Abstract In this paper, reverse engineering of a steering system component in a competition vehicle was successfully carried out. A CAD model was generated by means of NURBS curves from 3D scanning. Additionally, two manufacturing methods were compared to obtain the component namely, CNC and Casting. Simultaneously, a topological optimization was carried out from the failure diagnosis of the part; hence, to determine the failure, different loads were simulated in a transient and elastoplastic FEM simulation using an isotropic bilinear hardening model, in order to detect the displacement of a faulty component. The methodology implemented in the study showed satisfactory results for the different stages of the process.