how thick is this coating? significant enough to effect compression?

i'm thinking of coating my CC's

 

Rich,

Yeah we think in different worlds most of the time, but you are right with any blower, turbo, N2O or Nitro setup the Gold Coat is going to protect the pistons more than about anything. 200F is pretty good, it sure beats oil sprayers pointed at the bottom of the pistons, that just seems to add windage to the situation.

Soma07, teamsleep,

The header coating from swain is not like Jet Hot. It's actually a heat barrier more like header wrap than the semi-protectant that Jet-Hot does. Keeping un hood temps down is about as important as anything in the heat related world.

BTW if I was doing heads, you might as well do the exhaust ports too just to keep the head temps down. It's probably one of the bigger areas of heat transfer in the engine. That and the combustion chamber.

Trey,

The coating is very thin, depending upon the company. Callico states that their friction coatings are .0002-.001 thick depending upon the application. That's important for things like clearances, but it's not going to effect compression ratio.

Seriously, if you are NA, spend the coating $ on more head and valvetrain work first. This stuff is not the magic bullet, but it does help. If you don't have some extensively ported AFR's for your 383 LT1 then you probably will find much more power there and in your intake manifold than on coatings. In fact $400 on making that intake better is worth more than the coatings ever will be.

That's all I have.

Bret

 

The point is... imagine a cooler running engine for the street??? Isn't that a great thing??? cooler engine bay temps??? that is amazing too... That will all help everything.. imagine your car cools down faster??? etc.. that is the advantage...

I have jet hots black coating... Is it that big of a difference between the thermal barrier coating that swain uses????

 

I think the point of the coating is to keep the heat enegry (what moves your piston) inside the cylinder and to keep it from radiating out. Ceramic conducts less heat than aluminum. The cooler coolant is just a positive byproduct.

Is that your question? was there a question? was it a statement

ohh yeah, keeps stuff safe in FI applications too (thats why Rich coated his pistons)

 

It was a statement.. what is the difference in a 600rwhp car 15 horses??? not that much to be felt or noticed at the track...

But... keeping stuff safe so you can go harder than 15 horses is an advantage... The coating itself will give you 15-20 HP, but it will let you add more boost or more timing...

 

or less fuel.

Lean is mean, and some things that I have seen lately put real lean in a scary category and they make some amazing power.

We're talking 17:1-14:1 @ WOT.

Bret

 

"Lean is mean"

Yeah... for some engines it is but if your racing an old AMC motor with 30 year old combustion chamber designs it may not like it.
Every engine's different.... some like to be a bit lean and some go a little faster when slightly fat. Tune to find out what yours likes.

-Mindgame

 

Even if mine liked it at 13:1 (which it does) I rather loose 15HP but I tune it at 12.5:1 or less and have the security that it will not ping when racing hard... I better loose a race rather than break my engine

Actually I bet a 10.6@136mph rx7 from 40 till 150... So whatya think???

 

I think that's great High.

And I agree... a safety margin is always nice. I would rather leave the leanburn engine stuff to those environmentalist type engineers.

-Mindgame

 

I'm not suggesting that someone run it that lean, you really need to know your conditions and test, test, test it on the dyno.

I only mention this because when I saw the BSFC being in the low .300 range I was REALLY suprised, but then seeing the corresponding A/F I was less. Basically that lean is only going to happen on something very fine tuned.

Bret

 

Exactly.. but how do they measure the BSFC on the dyno???

I have never seen it done...

Anyways.. by calcs.. mine is at 0.65 or something...

and I get little gas mileage.. 15mpg on highway.. 13 on town.. DAMN!!! is it the cam??

Anyways... Can you remove the pistons without taking the engine out??? I want to ceramic coat them...

 

Brake Specific Fuel Consumption is based on the lbs of fuel per hour per HP, so to have a .65 means that you are really rich and not making alot of HP for the amount of fuel consumed.

BTW no real good way to take the pistons out and put them back in while the engine is still in a street car

 

Try this link: See page 2.

http://www.superflow.com/acrobat/sf901.pdf




Turbine fuel flow meters are used. Fuel flow (lbs/hr) can be displayed, and BSFC is calculated by the software.

Same for air flow.

 

why not????

Another thing.. Ceramic Coating is not cheap.. its very expensive..

336 for the 8 pistons.. GC and skirts its not cheap at all..

334 for the heads... damn... hard for an university student .. jejeje

 

Bret

That was a very articulate reply. Honestly one of the better and more informative posts I’ve seen in a while. Good job and thank you for the perspective.

Now that I’ve got your ear……… How about “thin” rings for street driving?

In retrospect, I had ring problems in a relatively recent 398ci motor and feel the engine builder may have been in error by trying to find that extra ½% or so by using a more race suited ring. Or.. maybe the ring was just too thin for the piston (lightweight J&E’s). Whatever?? Just guessing, but for sure something was amiss.

When the engine was torn down after 4k miles, the rings looked like they had 100k miles on them and the motor would not produce the kind of power on the top end it should have indicating ring flutter.

What I’m really trying to figure out: Just a botched job and is it worth trying to run the thinner rings on the street?

There is something to be said about things that you know work vs being too close to the edge. As you know….. it’s a fine edge between hero and zero. But then again there something about being a hero.

What rings are the best compromise?