Shot peening the best post production way to strengthen metal and when it comes to transmission gears you can not get the increases in strength and durability that shot peening brings from any other process period. The most demanding applications, where failure is not an option, use shot peening to increase the service life of the component. Be it aircraft aircraft landing gear, the compressor/turbine blades in a jet engine or the connecting rods that are inside your racy engine, they are all shot peened. Why? Because if you need to make it stronger, but can't make the part larger or make a material change to the part, then shot peening is the best solution.

Shot peening is a cold metal working post process which is done to the gears to make them tougher and last longer. The gears are stacked onto a mandrel and loaded into our shot peening machine that uses 40HP worth of compressed air to hurl the highest quality of specially conditioned cut-wire steel shot available at the gear. As the shot strikes the gear it peens the surface, leaving  very small indentations or dimples. These overlapping dimples develop an even layer of metal in residual compressive stress. This compressive stress is a good thing for it is well known fact that cracks will not initiate or propagate in a compressively stressed zone, such as the root radius of the gear teeth, where nearly all gear teeth failures start.  Rule of thumb: shot peened gears generally act like they are 25% larger in cross section and this raises the fatigue limit over 25 percent. Try to get that kind of improvement in strength without changing the material of the gear!  Burst torque values are even higher and is the reason why this car that makes over 725ft.lbs of torque has been able to use our transmission 4 years without failure or gear replacement.

While they have their respected place in the industry neither Cryogenic treatment or REM provide the increase in durability  like shot peening. Think about it, when was the last time you saw Cryo'd or REM'd connecting rods?  Wouldn't you expect to see all connecting rod companies offering  REM or Cryogenic services being standard on all connecting rods? 

In 2004 I quietly started sending parts out to get shot peened to see how the gears held up against non-shot peened gears. The results were amazing, with the shot peened gears tooth breakage issues seemed to vanish while at the same time the surface finish of the gear teeth were looking like new even after a season of hard use. Realizing the benefits from shot peening and how much I was spending to get it done elsewhere, I had to get one of these machines. After looking for nearly a year one showed up at an auction that was specially built for a college university and that’s what TRE is using to shot peen. Recently I decided to not only shot peen the parts that we use inside our transmissions but to start shot peening all the highly stressed gears that we sell. The reason for this is because most people are wanting to build a stronger transmission but haven't heard of shot peening or they don't realize just how good of a service shot peening really is in the first place. If you're looking to rebuild your transmission you should buy your parts from us because they now come shot peened and will prevent your transmission from giving up the ghost before you've had a chance to completely kick its ass.

The Vaccu-Blast shot peener is not to be confused with an ordinary shot blaster at an engine shop. This is a special piece of equipment that was designed and built for the job of shot peening gears. It is calibrated to provide the correct level of intensity, shot pattern and coverage of the work piece. We do a 2 stage process and use premium quality specially-conditioned & sorted cut-wire steel shot. This is ideal for shot peening gears because of it's uniform size & roundness and proper hardness. The shot peening machine is semi-automatic allowing precise control over all parameters for perfectly shot peened gears every time.

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There are many parts to the drivetrain that can be strengthened from shot peening:

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Shot peened EVO-8/9 gears

Shot peening speaks for itself and we have personally experienced impressive results from shot peening the above listed parts and recommend it to those who are looking to maximize the strength of their gearing for high torque applications. Many manufacturers of high-end transmissions also shot peen their gears to improve strength. Also, while I feel that high intensity shot peening is going to offer the most value per dollar spent, I am now offering W.P.C. &  F.P.P. services but they must be sent out until I purchase another shot peening machine so expect longer turn around times if you choose to have them done.  W.P.C or F.P.P. works good for the  reduction of pitting that occurs on the face of the gear teeth but appears to only slightly improve the durability against tooth breakage over properly done shot peening.

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