Crane Cams

A big sale for low bucks averts a MID-LIFT threat in 1988 by a competing cam company... and a market share loss of their Gold Series rockers

It's no secret that a common amount of mutual trade is done among competing companies. Crane Cams (a long time supplier of small parts to Lunati) heard of this rocker manufacturing move for Lunati and considered this to be a possible threat in the near future. Lunati, like many companies, didn't really make their own rockers in house. Crane did, and this has always been an advantage for cost and distribution control. But this was also at a time when Crane was a little slow in their season, so an offer was made to Lunati that even Jim agreed was a good thing. As marketing director, Jim realized the loss of sales Lunati was having during all the months it would take to get the new machines up and running for rocker production would hurt the company he was now under exclusive contract with. Jim Miller saw this as a good bridge to fill lost rocker sales for Lunati until the new machinery was put into place. Without getting into details, the price was very good. The delivery time was reasonably quick, and lost sales would end, even though the rockers appeared like a blue version of the Crane rockers. (See: The Lunati Factor)

It's worth noting that this was the first time Crane Cams had ever sold their popular "Gold" series rocker arms as a "private label" to a competing company. But it was better than losing sales on the other end to consumers from Lunati's ramped up production of the MID-LIFT designs, had they ever been made. It was strictly business. Years later, around 1996, Crane's President, Gene Ezell, who'd known Jim Miller for many years, admitted to him during a friendly visit that it was a deliberate (and smart) strategy on Crane's part to keep Lunati's cash and Miller's Patent from getting together. As Jim left the meeting with Gene, he was reminded of a great line from the Godfather movie and quoted it for his wife as they got in the car: "keep your friends close, but your enemies closer." Lunati made a lot of money on the Crane manufactured "blue" series rockers, but it was Crane who kept a rival at bay by knowing exactly what Lunati's sales was each month. It was a good yardstick in planning their future in rocker marketing. But it also had its side effects.

This move opened the flood gates to Crane, forcing them to "private label" their rockers to several other deep pockets in later years, and also forcing them to redesign the profile of their extrusion, just to differentiate from the original design. The newer (and current) design, has a kicked up tail (pushrod side) on the rockers top back surface. There were no other changes made to the pushrod cup, roller and trunnion locations, but the look made it different than the Lunati "Blue" series rockers, which to this day still maintain the original shape that Crane used for decades before.

TOP PHOTO shows the end of the rocker arm's roller tip with a STRAIGHT up edge, indicating the science of rocker arm thinking, which was to design the silhouette of the rocker body from the "closed valve" perspective. However, many years later Crane copied the angled style roller tip end (above photo) of the MID-LIFT style rocker arms, which was first illustrated by MILLER more than 20 years ago. Crane made the change a few years after the LUNATI/CRANE rocker sales of 1988, and... the well published "INSTALLED GEOMETRY" technical information Jim Miller published in the LUNATI catalog. Coincidence?...

Once the catalog for Lunati was done, Jim resigned from Lunati and moved on to other projects, not related to racing. Four years passed before he took another look at "introducing" MID-LIFT to the racing industry.