Rock, the weight people are talking about is not car weight but rotational weights... The lighter your rotational weight, ie Rods and pistons, the less stress they will have in the higher rpms. I would think, however I'm not an engineer, but if you could cut your rod/piston weight in half that should be able to give you another 500rpm rev at the same stress levels. Aaron or eric would have to do the math on that. I don't know how, but would love to learn!

Mikey

 

Aby, who knows way more about engines than I do (and 'way more' is an understatement), is not a big fan of the X-beam design. I am not saying they're not good rods, I am just sharing an opinion from someone who has built race car engines for a living and thinks the design is prone to flexing, IIRC.

 

i know i know i was talking about in general hommie not just that. driving around in a tin can no panels no ac all those light weight engine components always on edge and sweating because its hot now and you dont have ac because you needed to save that 30lbs etc deal looking for the next race that might not come till next week. and you barely drive 20 miles a day to work type deal. Majority of owners dont require such extremes a Ti piston unless its a Track only car not a DD thats what my rant was aimed at Mikey

 

Weight savings/reducing reciprocating weight in an engine is part of a cumulative effect on engine/horsepower/throttle response. You may not be a fan of it for whatever reason, but it works and certainly adds up. Our MIL.SPEC H-Beam rods come in at 567grams in their present form (we're working on getting the weight down without sacrificing strength...there is some room to play with on the big end), and can withstand 800hp. Our soon to be released billet pistons come in at 262 grams per piston (sans pin). That is WAY lighter than a Manley Turbo Tuff and a 300+ gram piston combo (of course, more expensive, but you gotta pay to play).

Another thing to consider is reducing friction, which will also show up as more power/better throttle response. But that's a whole other area.

Also with regards to overall car weight, if you look at the fastest Evos (and cars in general), they've all been gutted to a degree. Weight savings is something fast cars have in common. Most of the fast Evos are around 2700 to 2800 pounds, some lighter, some heavier.

All this stuff adds up, and it all costs money. You just have to decide if it's worth it to your own personal cost/benefit analysis. You won't find me rocking $300 True Religion jeans, but some people don't think twice about it.

 

dont buy dumbass parts around me then lol. hey lets upgrade your rods to those ti rods for 5k you will need it when your boosting to the grocery store

 

Thanks Erik, I for one really like your rods and LOVE your pistons. They look sick as **** and weigh a considerable amount less than other pistons. I would have loved to run your MilSpec rod/pistons but the money was not there at the moment... When you release your pistons you need to make a nice thread with pics. I'm sure everyone will like the way they look, I sure did

Rock, when you get that craving for ice cream there is no speed limit or limit to boost

Mikey

 

woah rock, take it easy man. I'm not paying for titanium rods. are you kidding me here. im not ballin like Jim jones. But for the record, titanium rods aren't stupid. if you think they are, tell that to the f1 cars along with the engineers who made the veyron. yes, the veyron is 1 million plus, but it uses titanium rods. Now it has to be modified and a specially made rod that won't stretch etc and not for pistons just rods.

Weight is everything if you race. The whole premise behind sport bikes is phenomenal rotational weight and general weight because it's small. we're talking 21k reving here. Is my discussion applicable to this build? nah, just food for thought. I don't know any evos that use titanium or ever will because it is stupid. but the talk wasn't about stupidity. Just like silver is the best conductor of electricity. but who makes every circuit with silver?? nobody because it's ballllin and isn't worth it. In the "race" world where you need to win by .002 seconds that weight savings helps. there is a reason all those cars are carbon fiber blah blah.

i can only dream of being that skilled in which my driving skills have exceeded the capabilities of the car and the only factor keeping me from being faster is the rotational weight in the engine hah. thats like 1 percent or less of the "skilled" population.

when i rode sportbikes, i was never fast enough to say i need a litrebike to improve my time. the 600 always looked at me and said "you're decent at best" and despite all the track time and beating others it meant nothing because my skills never surpassed the bike. and thats a factory 600 which is easier to control than a litre which is 10 times easier than controling a gp bike. after not qualifying for ama due to not fast enough times... I was simply unable to "close" the needed gap to qualify race 1 and there are many more qualifications after. i sold the bike, bought an evo and calmed the f down and this is where the story continues
so relax man, its all in good convo,

 

Homie lets be real here, I take the Murcielago to the grocery store

 

Hmmmm....that's very interesting. I've been out of the materials engineering field for quite some time now and a while since school, but I wouldn't imagine induction hardening would give the same kind of wear protection as nitriding.

If the cranks were induction hardened, you may be able to see some heat marks somewhere on the metal, probably close to the thickest parts.

All induction hardening is doing is transforming the outermost microstructure of a steel to a structure called martensite. This is achieved by heating above a certain temperature, then rapidly quenching, like in water. When steel cools rapidly, it forms a microstructure called martensite, which is harder than the other microstructures that you would see from slower cooling.

 

i won't rock true religion jeans either, nor will i remove my back seats or ac or radio. TO be honest the greatest weight savings is to lose weight physically. This is the cheapest way to go faster. diet and excercise. If everybody had abs and lost weight, maybe there'd be faster 1/4 mile times. <--- i can trim down a bit myself

 

just looked it up, induction hardening is generally .060"-.080" deep and nitriding is generally .010" deep. i wonder why a turned crank would fail if you arent even close to getting past the hardened surface?

http://www.carcraft.com/techarticles...to/index2.html

"Two other commonly used treatments in steel-crank surface hardening are Tuftriding and nitriding. Tuftriding was a process employed by some OEM's on special high-performance cranks, primarily for the benefit of avoiding the stresses imposed by induction hardening. In Tuftriding, the crank is immersed in hot cyanide compounds, creating a tough, resistant surface that improves fatigue resistance. The hard layer in a Tufftrided crank is usually very shallow, only penetrating a few thousandths of an inch. One drawback of Tuftriding is the potential for warpage of the crank.

Nitriding is a chemical hardening process in which the part is heated in a furnace, the oxygen is vacuumed out, and a chemical gas is introduced that penetrates the entire surface. The depth of hardness is dependent upon the time the part is exposed to the gas. Typically, a nitrided crank will have a depth of hardness of about 0.010 inch. Nitriding is a low-heat process compared to Tuftriding, but it shares the advantage of avoiding the introduction of localized stress zones as in induction hardening.

An important point to consider when rebuilding an engine is the hardening process used when the crank was manufactured. Cast cranks can usually be reground without concern for any additional surface hardening. A factory-forged crank, with its deep induction-hardened journals, can also simply be cut on a crank grinder and dropped in. However, if the crank was originally Tufftrided or nitrided, a regrind will certainly go through the full surface depth of the former, and also likely that of the latter. These cranks should be heat-treated again after machining to restore the required journal hardness."

 

aaron, you're right about aluminum. It's lightweight but I've not seen any available to the mass aluminum rods that've been tested a lot. maybe behind the curtains some companies have it. Maybe it'd need to be combined with a special polymer of some sort or something for better performance. That'd be very light.

 

Yeah, here is a good link as well explaining the different crank hardening methods.

 

good read ^+1

 

Since that doesnt seem to be the case, the evidence would support nitriding and shallow penetration depth. A 10/10 crank would take all of that off then and also explain why everyone I have ever seen turns into a bearing eating machine.

aaron