Anyone use titanium rods?

[myshtern]

I was just browsing the Pauter website and saw that they offer titanium rods. $1350 per rod "beat:

Anyway, they claim that their titanium rods weigh about 33% less than their chrome moly rods so on a 6 cylinder this would be equal to removing the weight of 2 full rods. I was wondering, how does this translate to power?

Has anyone used titanium rods?

[Skaterkid]

The 33% sounds about right depending on which temperature treatment the 4340 chromoly they use and if the titanium rods are built to withstand higher stresses than the moly rod. As far as power related bonuses, you can run higher rpms with the chromoly rod without worrying about tensile failure and you'll put less stress on the crank at any given rpm because of the weight savings. Also the titanium will allow you run higher boost pressures than a moly rod of the same dimensions (again this depends on the heat treatment of the moly rod becuase it can have a higher ultimate tensile strength). And now that I look in my materials book I see that the titanium rod needs a little more beef to it because it will stretch more than a similar size moly rod at the same level of stress. Also, the lighter weight means the engine will feel smoother and rev quicker.

[nxbrennan]

I <3 Titanium

[Conrad]

not worth it for anyone on this board!

[myshtern]

The 33% sounds about right depending on which temperature treatment the 4340 chromoly they use and if the titanium rods are built to withstand higher stresses than the moly rod. As far as power related bonuses, you can run higher rpms with the chromoly rod without worrying about tensile failure and you'll put less stress on the crank at any given rpm because of the weight savings. Also the titanium will allow you run higher boost pressures than a moly rod of the same dimensions (again this depends on the heat treatment of the moly rod becuase it can have a higher ultimate tensile strength). And now that I look in my materials book I see that the titanium rod needs a little more beef to it because it will stretch more than a similar size moly rod at the same level of stress. Also, the lighter weight means the engine will feel smoother and rev quicker.
So did you guys build your baja engine with titanium rods?

[Skaterkid]

Nope.

First, we couldn't afford them, and the SAE rules stipulate that we use a Briggs and Stratton engine (a spec engine) and the internals cannot be touched. The only thing allowed is doing polishing of the ports.

[myshtern]

wtf, I thought they only made you use that tiny air restrictor but you could modify the your engine any way you wanted. So is FSAE the same? Cant touch the engine?

[Skaterkid]

No, this is Baja. FSAE is totally different. You're only limited to 600CC of displacement. But in past years we've only done bolt ons to the car because we can't afford machine work, custom pistons, rods, cams, etc. Mostly we do a custom tune with a custom made header, intake manifold, and exhaust. CSM isn't doing the FSAE for safety reasons (its a big pile of bullshit, they just don't want to give us any money).

[myshtern]

Yeah, I'm going to CSU pretty much for FSAE. I would have considered mines if they would have been into it. Well... that and if they had any women.

[Skaterkid]

Yeah, CSU's throwing money at their FSAE program, but some of the people don't have a clue how to use all the nice shit they have. Plus its a two car development which is cool and sucks. But we were stumping a lot of their aero crew because a lot of their ideas were very questionable.

[TheJackal]

Like it would matter for you if they had women.

We have a titanium rod in our shop. GRP makes them locally. Skaterkid pretty much had the run down though.

[Brian]

Ti rods are great for N/A, but I hear they are not the best choice for running high boost. Lingenfelter changes out the titanium rods in the corvette on ALL of their high hp builds. As skaterkid noted, titanium stretches far more than chromoly, and a good set of chromoly rods does have a higher tensile strength.

[doctorstupid]

I did the math one day while very, very bored, and calculated the power gain in my engine based on the rotating and reciprocating weights of the rods would be approximately 0.31 horsepower if I went to titanium rods, about $24,000/horsepower.

But the gain of ti rods really isn't power gains, it's pulling (in my case) about 2 pounds of weight out of the engine, making it more responsive. I pulled twice that much weight out with a stock size aluminum crank pulley for $129, much more cost effective ;)