Combining Ingenuity and a Need for Parts, Isky Racing Cams Provides Better Solutions for Enthusiasts – Including Several in the Drag-and-Drive Community
Racers and automotive enthusiasts can be resourceful in more ways than one. If something isn’t available or built to tolerate a vehicle’s demands, there is normally another option.
Even if that option is doing it yourself, where there’s a will, there’s a way, and that’s exactly how Isky Racing Cams got its start.
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Ed Iskenderian got into the automotive hobby with a Ford Model T build during his high school years. After graduation, he added some mechanical experience to his resume by working as an apprentice tool and die maker, but his yearn to craft his skills was interrupted by World War II.
But Ed made the most of the time by enlisting in the Army Air Corps, and serving with the Air Transport Command, flying supplies to the Pacific islands.
After the war, Ed was ready to get back into his Model T, and during the rebuild of the V8 for the project, Ed wanted to order a different camshaft for the job. But the boom had hit the hot rodding hobby hard, with a lot of business for only a few racing camshaft manufacturers on the west coast.
Ed was served with a five-month sentence to wait for that camshaft, and before the end of the wait time, Ed had acquired a used conventional cylindrical grinder.
Employing his tool making and mechanical skills, Ed converted the grinder for use as a universal cam grinding machine. This led to producing camshafts with a solid increase in performance over Ford’s offerings.
It led to not only more camshaft design and production for a multitude of applications, but Ed also added the matching components to his wares, including the first High-Density Chilled-Iron lifters for supercharged fuel dragsters (now commonly known as Top Fuel Dragsters).
Ed also made sure the street rides, as well as those doing both street and strip duty, had a slew of offerings. Ed’s sons Ron and Richard have continued the vision of Isky Racing Cams, and part of that vision is expanding their camshafts and valvetrain offerings to the drag-and-drive community.
Several familiar names in the drag-and-drive community have helped Isky test new ideas and put their products to the test, including Alex Taylor in her twin-turbocharged ’55 Chevrolet, the nitrous-fed Corvette of the Schroeder-Ens team, and Tom Bailey’s Sick Seconds Camaros.
All these cars have clocked 6-second passes, while surviving the tough task of staying alive on the street, and that helps Isky in developing new parts as cars get quicker and faster.
Isky has also gotten involved directly with three of the biggest events on the drag-and-drive calendar, being the official camshaft and lifters of Hot Rod Drag Week, as well as Sick the Magazine’s Sick Week and Sick Summer.
Nolan Jamora and the Isky team also make it to several events throughout the year, gathering valuable data to further advance Isky’s product line.
To view the complete ISKY Racing Cams product line-up, CLICK HERE!
Written by Derek Putnam. Photos courtesy of Sick the Magazine and ISKY Racing Cams.
If you have thoughts / feedback / ideas, please e-mail us at derek@sickthemagazine.com