SFI is short for SFI Foundation, Inc. SFI originally started out of SEMA, the Specialty Equipment Market Association founded in 1963 by several performance and racing parts manufacturers as an organization to promote the development of safer parts, as well as, product specifications and standards to be used by the suppliers of speed equipment. Originally standing for SEMA Foundation Inc., SFI was eventually spun off as a stand-alone organization that is dedicated to developing safety specifications and testing for a wide variety of products used in racing. Today, SFI specification is required on many parts used in racing around the world. From wheels and engine parts to safety harnesses and fire suits, SFI approval is a recognized standard that the product you are using meets established safety standards determined by SFI Foundation, Inc. in cooperation with various sanctioning bodies and technical experts throughout the industry.
To promote quality and reliability in the design, manufacture and use of parts made by the specialty performance parts industry.
Strictly speaking, in the case of flywheels and clutches, SFI spec parts are not required unless you are racing and your particular sanctioning body or event organizer actually requires your flywheel or clutch to meet SFI approval. Just because a part does not have an SFI number does not mean it is not a quality part, it just means it has not been tested by SFI. We submit many of our flywheels for SFI certification each year, but not all of them. If the particular flywheel is not being used often in sanctioned racing and the SFI approval is not really required, then a manufacturer may choose to not send that part in for SFI, as the process can be time consuming and costly. The bottom line is that any manufacturer wanting to have a part SFI approved must send that part, along with a fee, to SFI for testing in order to have them certified. They then must also pay separately for the numbered SFI decals that go on each part, so economically it is not always the right choice to have something SFI certified if it is not really required. In our case, our flywheels are all designed on the same basic principles, use the same high quality materials and are assembled in the same manner, so logically, if a given flywheel in one of our engine families meets SFI requirements, they will all hold up to the same standards. We’ve tested this time and time again, but always choose to make the investment in SFI testing when needed for our racing customers.