the stock rods? I've heard they are already shotpeened from the factory, and am wondering how much it could actually do to improve its strength. Obviously its hardness will increase, but I am not sure if the rods need more hardness or toughness for a motor that sees 8500-9000rpm.

 

instead of spending the money to shotpeen them, i would put that mony into a good set of aftermarket rods, espacially if you are planning to rev that high, shot peening on honda rods help minamially if nothing at all

 

What is shotpeening BTW?

 

shotpeening all four rods cost about $80

new set of crower rods *drool* $400+


*shotpeening rods is where they shoot little metal beads at the rods to make the metal more compressed and supposedly more durable...

 

ball bearings are shot at the metal at high speed, the inpact of the bearings against the metal, compacts the metal molicules of the rod together and helps work out any voids or small cracks in the metal, thus making the metal stronger

edit, Damn not fastenough


[Modified by bikeboy80, 11:04 AM 9/5/2002]

 

lol all good

 

Coming from someone with lots of experience with Crower rods. Crower rods are expensive and are pretty good, however they break unusually frequently. We've gone through lots of Crower rods in our racecar, and at $600 a set they are not cheap. I would highly recommend Eagle rods for anything under 600whp, as I know lots of people who use them, and have never seen an instance where an Eagle rod failed. They are also about $350 a set.

 

This also doesnt apply to any other engine part Crower makes, everything else they makes has worked flawlessly except for the rods.

 

I agree with that all the way

 

Ok maybe I should make this a little more clear.

I've got a fully built head with a stock bottom end with 75k miles on it. This winter I WAS going to go all out and go b20 forged everything girdle bearings the whole 9 yards. However, things in my life have changed and I want to prioritize on different things however I'd still want to rebuild my bottom end to make it more 8500rpm friendly.

NOW, I'm basically shooting for around 11:1 CR by using 81.5mm JDM ITR pistons, i will fit a gsr/itr girdle with dowels onto my LS mains, and will get ARP rod bolts. Now my last question is the rods and I want to find out how much better it will be. I will be revving 8500 max 8800rpm on a track, 8000 every now and then on the street. I'm not making 230whp or 200whp nowhere near the limits of aftermarket rods. My concern is safety with RPM with a bad r/s ratio which I think the girdle and a balanced bottom end should be fine with.

Now let's hear the second round of opinions...

 

since honda rods are alreaty shot peened, doing it again isn't going to get you that much, you may be ok to 8k with stock rods but i think anything above that you are taking some chances

 

Shotpeening is an effective and inexpensive way to homogenize the strength of the rods by helping the rod to "relax".

Another effective process is to deburr and polish the rods to remove any sharp edges (also seen as "stress risers"). After deburring away the sharp edges, the rods are polished and then shotpeened.

This is just stuff I've read in engine blueprinting books and what I've heard from the machine shop. I've never built any motors to race and had them fail and then analyzed for weak points.

I had the option to shotpeen, but decided against it b/c I wouldn't surpass 180whp (ever) or be looking to extend the powerband past 8500rpm.

 

Shotpeening the rods can be a good thing, however, if the rods already have a specified hardness level from the factory I'm not so sure that hardening them more is a good idea. You mention that you would want to harden them some more. Well there is such thing as TOO hard. Think of something that freezes. When it becomes really hard it is super easy to break. This could happen to your rods if you over harden them. It's a much better idea to buy forged pistons. The forging process aligns the molecules in the metal so that it is much stronger, but not neccessarily harder. Hope that load of crap helps.


[Modified by Steak84SS, 5:53 AM 9/7/2002]


[Modified by Steak84SS, 5:55 AM 9/7/2002]