924Board.org

MikeJinCO · Posted: Mon Jan 04, 2016 11:40 pm Post subject: Light Weight Connecting Rods

Last spring after trying to lighten a couple of old connecting rods by grinding the counter balance off and spending quite a bit of time and not getting much accomplished, I found some videos of them being machined and thought I'll take a flyer on that. I sent a set out to John Edwards at Costa Mesa R&D in California to see what would happen. When talked to him( he is a bit old school and email seems to be a lost cause) he said they work well as they are from "a little truck motor".

When I got them back with my ARP rod bolts install they were reduced from a starting point of 887 gm to 754 and all within a gram. They tapered top end looked weird to me, but the local machinist said that is getting pretty common these days and fitting new bushings is not a problem. The cost was quite reasonable and with the rod bolts was less than half of getting Crowers.

One caution, don't expect a rapid turn around.

As
_________________
Mike

'67 MG Midget Dp
'71 Ocelot Dsr Kawasaki 1000(under rebuild)

MikeJinCO · Posted: Mon Jan 04, 2016 11:44 pm Post subject:

That didn't come out quite like I expected.

One more Pic.

_________________
Mike

'67 MG Midget Dp
'71 Ocelot Dsr Kawasaki 1000(under rebuild)

ideola · Joined: 01 Oct 2004 Posts: 15548 Location: Spring Lake MI

Do your rods not have squirters??? It may be that you just happened to photograph them squirter-side down, but I have seen some 924 rods without them. I would not want to run non-squirter rods in a turbocharged application.

Interesting results, thanks for the details!
_________________
erstwhile owner of just about every 924 variant ever made

MikeJinCO · Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2016 3:25 am Post subject:

The rods came out of my 931 motor. I have no plans to use these in a turbo application, I did tell John what my application was beforehand. When I get home(March) I will check to see if he cut thru the squirter hole although I don't recall seeing it in the machining.
_________________
Mike

'67 MG Midget Dp
'71 Ocelot Dsr Kawasaki 1000(under rebuild)

Noahs944 · Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2016 4:45 am Post subject:

Just saw this. Pretty awesome share mate.

MikeJinCO · Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2016 5:33 am Post subject:

The squirters were not affected at all. When I took the pics I didn't turn one rod over to show the squiter.
_________________
Mike

'67 MG Midget Dp
'71 Ocelot Dsr Kawasaki 1000(under rebuild)