Rasant Products Open House: The New Kid On The Block

The New Kid on the Block

The deep rumble of a hot-rodded Porsche motor “speaks” to most people. If it doesn’t, it should at least pique the curiosity as to why and how they make cars go faster than their stock counterparts and that’s exactly what Rasant Products (Rasant) does. I’ve heard of motor builders such as Wicked Sixes, Polo Motors, Rothsport, and a few others, but who’s Rasant?

Andrew Darud is the man behind Rasant and the guy whose performance parts and products will make your air-cooled Porsche rumble and outperform its brethren. Andrew’s passion for air-cooled 911’s runs deep but it’s his education and experience of designing, building, and testing race cars at his university’s Formula One Racing team that helped shape his future for Rasant. After graduating from MTU as a Mechanical Engineer, Andrew went on to build a proprietary engine for his own Porsche 911 and in short, Rasant Products was born.

First Open House

I first saw a Rasant motor at Zuffenhausen in Santa Anita Park a couple of years ago. The following year, I saw Rasant’s poster child red 911 during a wet Morning Shift at PECLA . Fast forward to another trip to L.A., to the time we heard David Keens startup and drive away in his backdated 3.2L short stroke hot-rod 911. Immediately, the deep rumble of the engine sparked the question, “Who built your motor?”

Luckily, during our visit, Rasant held their first Open House to coincide with L.A.’s busy LIT weekend. After a day of driving all over L.A. we dropped in to the workshop and met Rasant Founder and Engineer Andrew Darud, his lovely family, and saw some great cars minutes before they closed up for the evening.

In less than five years, Andrew expanded his business and quickly nestled into a new facility in Long Beach, CA doubling his workspace and offering Rasant parts at wholesale and retail.

Although it was a short visit, we can see how Rasant is proving to be a big competitor in the motor build landscape while providing collectors newly engineered engine management systems for their air-cooled Porsche 911’s.

Looking forward to another visit and hope to catch some of the processes in action.