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When you examine metal under a microscope, it has peaks and valleys from the manufacturing and/or tooling process. When you have things like gears that interact with each other (metal to metal), those peaks and valleys create friction, which in turn produces heat. When you apply this concept to race car application, of course you like to lessen friction and heat as much as possible so you can efficiently use your horsepower and so that your car parts will "live" longer.

In the field of metal finishing, ISF is the Super Bowl. On engineered metal-to-metal contact surfaces like roller bearings and some gears, grinding (the conventional concluding metal finishing operation) is performed. It results in a surface with a unidirectional pattern that corresponds to the direction of the final grinding operation. Using successively finer grinding wheels is okay but it may prove to be expensive, inefficient and repetitious. It just results in a surface that has more, closer-spaced rows of shorter height asperities.

The fields of aerospace, automotive, medicine, military, motor sports and power generation have extensively utilized this process. So, should this process change the size of your part or damage it in any way? The "cutting" process removes a minimal amount of material from your part, but leaves you with a part that's "isotropic", or uniform in all directions.

This metal finishing process has been tested and certified in several industries and is currently utilized in military applications and has been approved by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for use. How does it operate?

First and foremost, the ISF process is a chemical and physical procedure whereby peaks are flattened by cutting and removing a very small amount (3/10000 of an inch) of material from your part. This is different from grinding or buffing as it "folds over" the peak and just renders a worse finish. Once the peaks have been cut down, you are left with a flat consistent piece of metal that shall operate more effectively as it interacts with other metals.

In an ideal scenario, the ISF process is used in parts like transmission gears, ring and pinion gears to more effectively use horsepower and to reduce drag. It's a two-phase metal finishing process that gives a "burnish" finish - one that comes out looking shiny, as if chromed.