There are many off the shelf products available. However we are increasingly aware of quality issues with many rods on the market today. When steel is produced from recycled scrap, it's not as easy to control the makeup of the alloy that pours out of the furnace.
In recent years, the market has been flooded with dirt-cheap connecting rods. Many of these are H-Beam style rods, which are either raw forgings (that are final machined here) or fully finished rods.

Rods from China or India reportedly may cost as little as $10 apiece when purchased in bulk quantities - which is far less than what forgings made in the USA cost. This creates a huge profit opportunity for distributors and rod suppliers who can resell them to end-users for $600 to $800 a set.

To make matters worse, there has also been a reported epidemic of knock-off products being sold as brand name connecting rods. One manufacturer of high-end connecting rods said, УProbably 60% of the rods you see listed for sale on eBay are not our rods. Unless the rods come in our box and have our name on them, they are not our rods. If the price is unusually cheap, there's a reason why. We get three or four calls a day from people who have bought these phony rods and have had problems with them. It's tarnishing our reputation as a supplier of quality products.Ф

For this reason we are very meticulous in sourcing 3rd party connecting rods. We stand by our choice of con rod as if we made it ourselves. We only use trusted manufacturers, with known quality control processes , trusted supply lines and rock solid reputations.

Aluminum is a excellent material for connecting rods because of its lightweight. Reducing the weight of the rods reduces the mass of the rotating and reciprocating parts and allows the engine to rev faster and rev higher. In addition to good throttle response, aluminum's lighter weight can reduce vibration and stress on the crankshaft. Lighter rods also allow the use of heavier, stronger pistons.

Almost all Top Fuel dragsters and funny cars use aluminum rods in their motors. But aluminum rods can have a limited service life depending on how they are used. The rods can stretch, and may fatigue and fail. A good example is drag racing. Top fuel race teams for example rebuild their engines between every race, and typically replace their rods after 8 to 10 runs. ProStock racers may replace the rods after 20 or 30 runs. In the lower drag racing classes, a set of aluminum rods may last 100 to 200 runs or longer. It all depends on the load, the rpm, and the quality of the rods used.

Most racers want their rods to last as long as possible, so for this type of customer steel rods are probably the most economical choice. A set of quality steel rods will cost more than a set of aluminum rods up front. But the longer life of the steel rods will more than offset the cost difference over the long run.

Aluminum rods are often prohibited in track engines because of rule restrictions, although light rods are a bonus in engines like sprint cars that are constantly on and off the throttle.

It all comes down to cost and weight. If a customer wants throttle response, or has a high revving engine, light rods of either aluminum or steel would be a good choice. But for a high torque, high load motor with a limited rpm range, steel rods would probably be better.
Titanium rods are another option for racers who want an extra edge. Titanium is both lightweight and strong. A titanium rod weighs about 22 to 24 percent less than a steel rod of comparable strength, and has approximately the same durability. Titanium rods are a good choice for applications that need quick throttle response like sprint cars, road racers and also drag racers. But due to a surge in the worldwide demand for titanium, the price of the metal has skyrocketed beyond the reach of many racers.

Powder metal rods are used as original equipment in many late model engines because they can be manufactured at less cost than steel rods. Metal powder is pressed into a mold and heated to high temperature to melt the powder into a solid mass (a process called sintering). The result is a near-perfect rod that requires minimal machining to finish. The caps are usually cracked, which saves time and additional machining. Powder metal aftermarket rods are also available for certain engines, and are a good upgrade over stock rods. But for high horsepower or high rpm applications, steel, aluminum or titanium rods are usually preferred.

Rod ratio is a key variable in building a race engine. Very much part of the bespoke process we employ. Rod ratio is the length of a connecting rod (center to center) divided by the stroke of the crankshaft. The range in engines today may be from 1.5 to 2.1, Lower rod ratio numbers are typically associated with lower rpm torque motors while higher rod ratio numbers tend to be high revving high horsepower motors .
Race engine builders have long believed that longer rods provide better crankshaft geometry and allow the piston to dwell longer at top dead center on the compression stroke. This causes pressure to build a little longer in the combustion chamber before the piston starts to move down on its power stroke. The result is a little more power squeezed out of the air/fuel mixture, and a slightly flatter and broader torque curve.
But this thinking is changing. Good cylinder head flow contributes to how much power an engine makes. A longer rod that causes the piston to sit a few degrees longer at TDC on the compression stroke also does the same thing on the exhaust stroke - and that may actually cost you some power.

The longer the piston sits at TDC on the exhaust stroke, the longer it takes to start moving down on the intake stroke to generate a vacuum to pull air and fuel into the combustion chamber. There are a lot of factors involved here, including the flow through the cylinder head (which affects air velocity), how much overlap there is in the valve timing between the closing of the exhaust valve and the opening of the intake valve (which affects scavenging), and the design of the combustion chamber and the top of the piston (which affect airflow dynamics).

No guess work involved.

The right rod for the engine every time.

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