Steel rod life expectancy

[Kevin Panzino]

Originally Posted by SSDiv6

The only Manley connecting rod that is made in the USA is the Pro Beam. All the others are off shore blanks machined in the USA.

That would be news to me and would result in an extremely irate phone call to both manley and patterson racing tomorrow morning....

Are you saying the Manley TourLite series which they specifically tout as 100% USA made, are in fact offshore forgings?

[SSDiv6]

Originally Posted by Kevin Panzino

That would be news to me and would result in an extremely irate phone call to both manley and patterson racing tomorrow morning....

Are you saying the Manley TourLite series which they specifically tout as 100% USA made, are in fact offshore forgings?

Kevin, the only connecting rod I know is 100% USA is the Pro Beam Billet.

Manley exports crankshafts, piston pins, retainers and connecting rods from China.
Their Titanium valves from Israel and the other valves from India.

Just take a look at the following Bill of Lading as examples:

http://portexaminer.com/trade-data/s...tshanycd10470/

http://portexaminer.com/trade-data/r...chydnyk000163/

http://portexaminer.com/trade-data/s...iawofy1311035/

http://portexaminer.com/trade-data/s...lae3116141nyc/

[joespanova]

In a situation like mine , where you lose an aluminum rod..........was it a bearing / oiling failure that caused the rod to fail...........or the rod getting kicked out of shape that made it "appear" to be a bearing failure? Hard to say.........the crank has bearing metal transfer that was obviously hot...........but why? Which came first ? Is the oil system adequate ?
Rods probably have 120ish runs on them.

[SSDiv6]

Originally Posted by joespanova

In a situation like mine , where you lose an aluminum rod..........was it a bearing / oiling failure that caused the rod to fail...........or the rod getting kicked out of shape that made it "appear" to be a bearing failure? Hard to say.........the crank has bearing metal transfer that was obviously hot...........but why? Which came first ? Is the oil system adequate ?
Rods probably have 120ish runs on them.

With that many runs, material fatigue.

[Dion Hildebrandt]

Originally Posted by joespanova

In a situation like mine , where you lose an aluminum rod..........was it a bearing / oiling failure that caused the rod to fail...........or the rod getting kicked out of shape that made it "appear" to be a bearing failure? Hard to say.........the crank has bearing metal transfer that was obviously hot...........but why? Which came first ? Is the oil system adequate ?
Rods probably have 120ish runs on them.

Cut open the oil filter, it will give a better picture on what happened first. Had the same thing happen recently, and the filter was loaded with brass indicating a bearing failure.

[joespanova]

Originally Posted by Dion Hildebrandt

Cut open the oil filter, it will give a better picture on what happened first. Had the same thing happen recently, and the filter was loaded with brass indicating a bearing failure.

Good point. In aluminum rod combos where the rod has plenty of cycles you would tend to think its a rod failure , BUT , a bearing failure is certainly a possibility......... with the rod getting kicked / stretched out of shape that in itself may have caused the bearing failure.......chicken or egg?

[Ed Wright]

Every aluminum rod failure I had pulled into in the middle. Big eng spun freely on the crank, with a good bearing inside. All big end failures I have seen were bearing failures. If it's black, it sure wasn't the rod.
When you set your bearing clearances, think about the expansion rates.

[joespanova]

Originally Posted by Ed Wright

Every aluminum rod failure I had pulled into in the middle. Big eng spun freely on the crank, with a good bearing inside. All big end failures I have seen were bearing failures. If it's black, it sure wasn't the rod.
When you set your bearing clearances, think about the expansion rates.

This rod had a clean break right in the middle of the beam...........but the bearing was also blackened and destroyed........along with the rest of the big end in the pan..............the pin end was perfect

[Mike Schwartz]

Originally Posted by SSDiv6

http://portexaminer.com/

That's an interesting site. I used it to check who is importing nitromethane. (http://portexaminer.com/search.php?s...t=nitromethane) Schumacher Electric & VP Racing Fuels are there, but also a lot of names I don't recognize.

[SSDiv6]

Originally Posted by Mike Schwartz

That's an interesting site. I used it to check who is importing nitromethane. (http://portexaminer.com/search.php?s...t=nitromethane) Schumacher Electric & VP Racing Fuels are there, but also a lot of names I don't recognize.

Yep. If you do a search, you would probably remember many years ago the war between Schumacher, NHRA and VP Fuels. As I remember, Schumacher was buying Nitromethane from China and selling it to other racers at a lower price than VP and probably also hurting the profits.