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About Paul Swartz |
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| I was fortunate to discover my love for race cars at a very early age. By age 12, I read my dad’s Chilton’s repair manual from cover to cover. Swapping cams and manifolds in my parents’ driveway was a weekly occurrence by age 14. During the gas crisis of the late 70s, adults began liquidating their gas-guzzling V8s to buy vehicles like Chevettes and Pintos. Ironically, that made it possible for my high school friends and me to afford aging muscle cars and used performance parts. I was assembling race engines for the older kids in the neighborhood before I ever (legally) drove a car. One night I rode shotgun during a shakedown cruise in my neighbor’s 4-speed, high compression ‘69 Camaro with open headers. I was hooked for life. |
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With aspirations of becoming a mechanical
engineer, I then attended Penn State University from 1981 to 1985.
During my junior year, I realized that I was much more
interested in how things were manufactured than crunching complex
design calculations. So
I started taking classes related to manufacturing processes to
fulfill my “technical elective” requirements for my degree.
After graduating in 1985, I moved to Kansas for a Manufacturing Engineering position at The Cessna Aircraft Company. I flourished in the environment of expert tool makers and the latest CNC machinery, but yearned to replace business jets with race cars. I did a bit of bracket racing on the weekends. But I just couldn’t quit tinkering with the car. Consistency wasn’t my forte, but I couldn’t afford to race in the heads-up classes. |
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After a short term at Weld Wheels, I started Contouring Specialists in 1996. I purchased some CAD/CAM software and began beating the bushes. My half-baked business plan quickly gave way to economic survival, and I returned to the aircraft industry as a freelance CNC programmer for area job shops. |
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After establishing good relationships with some
of my aircraft job shop customers, I began negotiating the use of
their machinery after-hours to develop my own line of racing
products. With limited
knowledge of marketing, I fumbled along by trial-and-error to find
my niche in the drag racing aftermarket.
I eventually realized that intake manifolds were lagging behind the cylinder head trend of adopting the benefits of CNC machining. I started building billet runners for a few customers, and the improvement was immediately obvious. Eventually, I purchased a CNC machining center for that particular purpose. |
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| Shortly thereafter, I was introduced to NHRA Pro Stock veteran Larry Morgan. He was in search of a billet runner supplier to experiment with manifold improvements. Our first collaboration was a significant improvement over his existing manifolds. With that success, I convinced him to turn me loose on an idea to build a bolt-together all-billet manifold. Again, we found a significant performance improvement as well as unparalleled consistency required for his Pro Stock engine leasing business. | |
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The all-billet manifold was a perfect fit for an
engine leasing operation, but the huge amount of CNC programming and
machining did not make sense for customers who needed only one or
two manifolds for their particular engine combination.
So I continued to develop billet runners and flanges for my
sportsman customers in Comp Eliminator, Super Stock, A/fuel
dragsters, and any heads-up competitor that needed every bit of
power. With one success
after another, I finally put the aircraft services behind me and
changed my company name to the more relevant
Swartz
Racing Manifolds.
Paul G. Swartz |
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A special thanks to those who helped me along the way: My parents, Laird and Shirley |
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