Box Stock

akra rules

Would you not post simply because of the way the rules are written ? Meaning no modification to rod surface finish ? Are you saying in order to get a motor to properly hold up the rules have to be broken initially or hundreds of rod and cranks available to be sorted through ? Or a super high dollar machine and set up available ?
 
Coty Morrow said:
Dyno don
Would you care to do a post on what process you take to properly clearance and set your rods to make last please ?
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Coty, you are going to find this hard to believe but I do not touch the rods other than to mic them to see that the clearance is proper. I never clearanced a rod in the flathead days and I do not clearance the rods for the clone. Factory clearance of .002 to .003 works fine for me. Now that there will probably be a rule for 2014 that will allow us to clearance I will true them up if when done I still have the proper clearance I want. I never had a rod seize on the flatty or any of my clones.
 
Greeting All,

Please give us till Friday and we should be able to posts the changes for the 2014 rule book. As I stated in a previous post, no major changes coming, just additional checks to clear up some compared to know stock issues. We are also addressing the rod in an inexpensive and positive way for all.

FYI, the stock rods have a burnished matting surface from the factory. That means through this process the surface has a hardened finish of .002" - .003" thick. You really don't want to hone through this hardened burnished surface, could result in advanced rod siezure.

Thanks,

Bill
 
I never knew about the hardened layer.
I have a new rod and crank here from a red motor. I'm going to plasti gauge and mic it out.
I have been honing to a gauge pin that I made .003 bigger then the crank. I have a few made. I use a sunnen mandrel tool and die hone. I have had two out of 12 or 15 fail after about 600 laps.

I agree. I never clearanced a rod in te flathead days. Never. Only ever had one flathead rod break and that was at 7200 rpm. I was just always more trusting in the machining of the old flatheads I guess and will probably start being more trusting in the clone now
 
I would hope you could purchase and download the rules for next season..OR even become an AKRA member and get the rules by doing so online...like everything else these days.
I know if billet rod is legalized I will be likely be moving to a different engine package..As much as I like building and tinkering on these motors I will find other outlets for spending $800.00+
 
although I run a stock appearing class that allows the billet rod, I don't think (and this is just me) that allowing a billet rod would lead to higher rpm's or $800+ more in costs. this is just for conversation sake, but with all the other rules in place, then a billet rod would only be as said before, an insurance policy. I'm not trying to influence anything, but when your dealing with a rod turning in excess of 5000 rpm, having a part that isn't prone to failure would be nice. I've seen pictures on here of catastrophic failures that may have been caused by rod failure. but, like I said, this is only for conversation, but why is the billet rod not allowed? is it due to other, lets say, less reputable builders taking advantage of it or is it based on cost?
 
I'm like Greg, were just a few steps away from another class and only a few dollars more to building a stock appearing or Modified Clone with all the blueprinted parts in the stock class were closer than you think. $6. or $8.00 for a stock rod verses a $60. rod and they fail occasionally too.
Lets wait and see whats offered up now and how well things work out with the revisions being given us for 2014.
JMO
 
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I would like to see the rod as an option. Have seen many break, personally in our engines we have had 5 out of about 200 engines break. Most let go at lower rpms, below 6,000 on all of them and less than 5,000 on some. From what I can tell the rod caps broke in half on all but one that broke at the wrist pin. None were galled in any way they just failed, some were supposedly the new forged rods and all had .002 to .003 clearance. I do not think it is an rpm problem as we have several engines turning 6700 plus with no problems at all. It is my opinion that the material is substandard and some rods are just destined to fail no matter what. It is the consequence of mass production with junk metal and low quality standards. I understand the added cost of a billet rod, maybe someone could have one made in China cheaper. But with the limits of the carb, cam and springs we will turn no more rpms than we do now.
 
Never honed a flathead rod??? I can't recall how many thousands of stock Briggs flathead rods I honed before billet rod became legal. And since our track allowed honing of the stock clone rod, we have had zero clearance related rod failures.
 
Using a Sunnen LBA-650 Six Speed Pedestal Hone.....predecessor to the MBB-1160.

AK20-1187 UE 2L Lifetime Hone Unit
K20J87 Stone
UE-B Guuide Shoe

Genuine Sunnen Oil
 
Renegade said:
personally in our engines we have had 5 out of about 200 engines break
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I think 2.5% failure rate isn't so bad. For comparison, electronics have an average failure rate of 15%. Yes, it still sucks to lose a rod rod or a motor but thats a reasonable failure rate for something that's being run competitively IMO. 2.5% is less than HALF of the failure rate of flatscreen TVs. That's pretty awesome!
 
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