Thursday, March 22, 2012

The Original Taper Lite Pushrod


Way back in the late 80's Mel Magnet (Founder of Rivera Primo Inc. formerly Rivera Engineering) was fooling around with pushrod design. Back then there wasn't much of a choice except straight steel pushrods, and Mel was pretty sure he could design something better. We needed something that was light, very strong and easy to get in and out of an Evo big twin motor. Research was done and prototypes were built at the Rivera Engineering R & D facility. What was ultimately made was a tapered pushrod for strength, using Chromemoly steel for durability and lightness and a unique adjuster to collapse the pushrod for removal without taking off the Evo rocker boxes. The Taper Lite was born!
 
        The first Taper Lites fit Evo after which came the Shovel & Sporty Taper Lites. The latest installment to the Taper Lite story was to fit the newly born (back then) Twin Cam motors. Back into research & development we came to the conclusion that although chromemoly steel works great with the other engines, due to the shortened length of the pushrod on the Twin Cam motors and the space restrictions when adjusting, aluminum would be the preferred metal for these puppies. We use only the finest quality aluminum for ultimate strength, durability and of course, lightness.


Rivera Primo