RIP Calvin, and thank you for helping keep the 2 stroke alive!
here is Introduction from another forum written by Calvin describing himself, while we normally do not make public topics from this forum I feel Calvin would not have been offended by sharing this about him since many people know very little about the man that casted just about every aftermarket cylinder offered for the TRX from the Sphynx,Puma,and Sabertooth to even the PSI and Pro-X cylinders he was hired to cast. along with many other cylinders for other models and brands including Honda, Yamaha, ArcticCat, SkiDoo and Polaris
written by Calvin Pollet:
My interest for two-strokes can be traced back to a Lawn-Boy lawn mower….and the simplicity of the first one I “tore apart”. My Dad was somewhat a “junkie”, as his mechanical ability and his love of a “good trade” kept us in projects to work on in my early years. By the time I was 14, I had been riding 2 strokes for 3 years, and was now old enough to ride my TC90 Suzuki to work in a Gas station every evening after school….until Friday night when I would get home from work, remove the lights, remove the stock pipe and replace it with the GYT KIT(pronounced get-kit) expansion chamber that I had bought and installed…..re-jet, change gearing and tires, and I was ready for either the flat track/TT races on Saturday night, or the Moto-cross races on Sunday, then all had to be switched back to be able to get to work on Monday evening.
By the time I turned 16, I had been sponsored by all 4 area motorcycle shops, and was now working in the local Hodaka shop, my first exposure to “this is why we change the ports the way we do”….prior to that it had been “what happens if we change the ports like this?” I loved to race, but the “building” of the bikes began to give me more challenges and enjoyment, and even when I would win an event….my mind turned to how to make the bike faster rather than how to improve my riding. My exposure to the “Gary Bailey Moto-Cross School”…..the “Trans-Am Series”, the “Inter-Am Series” in Tulsa Oklahoma, which allowed me to witness Joel Robert….Roger Decoster….Silvian Goebears….and John Desoto for Team Suzuki, (spelling forgiveness on all of them please)…..and yet, the strongest memory that I still have about that event, was seeing the mechanics in the pits changing the Ti pipes between motos. They would throw the broken pipes into a “pile” because each had a break in it….or the pipe was completely broken in two separate pieces after each ride.
My sponsored bikes ranged from many different sizes of all 4 of the big Japanese brands, they included, Maico, Montesa, Husky, CZ, DKW, Penton, (even a racing Harley or two in there…..lol), a US Distributor Benelli Sponsorship, and still, seeing and feeling the results of “working on them” was where I got the most enjoyment.
During school, I took an interest in machine shop training, (since I had been using the mills and lathes in the bike shops for a few years already), and if I were to say I had a “trade” to fall back on, it would be “a machinist”. I had worked as a General Machinist, a Tool maker, a CNC Programmer, a CNC Maintenance Man, and a Machine Shop Foreman, before I began my endeavor to “build my own cylinders”………..(if I only would have known…..being a Foundry-man was not even in my Top 100 choices of things to do when I “grew-up”…….lol)
I started a company to build cylinders for a type of racing called “Modified Midgets”….basically, a small single or twin cylinder open wheeled sprint car, I called the company Central American Modified Midget Engines and Extras….(CAMMEX). Even though the TZ250 twins were the “engine of choice” I starting by building a 250cc single. Using the YZ250 Yamaha lower end as a starting point, later I began using the Honda TRX250R based engines, as the Three Wheeler was getting Factory support and had grown into a huge potential market……(As I mentioned above about being my own worst enemy…when we won our first National Event against the factory teams….my having the words “Made in America” printed in Japanese print in the corner of our center-page spread of a national magazine “may” not have been the best thing to do…..but it “felt” right at the time…..lol)
I guess for anyone who wishes to know more about me, the following link is to the “About us” section of my business’ website …..
http://cpindinc.com/pub/aboutus ….That write-up shows a little about how and why I have built an Aluminum Foundry for the sole purpose of building two-stroke cylinders. As an engine builder, I would say I may be somewhere around a “5” or a “6” out of ten, but I feel my background has enabled me to built a very small production facility which is capable of building some of the best two-stroke cylinder castings in the world…..now if I could just figure out how to make it profitable!
From Calvins website:
Company Overview
CP Industries has and will continue to be a company capable of taking a project from concept to completion. With our 3D modeling software packages and dedicated CAD engineers, the design and development of your parts is quick and accurate. These CAD designs are then used in the rapid prototyping and pattern area of our plant to quickly deliver a pattern that is up to your exacting specifications. After the patterns are completed the parts are cast and machined in-house to help control the quality of the parts while keeping the price competitive. CP Industries in-house facilities include, design and development, rapid prototyping, patterns, core shop, foundry, and machine shop. It is by combining all of these areas of production that we are able to keep the quality high, the price reasonable, and see your project through from Concept to Completion.CEO Message
Very intricate castings.These three words do more than describe what we manufacture at CPI, they better define our company’s reason for being. Anyone who has closely inspected a 2-stroke cylinder or a 4-stroke head can see what our plant was designed to produce. We have built our complete business out of necessity. When we first began to develop our designs for high performance 2-stroke cylinders we discovered our need for a pattern shop which had the ability to catch a potential problem before the tooling was in production on the plant floor. After several failed attempts to get what we wanted as a final product, we began at the start of the process, by starting our own pattern shop. This was the main reason for a High Performance Design & Development Company to make the leap into the Pattern Making Industry in 1981.
We later found that simply because we could invision a process, and build the patterns to produce it, did not mean that other core shops, foundries, and machine shops could produce our visions. We have now grown into a plant with Computer Aided Drafting (CAD) and 3D modeling, capable of going from a concept or sample part to our CNC or conventional Pattern Department. Our in house Core Department was built for hard to get cores that we couldn’t get at other plants, (that’s why we started our own core shop, remember we are a Performance Shop!) Our Core Department presently builds cores for other foundries ranging from Tulsa, OK to the Detroit, Michigan area. We know what it is like to have a part that you can’t get built locally because we’ve been there, that’s why we ship cores to Michigan and they turn around to build parts that ship to England, because they can’t have them built locally. After opening our own Pattern and Core Shops while still using other foundries, we discovered that the foundry was the area that now presented the problem. So like the true High Performance Shop that we are, we built our own foundry.
So here we are in a new century, our products, which have won National Championship Events and Titles, are being used in a range of vehicles from motorcycles to sprint cars, from remote controlled airplanes to snowmobiles, from motorized skateboards to All Terrain Vehicles. Remember we are a High Performance Shop at heart, we just, unfortunately, don’t have time to go race anymore. CPI doesn’t sell 2-stroke cylinders to the public now, even though we still build them, we don’t sell 4 valve heads for your small block Chevy, but we do build these parts for our customers and I am sure they would love to ship them right out.
Some of our customers have asked us to include links to their own web pages, others have requested that we do not tell anyone that we are producing their parts, since their competition may get the idea that we may be able to complete the project that they have been having trouble with. In other words if the competition doesn’t use us now, don’t give them any ideas.
We do still build high performance castings, but we are now a Foundry which you can call on from “Concept to Completion” for non performance castings as well. No matter how hard we fight it, we have grown into an Aluminum Foundry for hard to get castings, and the high performance market does not have a lock on hard to build castings.
If your local aluminum foundry can do your job they are your best course of action. If, however you have been trying without success to get difficult castings made, or your scrap rates have gotten too high, then we may be the company you are looking for. If you have any questions about castings or products please feel free to contact me. I will be more than happy to hear from you.
Calvin PolletPresident/CEO CP Industries Inc.
cpollet@cpindinc.com[/LIST]
[/LIST]
[/LIST]
[/LIST]
[/LIST]
[/LIST]
