Aluminum Con Rods
 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4..._3572JPG-1.jpg

Chinese, right? That's the problems with the Ingot I'm talking about, I think.
Bad heat treating from the get-go, perhaps.

That doesn't appear to be heat treated at all, solid billet pieces, you can still see tool marks in the center.

machined aluminum rods? not even polished/blasted to remove the maching marks? smells like a rebuild waiting to happen.

That split rod might make a good model for the MT.net t-shirts!

They're somewhat popular with the guys running 500 hp / liter. Lighter weight than steel = less inertial strain at high RPM.

You can see tooling marks on some of these American-made units, for example: Aluminum Connecting Rods

Aw, come on! Those in your link are obviously a significantly higher grade of machining and finishing. The one in Hustler's pic looks like someone did it on a cnc for a static display and somebody f'd up and actually used it. I bet there are some for sale on ebay somewhere just like them, though.

^ what he said. rounded corners and I can't see machining marks very well.

I believe that's a BME rod from an evo actually.

A specific "made in China" rod is not as good as (or close to) an M-tuned rod.

:D

Yeah, I'm looking at the BME website right now, and that one in Hustler's pic does look a lot like 'em. Same chamfer around the rod journal, same shape on the shaft, only difference is that the ones on the website appear to have been polished so you can't see the tool marks from the milling operation.

http://www.bmeltd.com/a_images/rodcover.jpg

Thing is, and I admit that I'm no ME, but that sucker split right down the middle, through the most perfectly rounded parts of the assembly. To me, that screams "materials defect".


But we're threadjacking.

Wow... Those billet rods look cool! For $600 they are more expensive but they do offer a lot of weight savings.. The split one isn't what I'd like to see. No one can put a bend eagle or chinese rod in here (cheap H-beam).

Would somebody considder those billet rods?

I was referring to Heat treating before the CNC process.

You have to heat treat the material at least once, sometimes several times, just to get it up to par for use. Of course, it's hard to say what caused the failure like that, but, to me, it looks like a flaw in the grain of the metal.

i think it's high time the aluminum cnc rods BS ended. nobody here will ever buy them. and if they do, I'll make a hat out of fruit roll-ups and eat it.

(Someone F'ed up there.

JE's are good stuff. They will spec out different grades of hardness to be used for different applications and power adders. When I told them that I was using nitrous, they speced an alloy specific to the demands that nitrous creates. Which is actually a little softer to have some "give" if I recall.

Edit. This post was originally in the JE vs Wisco vs Eagle vs Carrillo thread.)

BTW, back to the aluminum rods. Hustler's pic is not a BME rod. I have used them, and all of them have "BME" in the casting just like the photo in Joe Perez's pic.

I think I found the problem.

"Hark! Hark!" harkened he.

Fuck aluminum, its all about that titanium yo!

http://www.desmoworks.com/images/085015620331A.jpg


Now where's that money tree...

Can not a forging process be made to leave a raised marking such as this?

I will buy a set just to see this, but it has to be a real hat. Prepare for youtube video!

There is an advantage to aluminum rods. They are certainly not used in road racing or street use, at least not much, but if you are drag racing, and have a huge turbo or shot of nitrous, they are spongy enough to soften the hit to the crankshaft and main caps. The only real downfall to them, is there is no way of knowing when they fail. X-raying them will not show fatigue areas in aluminum (unless something new is out there to test them). That is why you have to change them every so often (What I was told any way).

Also you are not supposed to downshift a motor with them, because they have very little tensile strength. Downshifting is not done in drag racing.