[eschaider]

Anth,

Generally speaking the four parts of your engine you want to be as good as possible are the pistons, rods, crank and block. The crank and block are the foundation you build everything else around. If they are weak it doesn't matter what you do elsewhere there is a strength of materials engine failure waiting in ambush for you somewhere down the road.

After those two the pistons and rods take the spotlight. Your pistons need to be optimized for the environment you intend them to operate in. Normally aspirated pistons have one success formula and blown motor pistons have another. Putting one in into the other's service environment will produce unhappy results an eventually broken parts.

The connecting rod and its fasteners not only transmit the power from combustion through the crank slider mechanism but may well be the second most highly stressed component in the engine after the crankshaft. Certainly true on a blown motor and probably also true on a high output n/a engine.

Fred Carrillo started making H-Beams in the early sixties. He was and is considered the pre-eminent connecting rod manufacturer in the world and the father of the H-Beam design as we know it today. He patented that design to protect his intellectual design properties and seventeen years later when the patent ran out he applied for a second seventeen year period of protection. When the extended protection period expired H-Beam connecting rods began to appear from a growing number of suppliers. Today the numbers are legion and from all over the world.

Designed correctly the H-Beam rod is extraordinarily strong and also light. Done as a knock off, low dollar copy without adequate engineering time to properly design the rod for the intended engine/application they are a minimally an untested and most probably a weak link in your engine that will eventually lead to an engine failure.

When Ford built the supercharged 03/04 Cobra engines they went out of Ford to Manley for their H-Beam connecting rods. This was a production first! In Frank Moriarity's book Iron Fist Lead Foot, about the genesis of the engine/vehicle combination, John Colletti, who headed up the internal team was confronted with OEM connecting rod failure during Ford's 300 hour cyclical endurance run on the dynamometer.

To get through the endurance tests they did something Ford had never done to that point - they went to the outside for Manley's rods. Colletti said of the rod failures, "We're going to get rid of that problem, put the gold plated part in there." Two Manley rods cost Ford more than a fully machined Cobra block ready for assembly. The Manley rod equipped engine sailed through the endurance tests multiple times.

Those rods have since been run day after day in street driven vehicles and raced at the track with over 700 ft/lbs of rear wheel torque. The rods continue to perform flawlessly.

Fred Carrillo's original design earned the reputation of simply being the best but not the least expensive. When everyone else could they copied the part. If you select a quality manufacturer for your rods today you will get an extraordinary rod - not at a bargain basement price. The rod will most probably outlast the rest of the engine.

In a word they are stunning. If you buy from reputable manufactures who do not cut corners in the design and manufacturing process - you will not be disappointed. When it comes to mission critical engine parts, I have known many racers who bought the best and were satisfied beyond their expectations. I have also known many who didn't and later wished they did.

Ed