Franco Industries

Welcome to Franco Industries. We manufacture and sell automotive performance products. About four years ago, Franco Industries developed a new light weight, compact AUTOMATIC camshaft sprocket. The device is entirely mechanical and operates on the principle of a shaft governor with dynamic fly weights. The camshaft sprocket replaces the factory gear as a bolt on kit. The automatic sprocket increases engine performance by providing 10 degrees of camshaft phase angle change. This broadens the power band and increases performance.

Test data has shown performance gains of up to 25% during 1/4 mile acceleration tests. Road Horsepower Dyno tests show typical gains of 10% to 15% throughout the power band from 2,000 RPM to 6,000 RPM. This dramatically improves acceleration and drivability of the car. This product fits the water cooled 8 valve VW's, the 10 valve Audi's and the Porsche 924 engines.

Operation of the Gear

The automatic camshaft gear operates on the principle of two dynamic fly weights that advance and retard the camshaft automatically with engine RPM. The fly weights are held in equilibrium by return springs. The spring rates and preloads are selected to cause the device to shift at MID SPAN of the engine RPM range.

The automatic sprocket is relatively simple. It consists of: a gear housing, drive plate, two fly weights pivoted on needle bearings, two slider bushings and two equilibrium springs. There are four moving parts in the unit.

The cost of the product is $300 plus shipping. This includes a six month warranty on parts and labor.

Product Literature

European Car Magazine Articles

Automatic gear installed on camshaft (picture)

Internal fly weights and equilibrium springs (picture 1)

Internal fly weights and equilibrium springs (picture 2)

Parts Overview (picture)

Automatic gear sales literature

Canadian Fahrveg News Article

Performance Tests

'88 Audi Model 90

'87 VW Golf GTI

'87 VW Jetta

'84 VW Rabbit GTI