Save yourself some grief and buy new ones IMHO.

http://www.molnartechnologies.com/rods-domestic.html

Mine were new H-beam rods but I changed the balance
on the crank so I had to tweak the rod balance and
the small end.. they had been on the dyno for 10
minutes

Thanks everyone for the advise and information.
The flip side of this is that the crank will also need some attention.
So, by the time I buy new rods, engine bearings, crank work and re balance.
I am most of the way to a new 440 source stroker kit. If I go the new kit route I can opt for more compression and more stroke. Just looking for the best option at this time.

Thanks all,

Digger73 (Mike)

When I get home tonight I will get some pictures down loaded of the rods and the bearings.

Digger73 (Mike)

Here are the pictures of what my rods look like now.

Digger73 (Mike)

Heck that didn’t get very hot from those pictures. I would torque it together and check it with a set of mics or a bore gauge.

I dont like that one rod.. has blue about a
quarter of the rod width.. make sure you check
that rod out closely

Definitely, the start of something bad. But, it looks like you caught it pretty early. You should have it checked for stretch. Those rods can be resized on the big end, but I don't know if the heat that caused the blue streak is significant enough to warrant replacement. Check with your machinist. 1 rod isn't a significant expense to save the motor.
More importantly, I think I would be having the crank magnafluxed at this point.

IN GENERAL: Any steel connecting rod will have a heat treatment at some point. As these are 4340 rods I am 100% sure that they, like any 4340 rod, will have been heat treated in a very specific way. When one gets out of the straight carbon steels and into the stronger alloys the heat treat can increase strength maybe 30%. Also each designer will have his own targets for strength and ductility.

Here are temps to achieve different colors. This is by uniform heating and then rapid cooling. This is different from the colors that happen when the steel is heated and held at a specific temp, like "cherry red heat".

1.HEAT COLOURING OF IRON AND STEEL
yellow/228C
brown/254C
purple red/265C
light blue/264C
dark blue/293C

Here is a normal heat treat for 4340:PROCESSING TEMPERATURES
Typical

Forge
2200°F MAX

Normalize
1550/1650°F

Case Harden
1475/1550°F

Anneal
1475/1575°F

Temper
1200°F & 400°F

I started out thinking use them. But, 400F is around 200C so even the least colored rods have been heated past the last tempering temperature. For any kind of high performance work I'd sell them as-is on Ebay and buy new ones.

R.