erohslc wrote:
Apologies for the tone of my previous post;
Not seeking an argument, just a passionate discussion.
I wonder how many buckled rods are from detonation, not increased BMEP?
How does a buckled rod illustrate 'recoverability' from excess compression loads?
Detonation does cause an absurd amount of compression and is cause for alot of compressive failure. But realize that when gas is burnt it expands on the order of 10+ times is current volume, typically this is what pushes the piston down so combustion chamber pressure stays controllable, with detonation the volume of gas is increasing while the volume of available space is decreasing, in the scenario of detonation your again talking about going above the rated load by an extreme factor...
erohslc wrote:
And if buckled rods *are* the most common failure in boosted street cars (the result of excess compression forces), than doen't that support the assertion that rods are stronger in tension than compression?
Carter
This is where you have to differentiate correlation from causation, it is a correlation that more failures are from compression failure, that does not mean it is weaker in compression, it just means we aren't ADDING any tensile strain cause we haven't raised revs or max piston speed at all. (in most cases lets say)
The causation is because it is cheaper to add compressive forces to a motor than tensile. Like I said, a super charger is 4-6K. Con rods, fasteners, pistons, valves, retainers, valve springs, wrist pins, cranks, etc that can handle another 1000-2000 rpms are friggin expensive, alot more time, alost more money, alot more to go wrong... so not many people do it.
But ask yourself this if it is still not making sense, take any modern motor in mass prduction, lets take BMW's twin turbo straight 6 out of the 335i, the N54, stock it runs a 7K redline and 8.8psi and 300 HP
Now ask this, would this motor be more likely to handle 25% more boost or a total of 11psi, or 25% more redline which is 8700 rpm.... i know i would MUCH rather up the boost than the revs, shoot 7500 rpm would make me nervous....
because you can pretty much guarante instant, catastrophic, and spectacular death at 8700 rpms because you will have add absurd amounts of tensile stress, while adding boost will not HELP longevity it will prolly run for many thousands of miles (as evidenced by the current after market) happily and die a few, maybe 20-30K miles shorter than if left stock.