Re: Valve Springs

[Dave Lawson <dlawson@ball.com>]

Dan Bocek sez:
> Here's another interesting tidbit: of course I'm replacing all of the
> valve springs, but how do I know one won't break on me again in the
> future?  John at Sport Wheels suggested that we have the springs
> 'magnafluxed' to check for any initial stress in the metal.  Anyone
> know anything about this?
>                                                     Dan Bocek
>                                                     dan@di.com
Dan,

How old were the valve springs which broke? Were these replaced when the 
pistons were installed or were these the origional Abt valve springs when 
they built the big valve head? Has John or anyone else everheard of valve 
springs failing on a TQC?

Another enhancement you could look into are some of these new coatings which 
are applied to the internals of engines. An article I read recently (in a 
recent issue of Hot Rod) talked about applying a low-friction self 
lubricating dry film polymer coating to valve springs. They said that 
uncoated valve springs usually run 30 deg hotter than the oil and a coated 
spring only runs 20 deg hotter which increases the life of the valve spring.

They also mentioned other coatings for other engine parts like low friction 
oil-shedding dry film, heat dissipating and thermal barrier coatings. It 
seems that Top Fuel and Winston Cup teams have been using this technology 
for quite some time. Has anyone else been looking into this?
 -
Dave Lawson  dlawson@ball.com