Boostwhat

I need a set of 5.850" Billet I-Beams that can handle some serious abuse while not killing my budget. Anyone have any ideas? Derek

Steve in Seattle

1) How much is "serious"? (RPM, HP, power adder?)

2) what's the budget?

3) Does it HAVE to be billet?

Boostwhat

1) 2 systems 400+ Gas
2) Less than a Oliver ~$1200
3) 1000+ Hp so preferably billet

rskrause

Aluminum is what you need.

Rich

AdioSS

Hope it isn't a street engine...

CreatiVe2

just went with a set of 5.850 H beams forged from eagle. what power are you looking at? any particular reason for billet & I beam? also what is the displacement of the motor your putting them in? sounds pretty serious

blue 79 Z/28

he stated that already, id pick aluminum also if it was a track only car more insurance on the bottle. you can still get away with steel no problem a that point also. rpm dependent, a quality set of h beams can do it with the bolt upgrade. other then that you are looking at the 1000 billet rod area or aluminum, not much choice lol

Steve in Seattle

Yeah, I was thinking about Howard's powered steel for a bang-for-the-buck answer... but I was thinking in the 700hp range. 1000 ponies starts to limit the choices regardless of rpm.

Some high end forged rods may work (that whole tight-tolerance-forging vs billet debate again) but those aren't cheap either.

blue 79 Z/28

a quality H beam like a compstar etc. with the L19 bolt upgrade can handle 1000hp thats what they rate to. thats the cheapest route to go. im going to do that for the 434 im building, 800hp+ n/a and a small single stage on top. ive seen guys run h beams to 1200hp, its all in the bolt and rpm. steel rods tend to crack more on nitrous motors, aluminum is detonation insurance. and the only choice if you plan on something 8500rpm+ with that power.

Boostwhat

Will not be track only as of right now. Its a 383" engine with the factory system to run it so I'm limited to around 7k rpm. Which is the reason I am going with nitrous. 2 systems and as much as I can get away with gas wise...

blue 79 Z/28

ok, id just use a quality h beam with the L19 bolt then

streetbad

Lunati has billet 5.85 I beams. Similar to Olivers but $200.00 less. They have three different weights available.

AutoRoc

If you're gonna skimp...might as well be on the rods...

You could hold off on 1 kit to pay for "good" rods once.

400+ has been done effectively thru a single plate/fogger many times.

Goodluck? Sounds like a mean ride!

rskrause

I don't think in terms of I-beam or H-beam. There are good (and not so good) rods of both designs. Cheapest rod I would buy is a Compstar (for a race motor or hi-performance build). They are finished and inspected properly and that is one of the biggest differences between decent and not-so-good rods. Moderate price aluminum rods are the way to go for a heavy nitrous small block on budget, IMHO. I am figuring this isn't going to be a high mileage street car? Anyway, if you want steel rods and want to spend as little as possible, and don't mind the foreign raw forgings, look at Compstar.

Rich

AdioSS

After seeing a handful of aluminum rod engines break when I was in Houston, I will always be leery about using them in any engine that will not see regular tear-downs. Each time the rod seemed to let go at about the same time. 100-120 WOT pulls on either a dyno or strip. I don't know how that converts to street miles, so it just isn't worth it to go with aluminum when steel is stronger and lives a LOT longer.