Facility and Staff

LoPresti Speed Merchants owns a 20,000 square-foot totally air-conditioned manufacturing hangar facility at the Vero Beach, Florida, Municipal Airport. An experienced engineering staff works in the state-of-the-art, computerized engineering and design department.

LoPresti Speed Merchants uses the latest in 3D software and plotting hardware for designing modifications

The fruits of their efforts are the highly efficient engine cowlings, wing tips, fairings, seals, and shapes designed to reduce the drag caused by less-than-optimum aerodynamic shapes on stock aircraft structures. The comprehensive cowl kits do a lot more than cool the engines more efficiently -- they significantly reduce the drag associated with cooling the engine. Reducing cooling drag provides more speed, more range and better fuel efficiency.

LoPresti designs induction systems that synchronize propeller pressure pulses with engine intake strokes to provide improved engine "Breathing," which produces more power. Fully adjustable cowl flaps help fine tune the cooling air passageway geometry to provide near optimum cruise and climb cooling. Hydraulically sequenced nose gear doors ensure that the doors fit extra tight to eliminate leakage drag.

LoPresti Speed Merchants manufactures mod parts from the ground up, using carbon and fiberglass and hundreds of molds. Skilled technicians turn the engineering drawings into the three-dimensional molds used to create the finished parts.

A LoPresti fabrication technician makes Zip Tips (wing tips).

A metalworking machine shop turns out the specialized hardware, including special hinges, hydraulic cylinders, and complex steel and aluminum structures used to integrate the modifications with each aircraft.

LoPresti's engineering test pilots and performance flight test engineers wring out the modification in rigorously controlled flight tests, tweaking each mod for maximum performance.