what are the best and highest hp handling rods on the market
 

please let know what your findings are and hp made im looking at carrillo

george

Oliver far as I know, pretty sure thats what casper runs and IIRC they claim 1900FWHP

oliver and carrillo both get my vote.

btw doesn't ARP have a new rod bolt that's EVEN BETTER than an L-19?

what do you guys think about the probillets

The tradeoff is hp & engine speed vs weight & duty cycle. It is not hard to build a 650hp (at a steady state) rod that is used mostly on the street. It is another thing to build a 500gm rod to handle 650hp at 9000rpm for a 24-hour road race.

Carrillo, Oliver, Crower, Dyers all make good rods. Several have low cost lines. CompStar, Eagle, and Scat also are low end rods that can handle decent power. However, I don't know any one using them for serious racing. Lunati, Manley are somewhere in the middle.

As a rule of them, all aftermarket rods are 4340. The next step up is 300M, also called 4340M, which has about 40% higher yield strength. These allow the same power rating with a lighter rod. I think all Dyers are 4340. The step up from there is titanium.

Also in the picture are pin and journal size. Where weight is important (oval track racing, and I surprised not more in the LS1 world) rod journals of 1.88 (Honda) or 1.78 (BMW) have replaced the GM 2.0 and 2.1 size. They allow a lighter rod. .927 is a common pin size. Larger piston pins are changed for smaller ones in many aftermarket setups.

Another trick is piston guided rods, which allow narrower journals. Prior to the one engine/weekend rule, this had steel rod weights down to 440gm on 800hp NASCAR engines.

A look at the Crower and Manley online catalogs will give you an idea about tradeoffs. Carrillo and Crower, and I think Oliver, will grind you any combination you want.

When building an engine, AFAIK, getting the overall bob weight down (piston, rings, pin, locks, rod, and journal bearings) is the goal. It results in equivalent weight off the crank. with low 1400gm bob weights (500gm rod, 350 gm piston, <90 gm pin) crank weights of 32-34# are possible on a 3.335 stroke. This requires the minimum weight piston, rod, pin, etc. allowed under the rules.

Nice information....very in depth.

From the small amount of data I have gathered of commercial rods (SCAT, Crower, Comp-Star, Lunati and Eagle) the Eagle ESP lightweight H beam is the lightest at 550 grams. The Lunati rods are heavy but strong.

Pauter. They make both 4340 and 6AL4V Ti rods. Custom made to your specs and will take anything you want to throw at it. Seriously.

Pauter $995 each! Ouch. I inquired a couple well repsected places, one in Colorado about 18months ago, and for a LS1 Set with rod bolts of choice (like theres many options) it was only $3600 4week lead time. Think thats where my $ would go, and BTW, they quoted a very nice, high hp level capability with the satisfaction of longevity!
if not the Oliver!
Charlie

well the lunati probillets are 625 grams and are made of 4340e so i guess they are somewhat strong and are not that heavy

george

Very good information :)

What is a good set of rods around the 1k price range for roadracing?

Carrillo rods rule that what I ve got stuffed in my 408..... I'd check out Crower or Manley rods to stay under 1k but maintain top quality careful with some Carrillo bult options can run 30 bucks or more per bolt....

George,

What's the goal of the motor? RPM, Piston Mass, Stroke, Power Levels?

There are a lot of good rods out there, Carillo, Oliver, Arrow all can make you exactly what you need, but do you need to spend the coin on them?

David made a lot of good points... but the key here is what do you need. Pin sizes, rod journals etc... are all great but what you need to do the job you are doing is the key. If you are worried about strength and quality you don't need to care too much about mass and bearing speed... those help IF you have enough rod for the job.

The Manley H Beam is used by a lot of really good shops and even though it's heavy it's a hell of a rod for the money. The Eagle H beam if you inspect it correctly, use good rod bolts and use the right method to secure them are a hell of a rod for the coin and have been in motors that run in the 7's. I just don't see a person or typical shop that needs the $1200-$3000 con rods in a LS1, maybe the C6-R's or the CTS V Race cars but nobody really else.

Bret

Never had a problem with carrillo rods to 8000rpm with a scat crank.

Those are probably much heavier than the standard howards rods..

All rod MFGs have different rod profiles.. Oliver, Manley, Carillo etc all of them...

A rod for a restrictor plate racing oval car will be much more spindle like than one for an almost 2k hp small block..

What is the stroke, RPM, use drag or road race etc... Alot of factors determine the right rod..

Weight matters and so does keeping the rod in the block...

Do you know much about the Howards rods? Are they billet? I've heard good things about them and like the fact that they are not offset SBC rods unlike several of the expensive rods. I've also heard they are damn near bullet proof... and cheap to boot.

The Howard rod is 4340 forging. It is forged in Trenton MI.
It is a good quality rod for the money. We have used these rods in many engines with great success. The one's on this board that have them would include Mike Brown, Steve Turley and David Childress.
Casper has a Oliver rod in the engine at this time. It has a 2 inch pin rod/crank combo. I used this rod because of the "lube tube" option that runs oil from the bearings under pressure to the wrist pin. This was desired because of a 17-19 inch vac in the pan.
Once you come up with a desired use and a rpm limit and piston weight, a rod can be chosen for a engine.
If you just want the highest hp rods, my guess would be BME or GRP in a fuel engine.

Kurt

i think im going with grp they are who i talked to and gave me the best info and assurance of there product my engine is a 427 and looking to make use of my 106mm turbo i have here for it

george