You may not know the whole history, but I'll bet you recognize the Lakewood brand, everybody does. It all started with the original Top fuel star “Gentleman Joe” Schubeck in a suburb of Cleveland way back in the 1960s. Lakewood bellhousings have been in the winner's circle for more than a half century now and not a whole lot has changed. Or so you thought! What's changed you ask? How about just about everything? Lakewood is now a proud sister company of Quick Time. Ross McCombs, the man behind the revolutionary Quick Time bellhousings, now runs Lakewood too. His knowledge, proprietary technology, and state-of- the-art manufacturing processes has helped completely revamp the entire Lakewood line. To start off, they put the Lakewood bellhousings on a strict diet and got rid of 12 pounds. Can you say free horsepower? But they didn’t stop there. I mean, safety is the reason you sprung for a Lakewood bellhousing in the first place, right? Meticulously controlling the time and temperature of the annealing process further strengthens our bellhousings instead of becoming brittle, like the competitions hydro-formed bells. A spider web structure made from grade 80 high strength alloy is then welded to the bell at the transmission mounting area. This web stiffens the structure and provides additional thread depth for the transmission mounting hardware, virtually eliminating fastener pull through. After annealing, they're shot-peened, which case-hardens the bellhousing and removes unwanted stress. From there, they’re Blanchard-ground providing a truly flat mounting surface. Then they go through the same stringent procedures as the Quick Time components do. All openings are precision-cut using a 5-axis laser, and all mounting holes and dowel pins are all drilled on a CNC machining center in a single setup, eliminating any chance of misalignment. Dowel pin and retainer bores are done last because they're the most critical and are machined with deadly accuracy, I'm talking tolerances of less than half a thousandth of an inch here! No more cussing and fighting trying to get that bellhousing flush with the back of the engine block. The all-new Lakewood bellhousings aren’t just lighter and stronger, they’re better-looking than ever. But looks don’t come cheap! The powder-coating process takes place in a multi-million dollar CNC booth capable of powder recovery rates as high as 98%. Each part is scanned digitally in 3 Dimension before the coating process to provide even coverage and minimize waste. Thanks to the durable polymer powder-coating process, they can handle the intense heat generated by clutches and shrug off any potential chips from road debris. And as if all these improvements weren’t enough, every single one is made in America. That’s right, 100%. The bellhousing, the retainer rings and forkball, even the fasteners are made right here in the good ol’ USA. So actually a lot has changed in the past 50 years! Lakewood and Quick Time components are available anywhere Holley products are sold!