Any one have any thoughts on useing titanium intake and exhaust valves or a weekly/daily driven hot street engine?
I was looking into useing titanium valves on my 383 hyd roller engine runing .560'' to .580'' valve lift and the engine should see up to 7,000rpm and some nitrous oxide.

 

They beat the seats out of them faster and you would only need to have them if you were going alot higher max RPM.

So it's not a very good place to spend the money even if it's no object or you can get them cheap.

Bret

 

Agreeing with Bret on this one. It'd be a lot like putting a 10-point in a stock LT1 car.........pointless and over the top.

Now if you said titanium connecting rods I might have to think. Afterall, Porsche seems to think that's a good idea on street motors now.....then again, look @ the tolerances of a Porsche motor compared to an LTx

 

And you thought Ti valves were expensive!


FWIW, I'm not so sure the manufacturing tolerances on a Porsche are all that much closer than on a LTx engine. That the Porsche may be a higher specific output and require more costly parts there is no question in my mind.

Like it or not, many high volume, relatively cheap OEM engines are built with precision that approaches that which Porsche, Ferrari, etc. have claimed for years. It is possible for cam lobes to be phased within .01 degree (!) if a CNC cam grinder grinds all the lobes in one chucking operation directly from digital data. Do all OEMs use that technology? Nope, but that's where things are headed. FWIW, one of the major aftermarket cam companies uses the Okuma CNC grinder for many of their cams that we buy. Unless Porsche is using similar equipment, they may be less accurate. Of course, .01 degree is mega overkill, but it doesn't hurt. Oh, yeah, that grinder fininsh grinds all 16 lobes in less than 13 minutes, according to Okuma. One day delivery of a custom cam is reality, and becoming normal.

IMO, that kind of technology is cool.

My $.02

 

The Honduh NSX has had Ti connecting rods from the factory since day one...

 

Mmm yeah I'd definitely try not to run a Ti valve in something that didn't get torn down now and again to be freshened up .

Like these guys said, 7krpm is relatively mild & you don't need them. Be happy, cause Del West stuff is about $1600/set... and most guys cringe at having to pay that for a complete set of decent heads .

Senior Stroker, my father is in manufacturing, and the advances in technology across the board (machining, metrology, etc.) are somethin' else for sure .