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 ndrews Products was founded in the spring of 1972 and for 30-plus years they have specialized in making camshafts and transmission gears for the performance motorcycle market. They have also been part of Drag Specialties for almost as long. “We’ve been with Drag since the early 1980’s,” says John Andrews, founder of Andrews Products and Zen Master of Cams. “Drag is a good bunch of guys to work with. We’ve done well by working with them and hopefully they’ve benefited by working with us. We have some other distributors but I don’t think they do nearly as good a job as Drag Specialties.”
Andrews Products started out making motorcycle transmission gears and shafts. “It all really started by me trying to ruin my favorite hobby,” says John. “My hobby was building bikes. I’m an engineer by training and one day I decided that I was going to make my own gearing. We started making gearing, then I bought a cam grinder because I wanted to experiment with that and soon we started making cams and my hobby became a business.” Andrews Products has been making performance camshafts and related valve gear parts as part of their product line ever since.
More new gears sets with better ratios soon followed. The results were gears that easily out-performed anything else then available. The novelty and uniqueness of both the cams and gears resulted in a wave of demand for new Andrews Products cams and gears. And that was only the beginning.
Today, Andrews Products is recognized worldwide and throughout the motorsports community as an industry leader. They utilize state-of-the-art engineering design and manufacturing technology for producing superior quality camshafts and transmission gears for both street and racing applications. Over the years and to this day, Andrews Products has made significant investments in new computer controlled production machinery and inspection equipment. “We’ve heavily invested in quality control and computerized all our equipment for cam design,” says John. “Now almost everything is CNC (computer numerical control) like our big cam grinders. The days of hand grinding are long gone. We haven’t done manual cam grinding since 1996.”
Strategic purchases in the latest technologies keep Andrews Products and their customers right at the leading edge. With Andrews Products’ unique and proprietary processing, innovative design and strict quality control, they can consistently deliver the highest quality camshafts and transmission gears.
In fact, Andrews has raised the bar so high for themselves that they are now involved in racing. “Many of the customers we now work with include the top NASCAR and Busch racing teams as well as other builders of racing engines for the automotive and motorcycle high performance markets,” says John. “This is a very demanding group of people for whom second best is not an option; they simply demand the best. That’s what we try to deliver, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s for a NASCAR driver or a Harley rider. We use the same technology for NASCAR as we do for motorcycles, the same approach.”
Like others in the motorcycle industry the people at Andrews Products share with their customers a passion for motorcycling. “Like I said, it was my favorite hobby and still is,” says John. “Our customers rely on us to help them achieve top performance. This culture is well established throughout Andrews Products, its people and processes. And whether we are working with top race teams or making parts for street motorcycles, the same technology is used. The entire Andrews Products Team looks forward to helping you achieve top performance from your motorcycle. We understand what a rider wants out of a cam. A cam has got to survive; it has to do the job. Most customers are looking for more power and we give them that. And we make a lot of cams for engines that are no longer available like Panheads and Knuckle motors.”
In November of 2002, Andrews Products moved into a brand new 45,000 square foot facility in Mt. Prospect, Illinois and now operate out of a fully equipped air-conditioned facility with everything under one roof. Their main office and manufacturing plant is eleven miles north of Chicago, O’Hare International Airport. “We are in one of the world’s great manufacturing areas with easy access to efficient transportation and shipping to anywhere in the United States and most foreign countries,” says John. “We are better equipped than ever to serve all of our customers with the first class quality and support that they deserve.”
The next time you have a client building a custom or simply looking for more power, suggest going internal with Andrews Products cams and kits. Your Drag Specialties rep can help you learn more about Andrew Products and what they can do for you and your customers. 
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