Aluminum Rods & Titanium Valves on the street?

So I see in the Steve Morris stuff a lot of his builds are running aluminum rods and titanium valves on the street.....

My question is how do you check them or maintain them in a street strip application. I am pretty sure my next build is or might have one or both of these in it, just curious how you keep aluminum rods happy, and if there is anything special in keeping those happy as well.

I blame Steve Morris TV for this...

Not much help, but, I thought that the Chev 632 crate motor has Ti intakes. If the spring pressures and cam
are not horrendous, the Ti valves will keep a seat as long as steel, I was told.

If Titanium valves last as long as steel in a NA application, they might be worth the extra .05" in diameter and weight loss on the valvetrain.

You saw his teardown of the Cleetus Mullet engine I am sure. That thing had lots of passes on it, ran up to 50PSI of boost, and did at least 2 drag and drive events. Steve even said it was pushed harder than it was intended. In my world brooming the rods into the trash and replacing them once a season doesn't count as streetable to me, but plenty seem to do it.

A long time ago a rod maker (Bill Miller) said rpm is the governing factor on life span of an aluminum rod. A steel rod won’t last as long as an aluminum rod in a top fueled engine so there ya go.

My next build, I will price them vs. the standard stuff and see.....I do not put enough street miles on to kill anything every season. I was always told neither were streetable, but with the huge weight of a SS 2.40" intake valve, it might really take the strain off my valve-train and keep the springs cooler and need less pressure to run. I bought a reduced ramp street stripe cam where they said all I need is #180 of spring pressure. I am just looking at what makes sense and helps. And I think Titanium intakes might be my ticket to making things last and rpm like a small block. The oil squirters should also allow the springs to live longer too.

The rods are probably a stretch as I run the Hemi like a bracket car, leave at 2k and shift around 6200.....I do not think these would be any kind of an advantage for me....

I also want to do Drag Week one of these days, and I need this thing to last....



Yeah, its Steve's fault.....

Cleetus pushed the small block to the breaking point....What did he think they would do to a BB? What' is so beautiful is how well they did with it..They conquered everything with it. As they learned how to tune it an run fast, they were able to turn it up time and time again....To the point, I think they made about 1000hp more than Steve had planned on...I think this combo is supposed to be around 2000hp and live well...And went to #57 on the boost and pushed it to 3000hp level with a CAST block....

2/3 of the way down this page...

http://www.bmeltd.com/rods.htm

I think now-a-days people tell you that you can run ti valves on the street with DLC coating. Ti is sexy but I don't turn that many RPM's. I've always thought you could run alum rods on the street, just don't tell anybody or you're gonna have to listen to all their smack.

Chevy LS7 uses titanium valves and titanium connecting rods. That is the engine used in factory corvettes and camaros with factory warranty

It is all about stress cycles, and whether those cycles are close to a certain limit. Some lawnmower engines have had aluminum rods. They live a very long life, due to very low stress. An example of a very low stress situation was i had a set of BME396 forgings made with 2.1 rod bearings, 7.1 inch long, .990 pin end. I built a 4.35. bore rb motor with a stock 440 crank offset ground to 4.00 stroke. Peak rpm was never over 6400, cubes 475. It lived a very long life, after i raced it for rwo years at about 600 hp and sold it i ran into the buyer years later, and he was spraying it. And it was still together.

Plenty of people do it. No, they are not daily drivers but for a weekend cruiser and street strip car thay are fine. No, I don't do it personally. Not in my budget.

The trouble with titanium valves is the gumminess of the material. It likes to gald (friction weld) very easily. The problem is with the seats, sticking pieces of valve to the seat. That's were the beryllium/copper comes in.

It would be very interesting to see how GM dealt with this.

OK I see how they did it. Its not in any production engines, and only in their 570 crate engine that isn't street legal.

I can tell you from working there, they had copper berlinium seats in most heads...

If you want to run to run aluminum rods it's important to make sure the oil temperature is up to 160 degrees before you start driving the engine. I let my engine run about 10 minutes before I ever drive it with the aluminum rods.

As far as titanium valves unless you have a huge diameter valve and are subjecting it to high rpms you'll be a lot better off just using a 1-piece stainless steel valve.All the trick stuff sounds great, but there are trade-offs to using those items.

Following the KISS Method (Keep It Simple Stupid) reduces a lot of stress on the mind and wallet.

Tom

Once he brought Pete Harrell in to tune the car is when it really picked up, he knew how to make the power safely and how to put it down. If you watch Pete's YouTube channel(Real Good at Doin Stuff) he dives into some of the changes he made. Since Pete does his own engines he kind of took a little shot at Steve when he commented that Garrett gave him a 50lb ceiling on the boost originally and he didn't know what that was all about lol.

I know alot of the guys here probably can't stomach the Cleetus McFarland stuff but when he goes racing it can be pretty interesting.

I always thought the GRP was the street/strip aluminum rod. Seems like i read the alloy is a bit different. Sport bikes have been running TI valves for a long time and mostly street. They do have 2 intakes thought, so a little smaller. I have never seen a sport bike with aluminum rods. They use TI for those too.

Both the LS7 and LS9 production engines used Titanium valves

The last thing any engine builder wants is to see is his engine blown up in front of all the Youtube viewership! Cleeter and Texas Speed went through that over the last few years when they were pushing the LS platform well beyond what was reasonable and people started bagging on Texas Speed. Cleet makes sure and tell everyone now that it's not a build or a parts issue, it's just a part of racing when you push stuff hard and have a failure. I'd imagine Steve puts very safe "limits" on his stuff with customers to avoid negative publicity about his product! Steve has said recently that he still can't believe how good that engine looked inside when he got it back! LOL!

When everything is filmed and put on the interweb, its tough to be in that spotlight for sure...But without it, you don't see the behind the scenes thrashing...Which is what you have to overcome to be on top. And I agree, that guy they brought in pushed that car harder than its ever been, and it sounded awesome.

And I am pretty sure the only ceiling for those guys is when it goes POP!....

CRN Or DLC coating is now used on Titanium valves & will help them last on street duty

Powdered metal seats, {Durabond Killer B for example) are more common, at least more machinist friendly than beryllium copper/bronze. It's all just money but for most people, the Ferrea hollow stem valves are better return on the dollar. Unless you have the heads and are willing to cam to support the high rpm, I would think that taking the titanium valve money and spending it on more cubic inches makes more sense, especially in a mopar situation. S/F...Ken M

With lighter valves, any given cam could be used with less spring pressure, better for engine longevity.
Lighter valves doesn't by itself mean you HAVE to rev the motor higher.

British bikes used aluminum rods 70 years ago. Honda 750 got 70,000 street miles.
Limited RPM is the key.

Correct you are sir! DLC is tougher than CrN however CrN can be reworked whereas DLC requires recoating from the base material. Either coating can be run with a standard seat and both create a very durable valve job.

For a BBC 2.250 +.100 long intake the difference is between steel and Ti is about 50g i.e. 144 vs 92g

Ti valves are more forgiving due to the coatings. Either will require a moly stem coating.

+.300 tip are typically steel insery and .250 use lash caps in many apps so be cautious of that spec.

The Xceldyne rep told be the BeCu seats (and moldstar 90, etc) were employed for heat dissipation more than anything. He also advised me to avoid working with the material without a respirator.