Vader rods
 

Attachment 66935

Thought you like to check out some new con rods.

AL racing rods. :fawk:

FFWD Connection - Race Injuns That Will Freeze Your Brain

I thought they were just flat out sexy, and wanted to share.:party:

For a new sheet design, the price is not as much as expected.

*edit* These just came out 5 Feb 2013.

They were designed by an engine builder, not an engineer.

They look just like every BME rod I've ever seen.

I would very much like to try some aluminum rods in an NA build, maybe for the catfish kit car.
Now the question is forged(BME) or billet(R&R, GRP) rods?

And after reading the description of the Vader rods-does anyone really believe that cryo treatment has any effect on aluminum?

I am sure they do.

It is about the big end girth that has been addressed, like not having to notch the block.

Try fitting the BME in a stock SBC, and there is clearance issues all over the place.

The Vader rods fit in a stock block with out the clearance issues found with most of the other aftermarket al rods.

I would never run aluminum rods on the street. Would probably have to change them with the oil.

I want to see them survive. I like to see new cool stuff. From an engineers prospective who has never run any analysis on a conrod, some parts of that geometry do not make sense.

Also Just a guess...if you are building an engine where the cost & life cycle issues on an aluminum rod are worthwhile, notching the block or using a block where notching is not needed or minimal, is not an issue.

So i read that link. I like those guys. Their writing style makes me chuckle and its fun to read.

But being a lead design engineer at a company that builds race aluminum parts out of "proprietary" alloy, knowing what makes a strong or durable alum part, some of what they are hyping there... :hsugh:

Prostock do not run alum rods. Top fuel do.

Check out What BME says about there Al rods....
BME Forged Aluminum Rods
The Only Streetable Aluminum Rod

I would say there is a small number running decent power with AL rods on the street.

As for the design of it, I have no Idea, Most my working life has been with heads.

As far as the block issue, it is just makes life simpler, not having to notch, or notch as much.

Things I learned:


FFWD rods are "not designed by a tie-clad, Khaki-wearing CAD geek," which is a pretty good description of the type of person I would trust to design a rod.


BME owns a machine which is called a BeaverMatic.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1360293026

All these things. They might be good rods, but that page reads like an anti ad to an engineer...

Hey guys. A buddy of ours sent me this link to where our Vader rods were being shared. After reading the above comments, it seems that you may have questions and/or have been misled in the past on the use of Al rods on the street or otherwise. Not to mention, their design in general as well as choice of words in my ad seems to bother some on here.

I'll be happy to address them as I can shoot it to you straight with no BS.

I can't guarantee how long I can keep checking this page as it's been pretty busy around here, but I'll do my best to keep up.

Fire away.

" hey brah, we cryo treat these rods and pass on the cost plus profit, does it work? No idea but but you dont get a choice."

Anyone else read that bit?

Dann

Hey man. One thing out of the way...we don't do anything unless it works. We don't needlessly spend people's money. Simple. If you knew how we operated our shop since 1999 like most of the DSM guys out there already know, you'd see that this is quite true.

We have built 4G63 race motors for the past 13 years and guess what? We cryo treated every motor we did as standard practice just because we knew that it worked. We don't like to offer substandard parts if we know something else is better to use.

So it went without saying, yes, we were going to do the same with our rods we've designed. No question about it.

We also never did have one return in all those years on a motor build. That's a huge deal as those were used in a racing environment with us having no control over their installation and/or use. We feel that many factors rolled up as a whole (including cryo processing) has a lot to do with that track record.

One thing to point out, with all things considered, we're basically not even charging for cryo processing services with these rods. You receive it as a "freebie" to show appreciation that you recognize the best when you see it.

We did this as well with our motors...which is even a larger deal as a longblock sure as hell weighs more than a set of 4 banger rods...heavier it is, the more money it will be to maintain -300 degrees for 24 hours.

We'd rather have happy customers and no returns, than unhappy ones with issues. If it means digging into our pockets to make it so (with decreased profit margins in the process), be it so.

Thanks for asking!

I don't think it doesnt work, but take it as feedback, its pretty easy to read it that way.
I would never openly suggest that people dont believe a product works and then say "well it does, trust us we are experts".

Thankyou for the direct reply.

Dann

That descriptive writing is definitely quite interesting.

Done and done.

But if you would like more info into this process, do a Google search on cryo processing. We're not expecting people to believe us...just read up on the subject and be your own judge. We encourage people to use their brains.

Cryo processing is nothing new or mysterious. Been around forever buddy. I just think you need to be a bit more informed on the process.

Being condescending wont help either.

I'm not offended but others might be.

Dann

I'm sorry that you read it that way buddy...but it certainly wasn't my intention.

I speak it as I see it. Sorry that you (or anyone else) took it personally.

Those rods look like a piece of art. I just have to wonder what the effects of having a less stiff connecting rod has on an engine. How do I know they're less stiff? Because the rod isn't ~3 times as thick as a steel piece. You can make them not fail with good geometry and engineering but I don't think you can make up for the stiffness difference. So these rods are going to stretch more at tdc (not necessarily a bad thing) than steel rods and compress more under the power stroke. So they increase compression more as rpm increase (due to more and more tensile loading) compared to steel rods, that also reduces valve clearance and get the piston closer to the quench pad. But what does that extra compression deflection do to the power stroke? Soften the blow of each ignition event? Because you do eventually get most of the energy used to compress the rod back, just lose some to heating up the rod. Of course both of these deflections could be an order or magnitude smaller than I think they are and have a barely noticeable effect.

It doesnt say that they are forged anywhere either.

could be the word "buddy" being thrown around like you his bff.

a small heads up that any perception of an attitude on this forum will eventually devolve into you leaving and threatening to never do business with this forum again.

and the forum will happily forget about it and move on to harassing the next tough guy.

(this is less policy than inevitability--welcome to miataturbo.net)

Hey buddy. Thanks for the kind words! We're excited about them as well!

Let me educate you a bit on Al rods and their affects inside the motor. To put it simply...and briefly:

All Al rods are basically a "shock absorber". They lessen the stress on the crank and bearings because of this. Steel rods are like a jack hammer when you're really pounding on the motor.

Al rods do stretch but only under load. Steel rods do as well...albeit not as much. We also build them .010 under in C-to-C length to make up for this growth under load. I mean LOAD...extreme stresses...lots of HP. Not with Joe Bob's little street cruiser.

This is a known fact with builders...nothing new. We just side-stepped it a bit with the design of its length.

I address these things quite a bit in our description of the rods on our page. You should check it out.

Thanks again buddy.

That's because they are NOT forged. They are billets made from bar stock.

Any comparison to BME is not only unfair, but not accurate.

Apples to oranges my friends.

Get ready for a long, tearful response.

Does the material shorten life compared to a steel rod? Is anyone doing "real racing", known as "endurance racing" to most, with these rods?

True that...if people within the forum can't handle what I have to say in the only way I know how to present it, then I suppose that will be the case, yes.

What would people rather have? A slick talking sales guy with no idea of what they're talking about with the only goal of pulling out your wallet to grab the dead presidents? Or a guy that tells it how it is with no BS. If it were me on the "buying" end, I'd rather have the latter.

I'm just here to answer questions and share my experiences. If any info isn't wanted, then yes, I'll move on.

Hussy, they're aluminum, even if you don't exceed the yield strength of the rod, it will fail, eventually. All aluminum parts will fail if they see cyclic loading because, unlike a steel parts, Al part cannot be designed for infinite fatigue life. Honestly it doesnt concern me too much in a race engine. But if you wanted to see if these could live for a 25 hour race, and you were serious, you would put them in the FEA software, put in the exact S-N diagram for the material, and use your previous data log from the race to make a accurate simulation of what the rod is going to have to endure to last a race. And its going to take a long time to run.

Darren, you guys put a lot of parts handling into these. From what I gather from your process they're in and out of the machine a bunch of time. I'm surprised they're only $800.

Respect is earned here. We have people here winning every class they enter in every race designing parts for us troglodytes with green-backs. Telling us how it is and demonstrating the results are two different things. Put that rod through a few 25-hour enduros at 150hp and it will garner some respect.

Damm! FINALLY someone "gets" it! lol

Thanks Leafy for pointing that out. Nothing is perfect...everything breaks, fractures, sags and wrinkles.

Imagine a soda can that you bend back and forth a number of times...what happens? It breaks. This is a simple analogy, but it holds very true to any part used in the motor...including Al rods. This is call "deformation". There is a fatigue life involved here.

But hey...it's called RACING. The benefits of using the Al rod far outweigh the cost and maintenance.

Oh yeah man...the rods are removed out of the machine a few times in order to have them look the way they do (thanks for seeing that...nice eye). But the price we have currently is an "intro" price. It will go up in a few months I predict.

Granted...but I'm telling you "how it is" with our rods. Not suggesting how you should spend your money.

I'd love to see how they do in endurance racing! All someone has to do is step up and give it a shot instead of debating the subject. My area has always been drag racing and that is where Al rods are mostly used. To use them in such a way would be quite interesting to see.

I'm not trying to earn respect here...just trying to point out certain things to have you guys on the right track when talking Al rods. Nothing more.

A riding crop will also get you respect here. Most of these dudes are subs.

Got one handy? I broke my last one with my wife.

Hey buddy. Forgings which are then CNC milled are better than bar stock which are then CNC milled.

Our metalurgist doesn't work on Fridays so I'll have to wait until Monday to run it by him, but my general understanding of cryo on aluminum from back in my academia days is that it's beneficial when you do something that adds internal stress, like welding it. No appreciatable increase in yield strength of parent material. But your alloy may be different and actual testing trumps all. There's still a lot of voodoo in some heat treating processes. Coincidentally I was at one of our heat treat facilities yesterday because of that. Horray proprietary heat treat processes.

I also wonder at what temperature does the benefits of cryo fade.

You made the part weaker so that it's easier to install. I think that's failboat buddy. I'd rather have a stronger part and machine clearance for it, personally. But I can appreciate the desire; at least once I month I get a crybaby complaining that he has to swap sockets on his ratchet because the hardware on this rocker stands are not all the same size. They would rather have all the same size bolt (and therefore the smallest/weakest bolt) and compromise on the assembly strength than swap the socket or grab another wrench.

You are correct that aluminum absorbs the shock...this is mainly why top fuel run alum rods. Those run ~7800rpm. Prostock and some Promod guys run steel rods due to the rpms they see. That's direct from the engine builders.

But when an aluminum rod breaks, significantly less damage is done, or so I've heard. Often the engine could be repaired and run the same weekend. Steel rod breaks and it takes out everything.

It's all dudes here, better lube your sigmoid.

If the rods get above the temp where the grain structure of the metal starts to see changes which I forget what it is, for some reason 600*F sound familiar for aluminium. You'll loose the benefits of cryo treat pretty quickly. They also use vibratory stress relief, which is something we only spec on welded parts (and only because its cheaper than stress relieving with heat, which we do on more critical parts).

On the aspect of forging, as I understand it it completely depends on how they are forged, forging will make the material more directional in its strength properties. IE if you forged the rod one way you could make it stronger along its axis but weaker in bending. Cold formed bar stock is going to be less directional and hot formed even less than that. So if you need a part to be strong in multiple directions, something machined from hot roll might actually be better.

That is rather close Tim!

Let me address this:

First, its Coke and Pepsi when it comes to "which is better...forgings or billets". I'm not going to debate it any further. This is what we chose to use.

Second, cryo processing only "fades" if a rosebud hits the alloy.

Third, we did not weaken the part by making it easier to install...and I'm quite surprised you would say that so pretentiously. That wold be stupid to do that. Do you think we like people coming back to us pissed off?

We did lots of stress analysis to come up with the best balance we thought for the situation of being "builder friendly". I'm not going to say it's perfect for everyone's platform and/or scenario...as that would be impossible...but at least we're aware of the building process when designing and using Al rods.

Beef rods are not necessarily the strongest...there are many other factors involved. I've seen them break just as easily as a China built steel rod.

Regardless, we feel we've got a really good balance between the two...strength and the least amount of frustration for the builder when using them.

BTW...don't know in your neck of the woods on what goes on, but there are plenty of Pro Stock guys that use Al rods my friend. We know because we've sold the the older versions to those guys all over the world for at least 15 years.

Having recently taken several materials science and strength of materials courses, my thinking on this is similar to Tim. There is little change in the treated aluminium, though forgings, weldments and possibly machined parts would see a benefit in stress relief.

Here is some supporting documentation from a NASA experiment on cryo treating an unspecified alloy of aircraft grade aluminium. Granted the article stub doesn't give the specific alloy tested but the conclusions confirm what has been said.

I do not know you, but I would be confident guessing that no, you do not like people coming back to you pissed off. I have never run an analysis on a connecting rod, I admit. But I also feel confident guessing that decreasing the radius where the big end blends into the stem decreases the overall strenth, compared to a traditional aluminum rod that has a huge radius there and requires appropriate block clearance.

Wait, did not you just say you did not weaken the part to make it easier to install? Now you are saying you made a compromise...I mean balance...between strength and ease of installation? Which is it?

I do think you came up with a good compromise between strength and user friendliness...just my personal opinion looking at it and guessing, again not personally actually running an analysis.

There's always something stronger. Life's a balancing act.

Ahh ok, so you did compromise on the design. Got it.

OK my bad.

So far 3 of 4 have said they are not running aluminum rods, 2 were adamant about it, and that one guy didn't say he wasn't running steel, just that you won't gain anything switching to steel or ti (I thought ti wasn't allowed in PS, but whatev). These are current prostock engine builders I've talked to since last night. These guys all make engines for cars who consistently qualify, and one of them might hold the current MPH record :dunno:

But like all things Prostock, what works for one team will be completely opposite for another.

Wow! All I wanted to do is show off some pretty rods.


Looks like they can come either way, forged or billet.

I linked Darren to this thread, so He could answer the more technical questions.

Like any other product, there has been R&D, along with many revisions to the rod before the final plan was made.

I am sure Darren has installed a couple sets of these rods in a few engines for dyno runs, and a season or two of real life drag racing.

How many here have run AL rods before?

I do know and understand there is a huge difference between a Miata engine built for road racing, and a 4g63 built for drag racing.

Darren gets what i originally said, this forum aint for BS and talk, give us numbers, analysis sheets, how many hours at 7000rpm they will last with what weight pistons etc etc.

Get to the point with facts please, then we will love you.

Dann

Darren, thanks for hanging out with us. AL rods have always intrigued me a bit.

Could you scale your design down to tolerate less power (say 400whp instead of the 1000++++whp they're probably designed for) and make them significantly lighter? (say 30% lighter than they currently are)

Darren,
I may be misreading, but maybe you can clear this up...

Do you do tensile and fatigue testing on your product? Did you do the same testing to compare forged vs. billet blanks? Or with cryo treating?

Your previous posts make it sound like the testing was irrelevant because you knew billet / cryo "worked".

There's tensile in my fatigues. :naughty:

I hope you have a high young's modulus.

It strikes me that this is a irrelevant discussion, as we will likely never have an option to run these rods.