Yeah those things don't need hardly any preload on them, where you will find .030 to work about the best on the Morels.

I would stop throwing duration at it and just start adding overlap.... you have almost 400 cubes under that thing and more than enough lobe area already, but hardly enough overlap. BTW overlap doesn't make a car undriveable... the combination of too much duration and overlap makes cars horrible to drive.

Good to see you are running them... they should hold up for a long time.

Bret

 

It can be caused by detonation, timing, poor fuel atomization, inefficient flame propagation, etc.

 

Well you are saying quite a few real engine shops are using junk then including ours and we have never had a single failure! I never trust people that say crap like this again until they say something that proves they know something pure and simple. Guys like this make our entire industry look bad.

You can get a Sonny Bryant or a Windberg too and have a great crank or you can get the Eagle or SCAT and get some heads, intakes and valvetrain and make some real power. I like american stuff too if you're going to do an expensive high rpm endurance engine etc. but it's basically wasted money when you are trading getting real power producing items for a crankshaft that is tremendous overkill since NONE of these will break on what we are talking about.

It's funny how we have used "junk" Eagle cranks that make over 1200 RHWP and run 8.0s in 3300 pound cars. We also have some hydraulic roller pump gas engines that make almost 600 RWHP and also put serious street miles on their cars and yet they don't have any issues either with Eagle cranks? Tell me, what are we doing wrong?

 

Compared to similarly priced cranks out there, yes they are junk...I have measured taper across the journals, out of spec journals, and some that were bent from the factory...hence I do not use them.

I have not had these problems with callies or scat cranks.

I'm not saying YOU are doing anything wrong...just that they do not meet MY standards and so I use higher quality parts...

 

I use and sell the Morels as well but have not seen any large rpm gains with them so far. They are of much higher quality than any other hydraulic lifter however and have a larger wheel and axle. They are sure pricier as well.

 

I'm not saying that they will break at say 500-600hp...Although I have seen a couple snout failures... I just put a scat in a 489 BBC that makes 600hp in a daily driver. And I like the GM cranks too, we use them in our pump gas 750hp 502's.

 

Well we sure as hell build a lot of engines to not have any problems so far! I can't speak for the Eagles of the past but in the last few years I guess quality has come a long way. I use a lot of Callies too but I cannot say that they are tremendously better and not because there is anything wrong with them but there's never anything wrong with the Eagles either.

We did have some Eagle LS1s with slightly large pilot bearing bores but they had a pilot bearing at Eagle to fix this and they were still inside of GM spec. Of course some of the Lunati and Callies first LS1 deals had reluctors falling off and they cost three times as much but they are nicer pieces and lighter. We have sure seen some problems with the Lunati Pro Billet rods and NONE with the Eagles again even though they are less than half the price! I would say it just depends on the particular part. Lunati is supposed to be redesigning that rod now though?

Ford and others have done testing on rods for the Cobra engine that involved extreme cycling and very large loads since they knew the SC engines would be abused and the rod test results between many different brands including Eagle were truly shocking to many in the industry. I'm not saying that 10,000 rpm wouldn't have sorted stuff out more but lets just say the Eagle had some pretty pricey neighbors at the end!

 

I've seen snout failures on ALL SBC cranks. that why every serious SBC including even NA endurance engines use a BBC snout. SC apps are just looking to fail with an SBC snout and any really high loads. The problem is that the guys using Eagle and SCAT parts are also the ones doing all this crazy crap at least in my own experience!

I do get all my cranks etc. as freight on pallets so at least they don't get beat up in a weak box. I DO have a problem with Eagle there and I wish they boxed their cranks with the bigger heavier boxes and insta-pak foam like Callies does. I am considering reboxing them from now on like that whenever I send them out as a single part.

 

I'll e-mail ya the balance sheet.

 

Back to the powder metal rods....

I'm still on the fence... but might be coming down.
I think it's important to remember that factory LT1/LS1 PM rods were not designed with 600hp in mind, so I don't feel that it's fair to compare them to the Howards rod. I do know that a local dirt track race engine builder is using them (Howards) in a "no forged rod" class (don't know the official class name) and they were #2 in that class with no rod failures last time I checked. Dirt engines turn alot of rpm and are notoriously hard on parts. Will be interesting to see how well they perform in these types of racing classes. I don't doubt that the number of users will increase as time goes on.

The failure LR mentioned is interesting, but it wasn't due to the connecting rod material. The fact that the rod deformed on the big end counters the low ductility I imagined of a PM rod.
Many of the other PM "rod failures" I've read about don't seem to be material related either, yet the rod always seems to get the blame. Then again, there is a lot of this that goes on in the hi-po world. Yes, I've seen pictures of some legitimate failures, but they were always in engines that were big on power/abuse and should have been using a high quality forging in the first place.

As I read more about powder metal processing and the testing many aerospace companies are investing in I come to realize that PM is still evolving as a high-strength manufacturing technique. In one article I remember reading comparing forged titanium components to powder metal, a Lockheed engineer was quoted saying that the new powder metal components were, "As strong if not stronger than the original forgings". The technology is fascinating and it's still very much on the advance. I think we will be seeing more high-strength powder metal components engineered to perform specific duties that forgings use to do at a reduced cost.

-Mindgame

 

Back to powder metal rods and cranks......

My information for most things comes second hand and I seek out the old hard core racers to get their input. I went with a Eagle crank and the Howards rods because the local dirt track crowd was very high on both. As mentioned, these guys turn 8000 rpm plus for extended periods of time and if that crowd is big on um...... they must work. Cause if anyone can tear one up, they can.

Course then they seem to be able to fix um with bubble gum, silicone and rubber bands for the next round.

 

In my profession (medicine) I never want to be either the first or the last to embrace a new therapy. Ditto with my hobby.

Rich

 

I agree with that

 

MG, What ya mean when ya say a rod hanging out the side of a block isn't rod related. It wasn't the crank that was hanging out the side.

When they get the selection of the right powder's, the amount's of the each powder,the perfect mixing technique,and the right methods and pressures, down to a science(which probably won't be in my lifetime) I may try some.

 

What area of medicine?