Well I don't mean to sound like a hater or cynic because I could just ignore the thread but aluminum rods have been used for years and I have heard stories about nearly every brand lasting for 10's of thousands of street miles in some car by a marketing department or just some guy. It became particularly bad in the mid 90's when CNC equipment became more affordable and CNC vendors starting machining aluminum rods right before the eyes of the visitors at the PRI show. Lots of new names popped up with everybody claiming superiority as usual. Of course as usual you still needed to replace your rods at regular intervals appropriate to your combination regardless of who made them.

I still have the same set of SuperRods (real forged rods) from the late 90's and they're not broken or deformed because.....the engine hasn't been run in years. They were successfully resized once and they're in great shape.

The real test of an aluminum rod is their use in a dirt track car. If they can survive half a season of hard racing in a dirt late model they can handle any kind of drag abuse IMO.

Have the Jaeger rods been sucessfully tested in an oval track environment?

What magic causes the rods not to be affected and change size from temperature?

 

Ed,
I deal with it everyday, I'm just thankfull I can go pound nails on my deck project to relieve the stress.

 

I introduced Kirk to French Grimes several years ago. The rods have been used in several Super Late Dirt Late models, Sprints, STAR Series, and Hava Tampa 358's. You are correct, a drag engine has nothing on a 15 to 1 Alky engine that has to run 75 laps at 1/2 mile dirt track. Their have been some asphalt applications also.


The rods come in 3 series depending on application. The 1000HP series rods run between $1400 and $1600 a set. The higher HP rod get a "Waffled Beam" design along with some other inhancements. These rods are designed for 2500HP and 5000HP applications.

 

The rods weren't outlawed, the rules were just revised to a minimum weight of 480 grams. NASCAR implemented a similar rule in advance of the NHRA. NHRA also wanted to remove some parts made of exotic and toxic materials such as beryllium in an effort to reduce some of the exotic factor and as a result hopefully prolong the life of engine builders. Surprisingly there are no rules regarding the materials in the rest of the driveline such as the transmission for instance.

 

Jagers rod is catagorized as a Ceramic Composit and therefore it is outlawed. At $1600 to to $2500 a set they are not much more money then a CA Deep Cryo aluminum rod. Now a set of $60K Beryllium Intake and Exhaust valves yes thats expensive but they can sill run Beryllium valve seats. Jager's rods were 415 gms when discovered in a tear down of an NHRA PS engine. I can't comment on the rest of the story in print but could in conversation. . .lets just say MONEY was an issue but not the money the parts cost.

 

Interesting. I googled jager rods and found you talking about them on other forums. The HotBoat guy brought up MechArt rods which were beautiful bridgelike works of art. I believe the man passed away, I wish I had one of those rod for my desk.

After reading the patent application its pretty clear that they are anodized aluminum rods coated in PTFE. I don't see where the "ceramic composite" comes from but i may not fully understand the definition of ceramic. At any rate its a coating process that should have no bearing on rules unless the marketing of the rods makes calling it a ceramic composite favorable to distinguish itself from the rest of the aluminum rods out there. I mean how many prostock engine builders can you really have for customers? Certainly not a prime market for a business....ok I sold 44 of these things....now what?

Good luck, I understand you are a rep for the product and a man has to make a living.

 

Heh,heh,heh, give it up Chris.

 

Chris, I called the MAD Technologies place that was listed when these were first written about over on Competition Plus and got a guy by the name of Ed McLemore. He said he was the sales manager but not knowing any of these gentlemen i didn't buy any at the time. It would seem that eventually the market would come to Kirk, so why not keep the inventory and wait? These would seem ideally suited to a comp engines, even if Pro Stock did ban them. It seems the big organizations always want someone to grease "their" pockets, even though they claim non profit status. Maybe if big business were made to carry their end of the log some of this folishness would end and if they were made to pay taxes this probably wouldn't be an issue, after all they're not a charity or church that help the needy.

 

Harold,
You pretty much nailed it as to what the big "organization" did. Jager is no politician and never will be. He is no marketer and never will be. He is truly the type of guy that gets his kicks from making something better then it was.

He has some orders from some Comp engine builders. Word got out to these builders from the PS guys and the rod will be used in these engines in the future.

I spoke with Jager late last week and he hopes to have material in the very near future. This go around he will have some stocking sizes including rods for the LS1 as some of the board sponsors are interested in using them.

 

[QUOTE=andereck]Interesting. I googled jager rods and found you talking about them on other forums. The HotBoat guy brought up MechArt rods which were beautiful bridgelike works of art. I believe the man passed away, I wish I had one of those rod for my desk.

I got 8 for a BB Chevy. Mechart rods a true work of art. Let me know if you are interested.

 

Hi Chris, I have a friend who used to manufacture heavy aluminum blocks for motorcycles. The heavy casting both stopped engine failures and made a platform which could be safely bored out much farther than the stock blocks. The major organization tried to extort money from him too. He refused to give them any and since the blocks had already been in use for quite some time with a real good track record the racing organization relented and let everyone use them. He has since sold off the business, but it made him lots of money. Actually most of the motorcycle blocks produced in the 80s and 90s were made by him with a variety of names on them. (it's a simple thing to cast someone else's name on the end of a motorcycle cylinder block). Was the other man i spoke to actually employed by Kirk?

 

I don't think this tech is "over my head".
Chris, can you explain how these rods are ceramic and not aluminum?

Ed Wright my buddy, what do you know of these rods and the technology.

Right now I can only see from the description that they are billet aluminum with hard anodizing and teflon coating.


Thanks guys. I'm not trying to be antagonizing. I want to learn something.

Karl Ellwein

www.EllweinEngines.com

 

Karl,
Check your e-mail.