[QUOTE=chance91;485191]As far as the rods go, You guys are somewhat spot on.

The cheaper ones of course have some corners cut. What kind of corners, you might ask? Well, the corners they cut are the difference between and engineer sitting down and saying "What is the absolute best balance of strength/weight/material etc? Ok, we are pulling out all the stops in design"
And the other guys saying "Ok, where can I get the biggest benefit while keeping the cost down, and what gains will cost a lot but give minimal return?"

QUOTE]


I'm waiting for the post to say a specific "made is China" rod is as good as or close to belfab or the like.

Er, how much are m-tuned rods? I know nothing of them. Pics?

M-Tuned B6/BP Mazda Connecting Rod M-Tuned

Looks to be 379.00.

I'm seriously backing up every bit of Chance's post as it's spot on...but this part is ESPECIALLY important.

You should be able to call up any of these companies, and even if they don't want to tell you where they got the steel...they should be able to give you the phone number and address of their material testing service if they don't do it in-house AND tell you which ISO spec they are up to. Hell...any shop floor employee should be able to tell you where the Procedure Manual is on their network.

If you can't get those two things out of them...shop elsewhere.

In the world of CDM parts, materials are everything. We buy on the order of millions in raw bar and fasteners from Ningbo in China...and have tried for YEARS to get their QC up to par. We finally gave up on trying to get them to do their own testing.

We consistently fail and return several sea containers worth of material each month. Other material we modify in house until it meets the spec it was supposed to. This is common with dual-certified material like B7/L7 that nearly fails just the B7 tensile and charpy tests. We lose our asses heat treating this material just so we can get the order out to the customer properly. After all...we don't sell parts, we sell quality.

Steel comes from all over, and we have very few customers that request their orders be US steel...and it's expensive. As long as it's properly tested it doesn't really matter though. That's the great thing about chemistry and material properties. Source doesn't matter, but Quality Assurance is everything.

No one is saying a word about wiseco K1 rods? Why is that?

Not much mentioned about Pauter, either. Personally, I kind of group the american brands, e.g. pauter, Carrillo, Wiseco, together as i figure their QC and processes are all similar.

but, to be honest, comparing the big names in Rods would be the best comparo for being fair, but on the other hand, comparing those three, lets say, would give you frivolous results. Kind of like saying, "OK, super primo brand X has a scores about 3pts higher on the hardness test, and 200lbs more on the tensile test, so it'll hold 1.3% more power than the others" etc.

I guess, in my mind, I want a known good rod to be compared to unknown rods, to see what the difference is. I expect a decent gap.

Right... I do not know how much they would cost me. Wiseco piston's aren't that expensive, I figured the rods may be affordable too but no one offers them.

The billet alluminium rods are supposed to be changed every 15.000 miles. So not realy an option (for me).

I will keep following the posts here then !

Back on topic, whats everyone's take on these JE pistons?!

Attachment 202283

this one was not assembled with a wrist-pin O_O

Attachment 202284

they held up to a lot of abuse!

group buy on fruit roll up hats?

So, who put those JE's in for you, and how did they forget a wrist pin? How long would it even be able to run without a wrist pin? That doesn't even make sense... It looks like perhaps whoever built the engine didn't properly lube the walls perhaps, or let it sit a long time before startup, the little bit of Black death is not really a good sign, but it can happen and be ok on occasion. Is a sign of or leads to glazing though.



Agreed. If you have to change them out every 15k miles as well, like IHI suggests, which makes sense due to aluminum's like to deform, then fuck it, run stockers. You'll get about the same useage out of them, Eh?

But, seriously, yea, I'm almost surprised we run even Aluminum pistons coming from SBC's myself. I never really trusted them there, but its the std. with Miata's.

Remember kids, you do get what you pay for, either way. Though, its your job to make sure you're not paying for crap.

Aluminum Rods moved to this thread: https://www.miataturbo.net/forum/t41430/


What material would you rather they use, tungsten-plated aerogel?

It was a pre-assembled block from Miami, sitting for an unknown amount of time. I took a chance on it and ended up on the bad end of the stick. There were metal shavings in the oil pan from what I think was a bad drill and tap procedure, should of done it with the pan off the engine, friends ended up rushing me thru the original install, still my fault though.

When I took out piston #4 the wrist-pin just fell out of the piston, piston dropped to the ground, and I was holding the rod saying WTF?

What signs do you see of a bad tune though? lol

I think you mistook "lube" for tune. didn't say bad tune

And, yea, joe, I think most of us here need titanium pistons, actually. That way, we won't have to buy EMS's anymore, because we can just ping on them all day.

No, I guess that is sort of a misnomer on my part. Just different alloy's and such I believe are more common on the bigger V8 motors I was used to. Think they were still Aluminum with a good bit of Silicon embedded in them.

They are actually back in stock and we are running the group buy for $299 with ARP 2000 bolts. Get them while you can :)

PM me for details or call our sales line @ 905-532-0911 to order.

Thanks, Marc

Those are some pretty nice looking rods there. Certainly the price is right.

Here's another comparison picture:

BP rod, GTR rod, Belfab rod.

I've had belfabs with wiseco pistons in my built turbo motor for around 8k miles. No issues so far. I had to have the big and small ends of the belfabs resized however.

Having the rod surface machined alone adds a component of strength to the rod.

https://www.miataturbo.net/forum/att...0-p1010009.jpg

https://www.miataturbo.net/forum/att...0-p1010010.jpg

Looks like ebay got a special for 250 shipped. seller etdmotors.
Looks like all parts are from same supplier.

Also from seller "fantasymotorparts"
$229,95
Ebay ID 270484445154

turboworks
$215
Item number: 120494639865


I just got the news that the engine block I gave to the machine shop can be restored with just a hohn, not overbore. So I'll be using my stock pistons, but I do like to upgrade my rods after seeing all the disaster-rods in this topic (and others).

Now I don't have a clue if there is any differences between the $230 rods and te $390 rods other then price or margin for the seller.. As they all look the same.. Looks like they all come from the same factory.

IHI the two you linked to do not include bolts. not sure how much 3/8" bolts are from ARP, so it may or may not be worth it.

I was just editing, you are right ! So the offer M-tuned made isn't bad at all.