As far as pushrods are made, they don't do much welding any more. The tubes are cut to length. The ends are machined square. The end are super heated and the ends are pushed into the tubes. The machine holds the pushrod straight and cools it with
oil. They check them for straightness and are either go or no go. Boxed and shipped The new taper ones are the newwer trick setups with 3/8" main bodies and 11/32 or 5/16 ends Stronger and more ridged.
Pat for a nice guy, I didn't think this was about winning or losing. I thought it was about a $20.00 part helping out a CC member, and possible saving a $20,000.00 motor from damage. Smith will test it I hope and we will all learn something new.
As far as the piston deal I am again surprised about not having scuff coatings on the side of the pistons. Pistons used to have long skirts to stop rock in the cylinders and now they have almost none in some motors. I know the scratches you are talking about. It's funny I 3 years ago, put a stroker kit in my SC block and checked the liners after 8 years of racing. I found 1 cylinder with a scratch at .0008" Leak down test was between 4-7%. The #5 was the scratched cylinder at 7%. Maintainance and alot of
oil changes helped reduce this problem. I have all pistons I install have scuff pads or coatings on them. They may last only 30- 50 thousand miles in a normal car and motor but in cobra motors, most are ready for a rebuild by this time.