Hi. I am the chief operating officer and co-owner for Professional Products. For those of you who don't know me, let me give you a brief rundown of my background in this industry. Many years ago I started out as a drag racer and at one time held both ends of the NHRA national record in my class. I started two successful magazines back in the '60's; Super Stock Magazine and Stock Car Racing Magazine. I was president of B&M Racing & Performance Products for 18 years. President of Russell Performance Products for 2 years. In 1997, with two U.S. partners, we started Professional Products.
Now to the damper issue. We had a problem in the past with the bonding process that attaches the elastomer to the hub and ring. This problem existed well over a year ago and has since been resolved by going to a different process along with some other changes. I suspect that the damper failures that have occurred have all been on these older dampers. Even though a damper may have been purchased fairly recently, it could have come from older stock that was in our customer's warehouse. Since we changed the bonding process the number of spun dampers (bonding failure) has dropped to near zero. Our current warranty rate on failed dampers is less than 1% of what we sell. The industry average for an acceptable warranty rate is about 3%.
Obviously, we would like to see it at 0% and that is always the goal that we work towards. Realistically, no matter how well a product is made, you will never reach a 0% failure rate. Even a highly regarded damper like ATI has some failures.
I would like to address some other comments made in this forum. One member wrote that because our instructions suggested you line up your old damper TDC mark with the timing pointer, we were admitting that our timing marks were not accurate. This is not the case. Our timing marks are extremely accurate. This suggestion was made because both Ford and Chevy have used different timing marks on the damper (Ford) or different locations for the timing pointer (Ford and Chevy). By lining up the TDC mark on your old damper before removing it, it just makes it easier to install the new one. We have three sets of timing marks on our Ford damper and by doing what we suggest, it automatically tells you which set of marks are correct for your engine. On the Chevys, ALL aftermarket dampers use the '69 and later timing pointer location. So if your engine is pre '69, you have to use a different timing pointer. The forum member who made this post somehow interpreted our mention of using a different pointer as meaning our marks were in the wrong position. Every aftermarket damper manufacturer uses the later TDC mark.
Another member commented that Pro-Race and Pro-Street dampers are U.S. made. This is incorrect. This is an Australian company with a U.S. warehouse. Their Pro-Race line is made in Australia and the Pro-Street line is made in China.
Admittedly we have had some problems with our dampers. We feel confident that these issues have been resolved. We do stand 100% behind our products. While we have a one year warranty on all our dampers (many of our competitors do not warranty race dampers) we typically have replaced every failed damper even if it is out of warranty.
If any of you would like to communicate directly with me, my email address is:
[email protected].