[s-cars] Rods and high HP: Oil Issue??

[Mihnea Cotet]

At 17:05 22/03/2004 -0600, Bill Mahoney wrote:
>What causes a rod to bend I wonder~
>I seem to recall, (or could be making up) hearing that a likely cause of
>bent rods could be a misfire or miss detonation.

Yup, that or too much torque....

>Is it not super heated pistons/rings that expand and lock up and cause
>what may already be a well heated rod to bend?

Nope, I don't think so....

>Would it be too crazy to think that a properly tuned I-5 should be able
>to handle 400hp without disaster?
>I say yes.

I'd say no, a few friends/customers of mine have been running 400 crank HP 
for quite a while now and they don't seem to have any problems so far.

More important than HP from a fatigue/stress point of view is the torque, 
440 lb/ft is about the limit for stock rods, I've heard of some crazy 
Germans who've been past that and have regretted it....

440lb/ft crank is already achievable with an RS2 setup, take a look at this 
dyno graph of an RS2 tuned by me a few months ago:
http://www.info.fundp.ac.be/~mik/Dyno-graphs/Graph_mihnea.jpg

Torque is 601Nm at 3540 RPM, HP is a bit lowish at only 364 HP at 5500 RPM 
but this has been taken care of now as I've tuned it again to give it some 
more HP up in the RPM range...

So I'd say, definitely, yes, 400 HP as long as you don't exceed 440lb/ft of 
torque will be ok.

HTH,

Mihnea