Editor’s Note: Here is the second of what we hope will be many vendor profiles, highlighting the brands and people that make our company the go-to partner for sales and distribution of high performance auto racing parts and merchandise. Today we’re pleased to feature Performance Springs Inc. (PSI), out of New Hudson, Michigan, a company that is every bit as passionate about introducing the latest technology to the auto racing community as we are. To say PSI changed the NASCAR racing scene is an understatement.

It didn’t take long for PSI to become an industry leader in valve spring applications after its founding back in 1996. NASCAR rules had already placed a ceiling on the horsepower of race engines, which meant engineers had to look to other areas of the engine for additional speed. This concerted search for more power came at a time when the quality of auto racing valve springs was in question. These cast curlicue devices were a serious limiting factor when it came to engine RPMs.

PSI joined in that search for improved power, becoming part of an industry-wide competition that would drive racecar engineers for the next half-dozen years. But what PSI’s engineers knew for sure was that most engine failures at the time were the result of broken valve springs. It was the one major weakness when it came to the design of race engines.

Realizing that the single valve spring has one of the most strenuous jobs in the engine compartment, PSI’s engineers began tinkering around with ways to increase the strength and fatigue resistance of its springs. That led to the development of not only stronger valve springs, but also more compact springs. The fact is that today most of PSI’s valve springs are half the diameter of the ones produced back in the late 1980s.

And they’re stronger after decades of improvement — the result of engineers targeting the task of reducing the number and size of microscopic flaws in the metals used to produce these springs. To achieve these outcomes, PSI’s employees took each spring through a nearly 50-step treatment process. The result was to present to race teams the ability to achieve unprecedented power in their machines without violating NASCAR’s very strict rules on engine development.

Today, PSI uses state-of-the-art CNC equipment to ensure that its valve springs are held to the tightest tolerances in the industry. All of its springs are 100 percent load tested in house with strict quality control procedures at each stage of production.

Here at CV Products, we partner with PSI in the marketing and sales of more than 80 PSI valve springs. Among our offerings: Continue reading…