Quick Drive is a Colorado-based manufacturer of a proprietary line of high-performance drivetrain components for auto racing.

Parts are designed, engineered, prototyped, and manufactured in-house – no small feat for a company that serves customers all over the globe. “We have clients on every continent with a racetrack, from the US to South Africa and beyond,” says Brock Graves, Quick Drive’s owner/operator.

Mr Graves and his team get things done using milling, turning, and mill-turn processes on a number of machines: a Haas VF-2SS and a VF-4 vertical machining centre; a Haas UMC-750 5-axis machine; a Haas ST-20Y live tool lathe; a Takisawa EX-100 lathe, and a Mazak Integrex 200sy.

Originally, Quick Drive relied on a third-party company for programming but working with an outside agency began to present challenges as the company grew and production increased: “As we started to ramp up our development, prototyping and constant part changes posed a big issue with quick turnaround times so in 2017, we made the decision to bring programming in-house,” says Mr Graves.

But shifting to internal programming meant choosing a CAM software to keep up with the machine shop’s brisk pace.

“After evaluating many of the CAM options available, we decided to go with Esprit from DP Technology. It offers proven post-processors generated by their team of experts to work directly with our specific machines. And the simulation capabilities were like nothing else existing in the industry.”

The sheer breadth of components manufactured by Quick Drive is one element of its success. “We build drive units, torque converters and speciality pneumatic products for drag racing, monster trucks, tractor pullers, drag boats, land speed vehicles, and various high-end custom vehicles,” Mr Graves advises.

“Our drive unit is composed of more than 20 individual components. The most complex part is a full-billet aluminium case that starts life as a 51kg cube. It gets machined down to around 5kg over the course of about 27 hours of 5-axis machine time. Our converters are made from 6061 aluminium and use a combination of ProfitMilling, trochoidal channel roughing, and the 5-axis impeller strategy to complete,” Mr Graves affirms.

Other complex parts include converter impellers and converter stators, both of which are 5-axis parts. The converter pieces require uniquely shaped tools and advanced machining methods to complete.

The team at Quick Drive kicked off its Esprit license with the 5-axis Haas UMC. Esprit’s extensive, customer support helped to offset the challenges of learning new software – and that support continued as the business grew.

“As we added new machines, Esprit upgraded our software to cover the complex parts we needed to produce on new equipment we brought in. Post-processing support, the digital machine package, and assistance was there again to help us through the growth curve very quickly,” says Mr Graves.

“We like knowing that the posts are created by Esprit for Esprit. We don’t have to work with a third party to have the posts created or modified for our equipment.

“Esprit significantly eased our transition to in-house programming. For the most part, the software has been almost plug-and-play for us. When we do encounter a unique situation, Esprit has been able to generate a solution for us in less than 24 hours.”

Once the Quick Drive team got over the hump of training on Esprit, it began to chip away at reprogramming existing parts in its library. According to Mr Graves, the improvement was astonishing.

“We recently revisited a part that took 27 minutes to produce. Using the ProfitMilling feature in Esprit, we were able to manufacture the part in 15 minutes. Conservatively, we’ve also extended our tool life between 30 and 40%. Needless to say, we’ll be reprogramming most, if not all, of our parts in the new software.”

In manufacturing, time is money and Mr Graves is optimistic that Esprit will help the team keep up with the constantly evolving demands and innovations of the racing industry.

“Our customers are continuously striving to break speed records, week in and week out. We don’t have the option of saying something we developed works well, job complete,” Mr Graves concludes. “Our product development and improvement efforts are never-ending and the goalposts are constantly in motion.

“We spend more time developing our product offering than we do building it. With partners like Esprit, we can get things done faster, more efficiently, and more accurately on the first try. With reduced manufacturing times, we have more time to develop, plan, and stay a few steps ahead of the competition.”

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