|
Aftermarket Connecting Rods We now offer a huge variety in both styles and sizes of aftermarket connecting rods, with currently over 15 different models, all specifically for the big block Chrysler engine!! Our platinum series rods use super high strength lightweight forgings and most feature top of the line super high strength ARP bolts. Rods are available in H beam, I beam, Tapered I beam, and 5140 high performance stock replacement (pressed pin) styles. Check out our connecting rod table below for exact specifications, prices, etc. Call us for details, or if you have any questions. We'll be more than happy to help you select the right part for your application. |
| Shown above is our Platinum Series H beam style... |
| Shown above is our Platinum Series I beam style... |
|
Platinum Series Rods: Our Platinum series rods (shown above) are the highest quality rods we offer. We encourage you to shop around and do your research, because we know that no one else offers such a high quality product at an incredibly affordable price. Compare these manufacturing processes, specs and tolerances with the competition: All our Platinum Series rods start with super strong aircraft quality 4340 steel, certified to meet or exceed SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) standards. We constantly pull samples and run tests on the chemical composition of our 4340 raw steel to make sure it meets every index included in the specifications. Once we have verified the raw materials are up to spec, we then use a medium frequency sensing electrical furnace to heat the steel up in preparation for forging. Using an electrical furnace ensures that the entire batch of steel is heated to a uniform temperature throughout. This drastically reduces the possibility of carbonization and cracks in the forgings. We then forge both the rod beam and rod cap separately (a two piece forging) to ensure that each piece has the correct grain direction. Forging the rod cap separately guarantees that the grain structure runs perpendicular to the extreme loads put on the rod during operation. To visualize how this makes the rod stronger, imagine tearing a piece of paper into two halfs, with each hand pulling in an opposite direction. It will rip fairly easily, since you are ripping against the grain. Now imagine "stretching" the paper, or pulling it apart at both ends in opposite directions. It will be much harder to get the paper to rip, since you are pulling with the grain. This is the same concept, magnified by thousands of times. Other than examining the grain structure under a microscope, there is NO WAY to visually tell a one piece forging rod from a two piece. To the naked eye, they look identical. To manufacture a one piece rod, the rod is simply cut from a piece of plate, making it considerably cheaper to make. We have had customers bring in failed "no-brand" rods they found super cheap off the internet or at a swap meet, and upon closer inspection, they turned out to be one piece forgings. Next, the raw forgings are heat treated in multiple stages on an automatically controlled continuous furnace production line. This multi-stage heat treating significantly improves the mechanical properties (strength, resiliency, etc) of the forgings while also ensuring these properties are uniform throughout the entire piece. After heat treating, the forgings go through a rigorous process of being X rayed from 4 sides (A minimum of six separate times!), sonic tested, and then finally magnafluxed to thoroughly check for any small cracks or other defects. Forgings that pass the test are then fully polished to obtain a smooth surface, decrease the amount of stress put on the forging during machining, and prepare the rods for shot peening. Rods are then shot peened. This is a process in which the surface of the rods are bombarded with smooth round steel shot. Each shot ball leaves a smooth spherical impression, compacting the surface of the rod and causing a compressive surface stress which closes up the grain structure of the rod on a microscopic level. Since rods can fail from tensile loads opening up tiny surface flaws, this microscopically "compressed" surface of the steel greatly reduces the possibility of any stress cracks developing by not giving them a place to "start." Exhaustive testing has shown that not only does this help to increase the maximum load the rod is able to take by over 20%, but it also helps to increase the fatigue life of the rods by up to 50%! Next, the rods enter the process of Oil Simmering. They are bathed in a high temperature oil bath to help relieve the stress generated from the above processes. A-18 Silicon Bronze bushings are installed in the small ends for full floating piston pins. Then the rods are finished honed using only genuine American made SUNNEN POWER STROKE equipment to guarantee dimensional accuracy and absolute roundness of both the big end and the pin bore within +/- 0.00017 (1.7 ten-thousandths of an inch.) This helps to ensure proper bearing "crush." Center to center length is also guaranteed +/-0.001" Throughout manufacturing, rods are randomly pulled. Clearances are checked and rods are tested using the Rockwell hardness test and metallurgical analysis to insure manufacturing tolerances are always kept to the highest possible quality. Finally, sets are weight matched on both the small and big ends and total rod weight to balanced sets of within +/- 2 grams, however this is the MAXIMUM allowed. Some sets will be exactly identical weight, and most will be +/- 1 to 1.5 grams. On average, our platinum series rods will be 60-100 grams lighter per rod than an identical style rod from the competition (our H beam vs. their H beam, etc.) The reason for this is twofold. First, we ONLY sell big block Chrysler parts. Many other larger companies that sell hundreds of different part numbers for many different makes of engines will try to save money by using one forging for many different part numbers. While this does save on manufacturing costs because the forgings can be produced in a greater volume, the end result is a heavier forging since it has to have enough material in it to cover the dimensions of the many parts it is being made into. Since our forgings were developed for only Big Block Chrysler engines, the forging was able to be designed exactly as needed and does not contain any unneeded material. This fact, combined with the extra lengths we go to during machining, such as spending more time cleaning up the inside of the beams, etc, results in a product that has significant weight savings without sacrificing strength. When combined with 40+ years of manufacturing technology, our rods are hundreds of grams lighter than original factory stuff, while still being considerably stronger. Multiply that weight savings by 8, and that alone is usually more than an entire piston weighs! - A considerable horsepower gain.
Shown above are the precision alignment sleeves our Platinum Series rods use. The caps use these large dowels to positively locate and "lock into" the rod, keeping the bearing shell fully aligned at all times, even under extreme loading. They also eliminate any cap walk. Our Platinum rods are also different from most other "imported" rods because they use ARP's top of the line bolts. Any competent engine builder will tell you that bolts are the most critical factor in any rods, so they are no place to skimp on cost or quality. Those massive, super heavy duty 7/16" American made ARP bolts (already a step up in size from the stock 3/8" bolts,) are shown above. Don't get stuck with other "imported" rods which don't have nearly the quality or workmanship our rods do. Do your research... Check into what the competition is offering. We encourage this because we know you'll be calling us back in the end. No one else can offer anywhere near the features our rods have AND at such an incredibly affordable price. Thousands of these sets of rods have been sold so far and are being raced with great results. We now also offer our Platinum rods in a "Chrysler width" 2.200" (big block Chevy) line. These rods are specially made for Chrysler width (2.050") crank journals that have been turned down to a big block Chevy journal size (2.200".) In the past, engine builders had to use standard big block Chevy rods in this situation, which would give .070"+ side clearance, overloading the oil rings and spraying an excessive amount of oil around the crankcase, resulting in horsepower loss due to windage. Our Chrysler width rods now solve this problem. The big end width is identical to all our other rods, at 1.014", while still keeping the standard 2.200" big block Chevy journal diameter, which will result in the proper side clearance of about .022". Manley used to market a similar rod as part number 14279, however they have discontinued that part number. These also work great for applications where stock 3.75" stroke cranks have been offset ground to 3.9" with 2.200" Chevy journals. In addition, these make it possible for those who already own a 4.15" Chrysler journal sized stroker crank to offset grind it up to 4.250" - 4.300" stroke with 2.200" Chevy journals. This enables you to keep the crank you already own, increase your cubic inches, get the smaller journal size, and not have to worry about any side clearance issues. Which style rod should I go with, H beam or I beam? What is the horsepower rating? Both the H beam and I beam are roughly identical weights, and the construction of both the big end and the small end of the rods are identical, the only difference is the way in which the beam itself is machined, so selection between these two usually comes down to personal preference. Many experienced engine builders feel the I beams are a slightly better design. It used to be you could only get the I beam style of rod custom made from Crower, Carillo, Manley and others, and the price was around two to three thousand dollars, so most people went with H beams because that was a much more affordable option, however with our reasonably priced I beam rods that is no longer the case. The reason most engine builders feel I beams are slightly better is because of an argument that since the H beams have "voids" or open areas in the side of the beam, those areas can have a tendency to act like scoops, allowing oil to pool up inside the voids and throwing it around the crankcase causing horsepower loss due to additional windage. Because the I beams have a flat side on the beam, this is not an issue with that design. Also, some feel that because the I beam design has slightly more material in the cross section of the beam, they are a slightly stronger design as well, (although the difference is very minimal, perhaps 5 percent or so.) That being said, the H beam design is very common and still preferred by many engine builders. Overall, both styles are popular and both work very well. We do not like to put a "horsepower rating" on our rods, since the stress placed on a rod is more directly related to piston weight and engine RPM, as opposed to horsepower output. In other words, a 550 horsepower engine with 1200 gram TRW slugs making peak power at 7200 RPM will be putting much more stress on the rods (and bearings and crank and block for that matter) than a 650 horsepower engine with 500 gram ultraLight pistons making peak power at 6200. For this reason "horsepower" ratings on rods can be misleading and we do not like to use them, however as a guideline, we do have many customers using our H and I beam Platinum Series rods in 900+ horsepower engines, so this should be a safe level.
If this all seems like too much information, just give us a call and we'll be happy to help you select the right rods for your application!
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Forget about reusing 40 year old
stock rods! We now have an option that is many times stronger for
considerably less money! Shown above is our BRAND NEW 5140 forged steel
steel stock replacement AND performance rods. Finally, a rod that works
great for stock replacement press fit pin applications as well as high
performance engines at an incredibly reasonable price.
The beam shape and size on these rods is remarkably similar to the famous 426 Hemi rods (compare them to the picture of factory 426 Hemi rods on our stock replacement rods page), however we have kept the single most important feature of Hemi rods: the 7/16" ROD BOLTS. The weakest part of any rod is almost always the bolts. Chrysler engineers used 3/8" bolts on all production 383's and 440's (even Six Pack Rods!!) but for Hemi's they stepped up to the 7/16." Not only do we offer the same 7/16" bolts used in Hemi Rods, but we use only genuine ARP bolts, the standard of the industry, American made right here in Southern California. However, unlike the 1,050 grams that a Hemi rod weighs, due to cutting edge manufacturing processes, our 5140 steel rods weigh in even lighter than factory "Six pack" rods weigh! And remember, they do it with the much heavier and stronger 7/16" bolts, which (even at 920 grams) Six Pack Rods don't offer! These rods use a non-bushed small end for factory size 1.094" press fit applications. Length is factory RB at 6.76." Width of the rod's big end is also to factory (1.014") spec for no side clearance issues. Both the big and small end housing bore are finished to precision tolerances on AMERICAN MADE Sunnen Power stroke honing equipment. Finally, the sides of the beam are polished to a smooth finish to get rid of any stress risers. One other important fact to remember is that metal has what is known as a fatigue life. Everyone has bent a paper clip back and forth so many times until it breaks. Once it breaks, it has reached enough "cycles" to get beyond the limits of it's fatigue life. Connecting rods are also made of metal and also have a fatigue life. Every time the piston fires, the rod is compressed and every time the crankshaft turns back around, it drags the piston back down from TDC. This causes the rod to expand and contract, or "cycle" just like bending the paper clip back and forth. The only difference is that the rod is much stronger than a paper clip and it's being cycled millions of times as the engine is running. The more cycles on the rod, the weaker it will become, and the closer to failure your engine will be. These rods are BRAND NEW, so they will always be starting with ZERO cycles on them. That alone is worth a huge amount of strength. After forty years and thousands upon thousands of miles, do we really know how many millions and millions of cycles those old factory rods have on them? With the cost of cleaning, magnafluxing, resizing, buying new bolts, polishing the beams, etc, etc with a set of stock rods, going with our new aftermarket version is a no brainer!! Part No: 200-1015 - Connecting Rods "RB" 5140 Forged Steel - NEW - Set of 8 - Price: $269.95 |
| Shown above is an original 1966-71
426 HEMI connecting
rod. Practically beefy enough to be used in a diesel semi truck, these
behemoths weigh in at an insane 1,050 grams! They use 7/16" bolts, and
a 1.031" pin size (pressed fit.) Chrysler part number is 2780531, and there
is no casting number at all on the rods themselves. Part No: 100-1115A - Connecting Rod "HEMI" - Used - 1 Piece - Price: $149.95 |
All website content copyright 440 Source.
(661)951-3700
