Penske Engine Achieves Faster Turnarounds With Mazak Multi-Tasking

Mike Nelson (vice president of operations, Penske Engines) and Scott Corriher (president, Penske Engines) credit Mazak multi-tasking technology with providing increased flexibility and productivity.

The Penske name is well known to any fan of American motorsports. For more than fifty years, Roger Penske has built a legacy that continues today in both the NASCAR and Indy Car arenas. Over the last decade, the success of Penske Racing's NASCAR teams can be largely credited to the tireless efforts of the Penske Engines facility in Concord, North Carolina, where engines for all of the team's cars are designed, manufactured and tested.


Founded in 1998 with a single machine, Penske Engines now uses seven machining centers to provide fast turnarounds on all of the engines for Penske Racing teams. Many of the shop's current operations revolve around a Mazak INTEGREX e-410H-II Horizontal Multi-Tasking Machining Center that can perform processes ranging from turning and milling to boring and drilling.

"The work we do on the e-410H-II feeds what's going on in the rest of the shop," says Rick Huneycutt, shop manager at Penske Engines. "We keep the machine running as close to twenty-four hours as possible, loading it up before we leave at night so that it's still going in the morning. It feeds work to seven or eight other stations throughout our facility and has played a key role in transitioning to the Dodge R6 model of engine."

To somewhat level the playing field, NASCAR requires that engine manufacturers submit their designs to the organization for review. Once a model is approved, it becomes the standard shipped to all teams using that manufacturer's engines. Penske uses engines from Dodge, which switched from the R5 to R6 model for the 2008 season.

"Mazak multi-tasking technology is a critical component of what we do on daily basis," says Scott Corriher, president of Penske Engines. "When we first started receiving the Dodge R6 castings, we had about 40 engines that we had to get up and running within three months. You have to be able to knock out the cylinder heads and intake manifolds very quickly. The e-410H-II cut our total process times in half and implementing the R6 engine for the start of the season would have been impossible if we didn't have that technology."

Penske Engines’ Mazak INTEGREX e-410H-II allows cylinder heads to be manufactured in half the time as in previously used processes.
Penske Engines manufacturers cylinder heads in a single setup via Mazak multi-tasking technology and a specially designed part fixture.
The challenges of integrating a new model of engine are multi-layered. While NASCAR places some restrictions on teams in terms of what sort of modifications can be made to an approved casting, many facets of design are left unrestricted. Penske continually makes updates to the design of critical components in order to give its drivers a competitive advantage. When dealing with a new engine model, the quest for a design advantage becomes even more daunting.

In addition to overall design changes, Penske also modifies engine components to boost performance on specific types of tracks. Depending on the grade, length and layout of the track, the importance of fuel efficiency varies. Additionally, the different types of tracks result in different rpm bands.

Dave Hood, engineer at Penske Engines, checks tolerances on a recently completed cylinder head.
"On what we would call an intermediate track, you're looking at a mile and a half, banked track with a fairly narrow rpm band, in the range of 1,500 to 2,000" says Mr. Corriher. "Then you go somewhere like the Martinsville Speedway in Virginia and it's a totally different ball game. With that kind of shorter track, we might have an rpm band of 5,500. There are some significant changes in design you have to make to be able to get the best performance for the different types of tracks."

Some of the details on Penske Engines' cylinder heads require tolerances of down to 0.0002".
Penske Engines employee Mark Cuzzen prepares to test a recently assembled engine on one of the company's dynamometers.
When Penske Engines switched over to the Dodge R6 model, it had to machine components for and build 40 engines within a three-month window.
Several aspects of the INTEGREX e-410H-II prove especially valuable to Penske when tweaking design specifications. First, the machine's Done in One capability allows cylinder heads and other vital components to be fully machined from a casting in a single setup. With all operations taking place sequentially on one machine, minimal effort is required to make a change to a component. Additionally, Mazak's e-Tower simplifies the handling and editing of programs that Penske uses Mastercam to create. The e-Tower is also networked into the rest of the shop's IT systems, allowing the e-410H-II to be monitored remotely.

"The e-Tower has become a necessity to how I program parts," says Mr. Huneycutt. "Its 20 Gb hard drive allows me to store four or five main programs for components, each of which refer to a whole array of subprograms. I can do programming changes from the e-Tower to the backside of the hard drive and the main program will simply call those forward when it gets to that subprogram. It makes it simple and instantaneous to make changes on the fly, whether we're integrating a new design or updating an existing one."

Penske Engines also benefits from the automatic chip removal and reliable accuracy of the e-410H-II. Some design features on the company's engine cylinder heads require tolerances down to 0.0002". On past machines, chips had to be routinely manually removed to ensure that the necessary specifications could be met.

"Without an efficient automatic chip removal system, you have to do a lot of dirty work to guarantee you meet your specs," says Dave Hood, engineer at Penske Engines. "If you don't do an adequate job of getting rid of the chips, you can end up with build-up on a limit switch. At that point, the machine can easily make a mistake that's 0.005". That doesn't sound like much to a lot of people, but it's enough to scrap an expensive part and ruin 10 hours of work."

Once all of the necessary components have been designed and produced, an engine is assembled and placed on one of Penske Engines' state-of-the-art dynamometers. Integrated into the shop two years ago, the dyno allows an engine to undergo total simulation of a full race of up to 800 miles. The controller can adjust 48 separate variables, including temperature, pressure and humidity. The flexibility of the system allows for a comprehensive evaluation of how the various engine components will perform in an actual race and helps identify potential problems.

"Earlier this year, we were gearing up for the first open event in Fontana and testing on the dyno revealed an issue with the castings of the cylinder heads," says Mr. Corriher. "We had to remove the cylinder heads from each of the engines we had ready to go, make some alterations with the e-410H-II and then reassemble them and get them to the race. Those types of emergency situations come up from time to time and you need equipment that provides you with the flexibility to respond to them quickly."

The dyno is also used after a race's conclusion. Each engine is run on the dyno and then fully disassembled and examined to discover any weak links and potential problems. Penske Engines' engineers then use that data to make improvements to be implemented on the next round of design. The circular process continues indefinitely, with engine components constantly being refined.

"Really, the only offseason we get in this sport is two weeks at Christmas," says Mr. Corriher. "Competition is so stiff that keeping an edge requires dedication by every member of your team year round. Partnering with Mazak has proved to be a vital part of our efforts, as you really can't compete if you don't have the state of the art technology Mazak provides to us."