[gogtogo]

Have a 467 built by BTR Performance in 2010 that I bought as a short block with 30 ish passes on it. It has Ross pistons, Ohio forged 4.250 Crank and GRP (1100 series) Rods. I put 350 cfm HP’s on top in 2011 and went 9.90’s all weekend in the heat at Norwalk in 2012.
My question is I’m pretty impressed with the GRP Rods because they have a good deal of street miles on them and the car sat for 3 yrs while I was working in Nashville. I did drive it this year but didn’t dare take it to the track due in part to how long the rods have been under torque. I will be freshening it thi winter and have heard good things about the R & R Rods. This site was very helpful when putting a top end together and car is a blast to drive with sick throttle response so I’m staying with aluminum rods.
Thanks for any experience y’all have had with either rod.

[mgarblik]

I understand you are asking for recommendations for GRP or R&R aluminum rods. However, I feel compelled to ask you to consider the best aluminum connecting rods available. For about the same price, you could buy BME, (Bill Miller Engineering) forged aluminum connecting rods. We have been running them in Pontiac engines to 3300 HP for 20 years and over 10,300 RPM without failure. Do yourself a favor and spend a little time on their web site and see for yourself. If you become serious about buying and want to speak to Bill Miller himself, PM me and I will set it up. Good luck with the rebuild.

[ponjohn]

Originally Posted by gogtogo

Have a 467 built by BTR Performance in 2010 that I bought as a short block with 30 ish passes on it. It has Ross pistons, Ohio forged 4.250 Crank and GRP (1100 series) Rods. I put 350 cfm HP’s on top in 2011 and went 9.90’s all weekend in the heat at Norwalk in 2012.
My question is I’m pretty impressed with the GRP Rods because they have a good deal of street miles on them and the car sat for 3 yrs while I was working in Nashville. I did drive it this year but didn’t dare take it to the track due in part to how long the rods have been under torque. I will be freshening it thi winter and have heard good things about the R & R Rods. This site was very helpful when putting a top end together and car is a blast to drive with sick throttle response so I’m staying with aluminum rods.
Thanks for any experience y’all have had with either rod.

What does this mean?

[gogtogo]

Mgarblik, BME is on my short list as they have campaigned for many years that aluminum will live a long happy life with street us. I do see they recommend taking the torque off during storage.

Ponjohn, that Rods have been assembled for 9 years and only inspected when I bought the short block. That seems to be a long time with 55 psi pulling on The threads.

Thanks for any and all constructive information. It is truly appreciated.

[S/st 54]

My 2 cents recommendation is MGP or BME.

[Scott Stoneburg]

I dont think having the rods torqued and just sitting has any impact. Its the repeated duty cycles that wears them. I would think youre ok with the existing rods.

[mgarblik]

Originally Posted by Scott Stoneburg

I dont think having the rods torqued and just sitting has any impact. Its the repeated duty cycles that wears them. I would think youre ok with the existing rods.

Yes, absolutely correct. Most aluminum rod manufacturers have a formula for expected life based on number of cycles, HP level, rod length, piston weight, RPM's. The semi-unknown in the OP's situation is not having a reliable idea of the total number of cycles on the aluminum. Without that knowledge, I think he is wise to replace the connecting rods and then keep a log. The last thing he needs is an oil pan full of aluminum cole slaw.

[Sirrotica]

I went to the BME site and was impressed he gives the credit to HO Racing for trying the rods out on street engines in the mid 70s because of lack of good, reasonably priced rods for Pontiac V8s. This experiment pretty much dismissed the, no aluminum rods in street engines rumor that was prevalent at that time.

There was a set of BME Pontiac rods for sale here on CL, but I'm guessing that there is no way that an accurate life span can be ascertained from used rods with no records, you'd be just guessing how much life is left in them.

[RAIV-Z]

I plan on switching from Callies Ultra to BME rods on my next rebuild. I've had the same set in a ~500hp street car since the early 90's.

[PAUL K]

I bought a set of BME rods through H-O Specialties around 1987. I assembled the engine they were used in around 1990 and fired up the engine in 1993. Long story short after thirty minutes of run time the engine needed to be taken apart. When reassembling the engine three of the rods cracked perpendicular to the rod bolt threads while being torqued. I contacted H-O, and they never heard of this issue and asked us to send them direct to BME who claimed they had never seen this. After inspecting them for a couple of months they told us they cracked because of corrosion caused from the metal bolt being torqued in the aluminum while being stored through a few winters (they had a scientific name for the corrosion).. They refused to do anything as far as replacing the rods or selling me another set at a discount. Finally Ken from H-O wanted to resolve the issue and sold me a new set with a heavy discount. A couple of years later when I bought another set of BME's their instruction sheet recommended loosening the rod bolts in cold weather climates during the winter months. The rods that H-O sold us at a discount were ran for the next fifteen years or so and never had the pan off. The engine ran as fast as high nines in a 3700 lbs car with nitrous. Had thousands of street miles and hundreds of quarter mile blasts. When we finally retired the engine, most of the rod bolt threads were goofy and the bolts wouldn't screw in or out smoothly.

[455firebird1969]

Dissimilar metals have a tendency to cause corrosion, as all corrosion is galvanic in nature. When you couple steel and aluminum, the dissimilar metals will corrode, and the term is galvanic corrosion.

[BruceWilkie]

Paul I believe the term your looking for is galvanic corrosion. I had an aluminum flywheel tear out a chunk trying to remove a clutch bolted to it for @ 30 years .

Gogtogo...others...an hour meter is useful so are cycle meters for keeping track...try Grainger's.

From what I've read aluminum rods don't like hard use before oil gets to temp. Lots of rapid Accel/decel ( road race, I 24 6-9am 3-6pm☺️) won't be good for aluminum rod life. Normal driving almost doesn't count for stress or stretch except maybe warm up.

[Dragncar]

I was instructed to buy one of those epoxy on oil pan heaters you can get a Tractor Supply if i ever went with aluminum rods.
Told never to take it off idle until engine is warm.

[steve25]

Motors like drag types that never get the oil temp above the boiling point of water/ condensation will show issues like this besides the effects of the acid byproduct of combustion that eats away at soft metals like Aluminum be it in Rods or Bearings!

[gogtogo]

A lot of good stuff being shared. I was hoping to creat a discussion and I thank all you. I don’t get to the track nearly as much as I would like to optimize my combination but it’s a fun “big boy toy “ to play with on the streets.
I have always liked the idea aluminum rods due to shock absorption for the crank and bears. Everyone thinks I’m crazy and just need to run a good steel rod but I like being different and so far had good luck with aluminum. It wasn’t all that long ago guys said aluminum heads wouldn’t take the street, but hear we are...

[Dragncar]

But then again I picked up a set of Molnar Power Adder rods for 630 $, spot on and can take just about anything you can throw at them. Don't have to worry about cycles.

[GTOGEORGE]

Power adders = aluminum rods.......GRP’s!



GTO George

[RAIV-Z]

Originally Posted by Dragncar

I was instructed to buy one of those epoxy on oil pan heaters you can get a Tractor Supply if i ever went with aluminum rods.
Told never to take it off idle until engine is warm.

Told by who?
I've never used a heater in NH and off idle is fine, just don't beat the crap out of it until it warms up. The car is only driven in nice weather. I do start the Camaro up once in awhile over the winter and only drove it once in 2018. The RAIV engine has only been out of the car once for a refresh since the early 90's.

BME rods and bearings looked great. I was going to send them back to BME to have them checked. Talked to Bill Miller, his comment was that "Those rods don't know they have been out of the box" at that power level.

Ed

[Jeff Kinsler]

Originally Posted by GTOGEORGE

Power adders = aluminum rods.......GRP’s!



GTO George

Truth!! GRP ttfmf

[Kevspontiacs@aol.com]

I was told years ago that when you put new bolts in the rods need to be resized. Is that accurate? And if a rod bolt only has four torque cycles by the time you put the motor together and one winter you are looking at new bolts and resizing the rods??
Definitely going with aluminum rods on my next build and really hope the information I have is not right.



Kevin