Rotating assembly component weight thread! Clutches, flywheels, pistons, rods, etc...

[J. Fast]

How much do your specialty rods and pistons weigh Ray? What compression ratio are they? Do you happen to know how much your upgraded wrist pins weigh as well? What about those badass cranks Nelson and Matt bought awhile ago made of moon metal, got any weight or material info on those?

[anyonebutme]

Yes but isnt the goal to make HP?? High hp engines require the things I said in my post. If you are building a low hp engine.. what is the purpose of doing the light weight parts? To free up HP? Thats where it starts to not make sense to me

It gets more strange: we spend $1000+ a weekend to go drive in circles. Back on track, what I want is an aluminum block, light internal engine that I can spin up........even with a weaker block and internals, just by raising the TQ peak I can make the same HP with "weaker" components. Lighter internals mean less bearing stresses with same imbalance. I guess the end goal is a change in the engine's character, similar to why BMW put hollow composite camshafts in the Mini and Chevy put in Ti connecting rods in where the standard ones would do, a "light" engine just feels more responsive. Mine still feels a bit lazy even with a fidanza flywheel ect. I dunno, only point I'm making is not everyone has the same goals or thinks the best way to get there is the same. My car with 500+HP would be suicide on wheels. My car with 700+ HP would be genocide because it'd probably kill 20+ people as I pull a Alan Mcnish. I'm not the guy who has 500HP and uses 200 of them, I'm the guy who tries to use 500HP worth of car out of a 200HP car. OK, hyperbole. I'd love to have 700+ HP.

I guess what I really want is a different car, lol.

[familyMAN]

Or like you said, you want 700hp. In that case listen to ray and build it for 700hp

[anyonebutme]

Or like you said, you want 700hp. In that case listen to ray and build it for 700hp

it's even more simple, I don't even have to listen, just have Ray build it for me!

[whitedragon]

I bet Xwire would do it for ya more locally. I hear he tunes just as well as Ray.

[Ray Pampena]

It gets more strange: we spend $1000+ a weekend to go drive in circles. Back on track, what I want is an aluminum block, light internal engine that I can spin up........even with a weaker block and internals, just by raising the TQ peak I can make the same HP with "weaker" components. Lighter internals mean less bearing stresses with same imbalance. I guess the end goal is a change in the engine's character, similar to why BMW put hollow composite camshafts in the Mini and Chevy put in Ti connecting rods in where the standard ones would do, a "light" engine just feels more responsive. Mine still feels a bit lazy even with a fidanza flywheel ect. I dunno, only point I'm making is not everyone has the same goals or thinks the best way to get there is the same. My car with 500+HP would be suicide on wheels. My car with 700+ HP would be genocide because it'd probably kill 20+ people as I pull a Alan Mcnish. I'm not the guy who has 500HP and uses 200 of them, I'm the guy who tries to use 500HP worth of car out of a 200HP car. OK, hyperbole. I'd love to have 700+ HP.

I guess what I really want is a different car, lol.

I understand your goal and how everyones goal is different. let me try to clarify. First off, i dont think the list is a bad idea. it would be cool to have record of all of that. the problem is how people use the information. its like when people pick a cam for a big block chevy from summit.. they move there finger down to the bottom cam.. the biggest one.. "yeah thats the one i want!" they end up with some slow ass junker.

If people start picking parts for a weight standpoint its a horrible decision and heres why. the light weight parts will always be weaker than the heavier parts unless a better material is used. For example.. my billet rods are lighter than most of the china rods out there. they can be because the material and workmanship is that much better. There are some china rods out that are lighter than my billet rods and that china rods are still constructed the same as they were. thats where the problems start. will it work for most people? sure.. but i dont want something that "works" i want something thats the best it can be. China rods are half the money of the billets.. so i used them in my red 96 until the bushings were no good and i just changed them out for billets. that was 10K miles in my TD04 car. Im not saying the china rods are bad for the money. i use them in customer car too. $500 plus less is alot to save! thats why i originally went with them




If i were just a parts seller i could be the lightest parts guy on the list. I am the ONLY 3S engine builder who designs his own parts instead of buying whats available. Ive built and sold the most engines leaving the potentail failure numbers to be high and they are not. the product speaks for itself which is why everyone is always talking about my engines and my engines are in the high hp cars out there. (i hate to "brag" its against everything i am but i dont know how else to say the facts.)
ive been doing this for waaay too long and i have seen so much. you guys are working on your car.. building your stuff.. reading about others.. imagine doing this on this car every single day professionally for 10 years as a shop. i am in these engines alsmost every day of my existence and its amazing what i have learned. i see things other builders build, ive made improvements on my own stuff from purposely blowing things up on the dyno.. i have endless time and trial and error into this.
heres some of the things that go wrong in our 3S engine when running big power or mid power for years. pistons.. the skirts start to move in, the ringlands start to bend, and the pin boss becomes untrue. the pistons i make are really beefy in these areas and look perfect when run hard for years. they use tool steel rings where others use high tech names for cast rings. the cast rings cant handle the heat well and loose their tension. i purposely made the piston weight for my 3.0 3.1 pistons the same as stock so it saves you from getting it balanced. i couldnt make it much lighter anyway without giving up the features that make it good so i chose that point to make it worth something.
Pins.. dont ever use a lightweight pin in these cars. the space between the rod and the piston is too large (on all rods but mine) and the pins are always flexing. the flexing leads to bushing wear and failure and pin failure.
damper and flywheel.. if you can help it, dont use the light weight stuff. think about what a flywheel does. its force is like a spinning top.. it wants to stay spinning at one angle. it doesnt easily change angles. it then holds the crank true and straight. you guys often complain about bearing issues but have no problem installing a light flywheel and damper. when centrifugal force is lost, the crank has much less keeping the ends true and it is much easier to bend the center down and pound out the mains. picture how much harder it is to bend the center of the crank down is the flywheel and damper and trying to hols a true line. next is the weight in motion factor. the heavy damper and flywheel can not be sped and slowed as easy as the light stuff. when the crank is running, different parts of the crank are trying to be sped and slowed at different times as different cyliners run. this twists at the crank and eventually cracks it.

next is the examples that you listed. first, the hollow cams. they are making the cams from scratch so why not. it saves material needed.. and it saves materiel weight in the car as a whole... by how much? when you are manufacturing cars.. every bit counts! what good is that material anyway.. its not needed. it does NOT have any effect on performance. the closer weight is to the center, the less it effects "rotating" mass.. never mind how the cams are movng half the speed of the crank.
next is GM with the ti rods. that is an example of what i stated before. GM improved the material to make it light instaead of taking what they had and making it light.. like comparing pistons and forged rods and just making them lighter. also, they are in an arms race against other manufacturers.. 3hp and longer life are worth millions. TI rods would be nice for us too.. but whos gonna buy them?

now onto what does this all come down to.. on a 600ci engine that has huge parts.. using lighter parts has a waaay larger effect on the engine. you know the difference between super trick parts vs the heavy shit in hp? about 10. now compare that to our 181 inch engine. are you willing to compromise strength and lifespan of you parts for 3 hp? thats my point when i made my short post. the free revving engine with light parts revs noticeably qiucker with no load. that is because it doesnt take all that much power to rev itself in the first place. so, when you make that parts lighter.. the small difference you get in power is a decent % of what it needs to free rev itself. once you are trying to accelerate the whole car.. that number falls to the wind and is just about lost.

if we were building large displacement NA stuff that makes far less hp per ci id go as light i could within reason. but we are on the other end.. the parts wrecking small split throw v6 thats making a ton of power per size (way more than designed) with all the bad things like not enough mains.

Ray

[98slept]

Ray
Thanks for making beefy parts for our engines. I currently have ur custom 3.1 pistons n h13 pins in my dr750 build I am currently building. Top notch! Few questions if u be kind to answer. What oversea rods are those in The video next to ur billets. What brand? U mention they were off your dr750 car. I was not aware your car was down? What happen? Or did u just want to upgrade the rods. Also do u run a stock flywheel? I know Matt loves to run rps lighter ones on all his builds. Why is that? Other than that awesome job on custom parts. Big fan

[Ange]

I thought about CAD'ing oem spec rods and have them made for me in china in titanium. Need to find out their prices.

[Ray Pampena]

I dont want the "brand" of them known. its not fair for one seller to take the heat when all the china rods are made the same. My car was only apart for a short time over this winter and back together again. i changed the rods and the crank. it was still running fine i just figured while the weather sucks i could freshen the engine. the pistons and pins were perfect as well as the bearings and block.

Matt suggests the flywheel for the same reason i am stuck with running one. i have the fidenza one. the friction material on those flywheels holds the clutch from slipping better than the stock cast one. i wish i could run the stock one on mine instead

[bearded1]

Matt suggests the flywheel for the same reason i am stuck with running one. i have the fidenza one. the friction material on those flywheels holds the clutch from slipping better than the stock cast one. i wish i could run the stock one on mine instead

Ray, could you possibly design a stock weight flywheel with an upgraded friction material? A replaceable surface. Could you just remanufacture stock flywheels to bolt/rivet them in? Not sure how much something like that would cost, just a thought. I'd buy it!



Jake