made by hand at the team’s new state-of-the-art racing center in Mooresville, North Carolina, said CNC Programmer/Operator Steve Long.
DEI’s 5-axis machining capability is provided by Cincinnati Machine, which joined the Earnhardt team when it supplied three of its newest machines for a special CNC machining room at the racing center.
Under a five-year agreement, Cincinnati Machine provided the Earnhardt facility with a 5-axis Arrow® VMC-1250 Vertical CNC Machining Center, a standard 4-axis Arrow® VMC-1250C and a Hawk® TC-250 Turning Center to support DEI’s in house engine development program.
Long heads DEI’s effort to machine increasing numbers of engine parts in-house, using 5-axis machining and advanced programming, to control turnaround time for specific parts needed for the cars and to help ensure efficiency and accuracy. And the ability to reverse engineer parts and cut them on the Arrow VMC-1250 takes DEI to a new plateau in that endeavor.
He said he can replicate and reverse engineer any part now being made by hand in the racing center’s engine department by using a Faro Gold Arm and a Brown & Sharpe Chameleon CMM to gather digital data, which is then entered into his CAD software and programmed in the Arrows’ CNCs.
Long performs all of his own programming on the powerful Siemens A2100 CNC with a dual processor design featuring PC technology, Windows NT control and touch-screen technology, which are standard on the Arrow VMCs.
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| DEI technicians have expanded 5-axis capabilities on the Arrow VMC-1250 to reduce part turnaround time by as much at 75 percent since initially acquiring the machines. |
Reverse engineering of engine parts was a specific goal for DEI when the Cincinnati machines were acquired, he noted. "We wanted to be able to take a part that our cylinder head department develops on an R&D basis, for example, and make an actual part for testing. For instance, they’ll develop one intake port, one exhaust port and a combustion chamber, which I can then switch and match in any combination with CAD to develop a pair of cylinder heads for a trial run," he explained.
"They come up with an idea and we can turn it into an actual running part in less than a week. That cuts about 75 percent of the time that it used to take. Plus, if we had to make the part by hand, it would be impossible to replicate the parent port, as it were, mathematically. You just can’t do that by hand."
The DEI racing center has had great success with the 5-axis Arrow VMC-1250, Long said, which provides access to places inside parts that otherwise could not be cut without multiple positioning and progressive setups.
Long said he and his staff have taken advantage of the Arrow 1250’s integrated rotary table to eliminate multiple setups and improve the dimensional and geometric accuracies between related machine surfaces.
The new Arrow VMC-1250, which comes standard with digital glass-scales on X- and Y-axes for accuracies of ±0.00011" (±2.75 microns) on positioning and ±0.00004" (1 micron) on repeatability.
The cylinder head work that the Arrow VMC-1250 is performing is a crucial operation for DEI to ensure consistently high engine horsepower on the General Motors engine used by the Earnhardt team.
Last summer, the Arrow VMC-1250 began doing general machining work on the cylinder heads—adding water lines, removing metal to reduce overall weight and preparing heads for special valve seat machining operation—and DEI is still in the early stages of that work, Long said.
Manifolds are also being machined on the Arrow VMC-1250, Long noted, and the restrictor plate manifolds that were taken to Daytona and tested with great success were all completed on the machine.
Long, who gained his experience in 5-axis machining while making cylinder heads for another racing team, said that most of the major NASCAR Winston Cup teams have become heavily involved in 5-axis machining of engine parts over the last three years. So the ability to refine DEI’s skills in 5-axis to stay well ahead of the competition will play a significant role in the Earnhardt team’s success in the 2001 Winston Cup campaign.
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| The integrated rotary table on the Arrow 1250 eliminates multiple setups and improves dimensional and geometric accuracies. |
This year, for the first time, the DEI team has three cars running in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series as Michael Waltrip, brother of Darrell Waltrip, joins Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Steve Park on the circuit. The team got off to an electrifying start by winning the first two races in the 2001 Winston Cup Series. Michael Waltrip took the checkered flag at the Daytona 500, while Steve Park cruised to victory lane at the Dura Lube 400.
The 2000 campaign for the DEI team also proved highly successful as Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished second in the Rookie of the Year honors. Earnhardt Jr. gained his first rookie win at Texas Motor Speedway and his second at Richmond to end the year with two victories, three Top 5 finishes, five Top 10 finishes and $2,610,000 in winnings, in addition to winning the all-star race "The Winston" at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.
Teammate Steve Park took his first Winston Cup checkered flag when he won at Watkins Glen and finished the 2000 season with one win, six Top 5 finishes, 13 Top 10 finishes and winnings of $2,052,000.
This year, with the CNC machining center and the growing expertise of Steve Long and his programmers behind them, the DEI team will be taking even more victory laps in the Winston Cup Series this year.