Without a doubt it was a metallurgy issue. At least for that hp level. It reminds me of working at my steel mill. When we started running high carbon steel and the chemistry was off along with our coiling temps for that grade the strip would shatter like tempered safety glass. Watching 60,000 lbs of steel shatter like glass is sight to see. It looked like that box of rod shards you were holding.
Do you think it could be a combination of metallurgy and harmonics? I wonder if it hit a weird frequency that caused them to vibrate plus the metallurgy issue.
Rod's using never break under compression. It's usually the reciprocating weight on a one stroke that is not firing where the Piston weight and pin weight has to be overcome brought to a dead stop and pull back down the cylinder. The rod brakes under pulling this weight load down the cylinder after stopping it and then accelerating it back down. That's been my experience over many years
@@jimross1980 yes it’s amazing how some of these engines can turn the RPMs that they do when that piston and Rod has to come to a dead stop then and go in the opposite direction it’s truly amazing
Love the no bull shit test. And the NO blame game on the other rods. They can not handle the power and that is it. Live and learn. That is what makes a person a man or woman. As we say in the north salt of the earth. It is not about the money it is Steve’s integrity that counts. Keep it up steve.
Had the pleasure of meeting Mike (MGP) and toured his shop back in the day when he was starting out, great guy. When we were broke we would put over 100 passes on his rods in a 632 nitrous engine, never one issue.
The amount of spring back that rod had when you released the tension on the press was impressive!!! And I’m sorry, but I saw that coming with the hammer, and couldn’t help but laugh 😂
thank you for going into such detail about the rod failure. I'm with the guys saying it was a metallurgy issue.. someone had a bad day at mill and added the wrong metal or something along those lines
Nice job Steve. I agree that the material used to make your rods is a superior material to the one that you tried. Hopefully that Rod manufacturer will improve their material down the road. I’m learning and that’s a good thing.
Years ago I work as an engineering tech. One of my tasks at the time was to do destructive testing. We had several machines that were very effective for testing tensile and compressive strengths of many different materials. The sledge hammer test wasn't one of them..... lol We had a Rockwell hardness tester which, of course, measured material hardness on the Rockwell scale. One material of interest was BILLET ALUMINUM. Starting with the material as it came straight from the foundry as the base test , and recording successive predetermined test points as the material was heated , cooled etc. The aluminum ALWAYS became more brittle the more it was heat cycled. Tensile strength in most cases wasn't effected as much as hardness was. Not a linear curve as we first thought would be the case. thanks for the vid. Steve 💪
I've never seen aluminum shatter like that. There has to be a manufacturing screwup. It shattered like magnesium are a flawed cast rod. Thanks Steve for all the information and time you spend videoing and editing.
The biggest problem with the mechanical breakage (locking up)) theory is that that very unlikely scenario had to occur in all 8 cyls within a few milliseconds in order for a simultaneous failure to occur. So you take the odds of that happening, we'll say 1000 to one, multiply that by eight (because we need 8 failures) and then we try to factor in the odds of all eight failing exactly at the same time- and we end up with a scenario that makes winning the lottery, getting struck by lightning (and surviving unscathed), and hitting 18 holes in one all on the same day look like an absolute cakewalk. Yeah, there are millions of things that in theory could happen, but you have to look at the odds of those things occurring not only once, but eight times simultaneously. That being said, I still plan on buying a lottery ticket.
I don't believe that you have to justify to anyone the rods that destroyed your last motor were not up two the task. You are a premier engine builder and your content is greatly appreciated.
Honestly man, I think you've explained it plenty. If people don't understand after the first videos. Let them re watch. Lets get back to making motors and engine dynos. Love your work man! Your one of the engineers that make me strive to be better! More Powa Baby!
He’s building a channel. Finding things to make content with. Lot of money in RUclips! I know he’s been at it before.. but he’s had a big influx of subscribers and he is trying to capitalize on it!
@@nsboost totally understand that. But how much can you beat a dead horse. I would hate for him to become the blown rod guy. He explained it way plenty. Let's move on to bigger and better things. Sweep the rods into the dust pan. Or get them shipped off already.
Almost broke a wrist and press in one vid to prove its not a me (Steve) problem 🙏🙏🙏🙏✊✊✊✊ truly dedicated to the craft of quality products and services...... absolutely the greatest doing it right now and much appreciative of the knowledge you kindly share 💯💯💯
Hopefully you talk about the metallurgy report when that comes in. Thanks for the in-depth detailed explanation. Appreciate the videos and your work. Thanks
Its good that you explained that the connecting rods that disintegrated are NOT the same brand that you use in your other / customer motors. I do hope that you share the details of the metallurgy report before you put this subject to bed. Enjoying your informative videos.
Its understandable, being an engine builder, to explain vendor product failure that could impact business. Good job. Admit nothing and deny everything is common with producers of products that fall short . Every result is a result especially during cost/fail analysis....live and learn .
Hey Steve. You've got that thing loaded with 60,000 pounds. You might not want to put your fingers in there. If it let go those bearing plate would jump up and smash your fingers.
that type of catastrophic shattering of 8 aluminum rods you defiantly pushed the material beyond its capability... cool as hell brother... keep up the great work....
Right on what I was thinking the cause of failure was. I posted that somewhere in the second video of this series. May not be bad rods, but not enough rod for this SMX. Shanks for taking us along on the journey Steve.
I have seen pictures in old text books of a rod in a vice where a pipe in the pin hole could twist the rod 90 degrees. There is a lot of science in different rods for different engines.
Shuda called it Can I break my wrist. Gotta suck when your own junk goes out the oil pan for all to see. Good job explaining the failure mode and figuring it out. The shredded AL tells the story.
The materials remaining of the failed rod looks exactly like a cast/pot metal which is never going to have the strength needed for rods period.... a billet grain structure and proper heat treating is a must...
An over hardened rod will have a higher tensile strength than a properly hardened rod, but the toughness will be much lower. Glass is incredibly strong but very brittle.
As a former Thermal Spray Operator I’m stoked to hear you’re getting metallurgy done. I believe you’re correct with the hardness issue. Are they doing a full cut and polish?
For everyone saying those rods were brittle due to quenching, alluminium doesnt work like that. Contrary to steel, if you cool it while it's red hot it gets softer and squishy. Nontheless all those shards looks like a brittle material. Probably it was not pure alluminium but some sort of alloy easier to mold like zamak or similar, that are in fact pretty brittle.
Pure aluminum would make a very lousy rod....too soft. Any aluminum tough enough to work as a connecting rod is for sure going to be an alloy of some sort. My only question about the broken rods are did they shatter under compression or tension? People saying a rod is rated for 'XXX' HP would depend on how that power is being made. NA motors rely on displacement and rpm...and it's the rpm that normally hurts the rod at the end of the exhaust stroke when the piston needs to be stopped then pulled back down with no compression pressure pushing it. Supercharged motors don't need to rev nearly as high to make the same power....so the tensile forces on the rod will be less while the compression forces much greater. To actually compress a rod would take a LOT of pressure..but on Steve's crazy motors maybe that is the higher force? For sure the rods that failed were too brittle for the job at hand.
They were definitely heat treated and alloyed, just not the quench and temper treatment typical of carbon steels. Alloyed aluminum alloys are typically age hardened (precipitation hardening, either artificial or natural). The designation for the type of heat treatment used is the "T" in the alloy designation (6061-T6 aluminum material is the most common aluminum alloy, I'm not saying that was what these rods were made of). My guess is that the alloy used was age hardenable and spent enough time above 240F inside the engine to continue to harden and lost ductility until they were no longer able to withstand the system stresses. Either that or they were over aged and just got to their ultimate tensile stress level on that particular run. No way to know unless Steve discloses the alloy and heat treatment used in the "brand X" rods.
@@TheKajunkat Brand X (though you can figure out who they are by looking at the rod markings visible in part 1 on the wagon engine rebuild video) used "a proprietary alloy" which they claim has a 35% higher yield strength than the competition. With "a strength-to-weight-ratio on par with titanium". That isn't typical for precipitation hardened aluminium, that suggests severe cold work hardening. The latter would nicely explain the brittle fracture mode too. So-called overageing can happen with precipitation hardening alloys, and that does reduce the ductility somewhat, but it does not make the material fracture as if it were plain cast iron.
On the grain structure: It depends on the orientation of the material in the machine's fixture prior to the machining (manufacturing) process beginning. We can load a block of AL in the machine to cut the part at any angle to the grain structure's orientation, including zero (in alignment) orientations of L-T, T-L, T-S, S-T, L-S, S-L... Interested in what the FEA metrics state aside from the obvious being the load exceeded material design parameters. It would have been nice for the rod manufacturer to tell you that, "Oh by the way, don't go anywhere near the 3000 HP level with these or they'll fail catastrophically" before you installed them in the wagon's SMX. We live, we learn. Keep up the great work and give the doggo a solid belly rub for us! Cheers! 👍
@@jimmyneal1988 he’s said the brand multiple times in videos before it got to the point that he had to watch what he said to avoid it being possible to consider it bad mouthing the company by saying the name when talking about the poor quality
The rod manufacturer may have received a batch of rods with a dodgy heat treatment. I really doubt the manufacturer would attempt to heat treat them himself (if they did, they were truly to blame). He either machined them and sent them out for heat treatment or machined them in the heat treated condition. Either way, I wouldn't be so quick to crucify the manufacturer without the facts.
When did the explosive rod manufacturer decide the HP capabilities for their rods? I don't think if they gave you specs to show the rods would not handle the power in your engine you would use them just to prove their point...
the guy claims steve's 4k hp engine was the most they've ever seen. from what i can tell they sell sub 2k hp rods a lot. this was a beta test for them. the guy is hating this negative exposure, btw. posted a huge response on their facebook. i'm not going to name names, but you can tell the brand from one of steve's earlier vids.
@@jerrycann6374 He wasn't unsuspecting. Steve went into the test eyes wide open. It was an experiment and the experiment failed. Now they go back and analyze what happened and fix that issue and try to break the new ones. That is the whole process of racing. You don't get from a model T to Formula One without breaking tons of parts. It just so happened that this failure was very dramatic and highly visible.
@@TheKajunkat if Steve knew he was installing rods that would not survive then why was he surprised at the outcome? You do install parts in an engine that you know will fail, then install that engine in a car and then head to a track to race. If you watch the build Steve chose those rods due to the availability of the rods he usually ran. The "new" rods were also more expensive. Steve never stated or implied he was testing those "new" rods.
Darn, that is impressive! Getting all those fragments, sure seems like low grade cast (aluminum) alloy, getting lots of microcracks, and then just letting go. Scary, not sure i would like to have such in my engine.
Even low grade cast aluminium would still bend _some_ but this stuff didn't. This really is high-end material, but completely the wrong choice for the application.
@@Hydrazine1000 Agreed. It probably has great fatigue characteristics for an aluminum rod, just not fit for 4000hp @ 8500rpm. And to be clear the manufacturer doesn't claim they are. They have a good track record at 2000hp apparently though.
Steve, would enjoy learning more about your background and journey with high performance racing engines, where you started, who you worked with, why you decided to open your own shop etc. Love the vids. thanks
Steve you make and build phenomenal engines and engine parts alike so anyone who has the time to throw any shade at you needs to get a clue. I'm not a professional mechanic by far but I do know quite a bit about turning wrenches and do know a bit about building engines. I work with hazardous waste/substances which entails knowing intricate chemical properties of the materials so I know for a fact that the materials you use when designing your parts and engines from a huge block of BILLET aluminum are top notch. Let them talk and hate because they are just envious which is one of the greatest sins🤣. Oh well, I love watching all your videos especially because I always learn something new. Keep em coming! 👌🏼💯🇬🇺
Still tend to believe they saw a frequency.. resonant condition that caused them,,all 8,, to shatter at critical speed for that rod material. Thanks for sharing available info.
Thanks for showing what a FANTASTIC rod looks like!! That is a VERY well made billet aluminum rod!! I cried breaking a nice rod when I could have put that in my old school small block Chevy!! HAHA!!
i still think that harmonics had a big part to do with the rods exploding, like for example with glass and a note, it does the same thing and its also happens suddenly, i know there are balancers for this but when a product is stressed beyond its limit, it blows
Sorry, it's not harmonics. The natural frequency of an aluminium rod that size is about 15 to 20 kHz. 8000 RPM is 133 Hz. Off by at least a factor of 100.
On a crystalline or microstructural level, aluminum is way too "squishy" (even the highly alloyed and heat treated varieties) to allow that type of failure mechanism. Also, as stated in other posts, the natural frequency is way up there and you would have to maintain it for a much longer period of time at a steady frequency to build enough amplitude to cause a crack to form. The engine was accelerating so the frequency wasn't stable (it was rising). Good thinking but not in this case. This failure was due to a heat treatment issue, such as over aging, which will be revealed in the metallurgical analysis.
@@TheKajunkat If anything, this material was probably cold worked to within an inch of its capability, hence the high yield strength (it _did_ survive 6 full passes) and brittle fracture mode. This wasn't some production error, I think, this was the wrong material for the application.
@@Hydrazine1000 I would agree if they were forged but I think he stated they were billet rods (in which case the cold working would be really shallow under the milling tools). You would also expect the cold working to be concentrated in the areas with the greatest working and see most of the failures there. These rods had failures initiating all over the place and fragmenting into tiny paritcles. The material was embrittled throughout not just in the cold worked areas (if they existed). They were probably over aged (common and easy to do) or less likely, the chemistry of the alloy was off (really difficult to do with today's super tight manufacturing processes).
Hello Steve, you definitely have a valid point that due to the revs continuing to smoothly climb before they all let go & exploded, that a possible rod clearance issue/jam under the piston crown is not the reason. I agree entirely that this is a material grade issue 100%. Those MGP rods a super tough 👌....Great video & content. All the best.
It would be virtually IMPOSSIBLE for all rods to grenade at the exact same time due to over powering them. You could try to make it happen and it wouldnt happen in the time remaining in this universe.
MGP makes a great set of rods. I have used them in customers builds before. 300 to 600 runs before noticeable need to replace. A shirt order will be coming soon from me. Great video
The exploded rods look like they where made out of old Hyundai and Geo engine blocks and heads you know the ones that look like aluminum styrofoam. They must have made them with the slag that you scrape off the top when you melt aluminum lol. I've never in 53 years seen a engine eat every rod in it and have just crumbs of shards in the pan.
100% the rods that shattered were more than likely heat treated and then immediately quenched from high temperatures. Causing them to be extremely brittle. I'd be willing to bet if you tried the same test in your press with a rod that shattered it would fracture under load not bend
Correct, but they are aluminum rods, and you don’t heat treat aluminum. Those are 6061 AL rods. Bought the only thing you’d do is nitrite treat them. If you heat treated them, they’d just be molten AL
If you heat aluminum and you don't exceed transformation temperature of alluminum and subsequently quench the material it will harden. And yes they do heat treat 6061. By multiple processes. Have at the internet. Good day
Hi Steve, thanks for the awesome videos! You may have covered this before, but just wondering if you have tried titanium rods? Obviously lots of pros and cons... cost would be astronomical, and if something ever did let go it would probably do some severe damage to the block. Super strong and lightweight though etc. Thoughts?
The manufacturing consistency of the brand X rods is pretty impressive. For all of them to go at the same time is crazy consistent. Probably really good rods for s smaller build.
I think it was some type of heat treat or material issue. Those rods were crazy brittle. I have never seen a rod burst. The whole point in aluminum rods is to take shock.
Well the math is complicated, but speed of movement the downward force heat vibration etc.. and muddle it up in a muddler and start writing out LARGE on a napkin. But nothing compared to a top fuel engine detonating rocket fuel on top of the piston and making 2-3 times that.
@@Scootermagoo I was impressed when I calculated that a small 75mm piston, making 180 psi of compression while cranking is puting 0.5 tons of pressure on the rod and the same pressure into the head, and head studs.
You know you have an experienced shop dog when you say "go away" once and the dog leaves with zero hesitation because he knows something loud/dangerous will absolutely follow.
The reason why the bad rods shattered was because the material they were made from was completely unsuitable for the intended purpose, ie brittle instead of tough, to say that the problem was that the rods load limit was exceeded is stating the obvious but there is a lot more to it than that, when the test pieces come back from metallurgy all will be known and there will be no excuses. My guess is that a vital part of the heat treatment process was left out, in other words, bad quality control..
Only difference is the force applied by the press took a few seconds. The force applied to the rods in a running engine were applied in a single multi thousand pound blow in milliseconds..... Multi ton blow to be more precise. In addition it might be vibrating at the same time. I'm a flooring installer and my comment is a total guess. Nope, didn't sleep in a Holliday inn either. 😁 Love to see you take a brand new rod from the blown up engine manufacturer and put it through the same experiment on the press.
Good stuff Steve! Irrespective of what anyone thinks about either of the brands of rods, this type of content is just super interesting to people who like to build engines.
It was interesting to see how much that rod sprung back as you released the pressure of the Jack when in the press. Shows how that rod is no where as brittle as the ones that came apart. The way the broken pieces look, it’s almost like they had some laminations in the grain structure of the forging.
I think most of us figured out on the blow up video that it was bad rods at this level. I would say, on any level with the way they shattered like glass.
Great series of videos thanks Steve, much appreciated. When you did bend that good old rod, something that really got my attention was how much spring or elastic strain it had in it as you released the press. That is obviously an incredibly strong alloy and still capable of being bent (not breaking) if enough force is applied.
The "other guys" now require you to tell them your estimated hp before they will sell you rods. To be fair, the other guys have been in business for quite a while without issues, but to a much lower hp market.
I believe the failure happened due to multiple forces affecting brittle aluminum. Massive reciprocal force +heat + harmonics, and I believe the harmonics are the underlining factor that caused the simultaneous disintegration of the rods!
Funnily enough we had (what was purported to be, no idea if had been rebuilt again since purchase) one of your Big Block Chevy engines in for a rebuild where the little end of the rods was binding up on the underside of the piston crown. Because it was cockled over the piston had been hitting the valves one eventually snapped and did a bit of hammering of the combustion chamber and piston crown, but that was the only damage. The rod failure is definitely a metallurgical issue.
Those rods are some bad mother truckers!! The rods that shattered might have a lil to much nickel in them ... I would stick with the bad mother rods!! Enjoyed it Steve!! 💥💥👊💥💥
I've done alot with metals and found that the casting of rod is not at correct temperature while forging to eliminate air pockets, I believe that it shattered due to incorrect pressing and heating to eliminate bubbles that it shattered like ice cubes under extreme force.
wow after as nice as you have been about those rods trashing your motor and their failure.. they say that too you...they knew what hp you run ...they had to.. otherwise they would not have offered those rods up to you.. they wanted to be able to say "Hey!! Steve Morris uses our rods.".. man .. i would tell all the racers out there.. never use them because that lack of class and not taking responsibility for their defective product.. if anyone knows what rod manufacturer that is please let me know.. i do not want to do business with them ever. that was metal failure at it's finest(worst?)...Steve I will one day buy a motor for my truck from you.. just because of the class and patience you have shown with these disreputable people. my thanks for all the info concerning this failure and my thanks in general for all of your content. this old dog has learned a few new tricks. be well and be safe.. cant have you breaking a wrist now LOL
Not even the Flex tape dude would go to this length to show his product.
I had the same thought....great sales man Steve...stand behind the prodoct....then stand on it
Idk about that Steve needs to join a boat back together with these rods
Could use some flex tape on those brand x rods :D
Send that rod to the hydraulic press channel! To see what psi it would break at, that would be awesome to see.
Yes!
I would like to see one of the normal rods and one of the "other" rods sent to HPC for "testing"
I second this !
This here is the best idea. It's time for Steve to OFFICIALLY join the RUclips community.
I'm sure that HPC could rig up a pull test to see what happens when you stretch a rod.
This is what makes Steve one of a kind. What you see is what you get. Great videos
Without a doubt it was a metallurgy issue. At least for that hp level. It reminds me of working at my steel mill. When we started running high carbon steel and the chemistry was off along with our coiling temps for that grade the strip would shatter like tempered safety glass. Watching 60,000 lbs of steel shatter like glass is sight to see. It looked like that box of rod shards you were holding.
That's insane
Do you think it could be a combination of metallurgy and harmonics? I wonder if it hit a weird frequency that caused them to vibrate plus the metallurgy issue.
Sounds like a resonant frequency issue.
Metallurgy still pops up as culprit . All of the rods at once . I’ve seen fatigue in metals when cycle life is exceeded . This is the shitz
They have got one thing spot on and that is the consistency of the materials in each rod 👌🏻
Even after you hit it with a mini sledge and bent it in your 40 ton press it's still a nicer rod than the last set.
The last set wasn't made for what he was using it for. Each type of rod has their own purpose
Rod's using never break under compression. It's usually the reciprocating weight on a one stroke that is not firing where the Piston weight and pin weight has to be overcome brought to a dead stop and pull back down the cylinder. The rod brakes under pulling this weight load down the cylinder after stopping it and then accelerating it back down. That's been my experience over many years
@@jimross1980 yes it’s amazing how some of these engines can turn the RPMs that they do when that piston and Rod has to come to a dead stop then and go in the opposite direction it’s truly amazing
I would be very curious to see those same tests done on the Brand X Rods, just to see how they react.
exactly
Would need a level 4 safety suit for that test.
Yea definitely curious, but I think we all can see by the shards they are too brittle and would have broken
That’d be a seriously short video lol
@@54raceman lol
What happened to the rods is so impressive and unique. You have actually pushed a limit in engine manufacturing. You are so badass man👍
Love the no bull shit test. And the NO blame game on the other rods. They can not handle the power and that is it. Live and learn. That is what makes a person a man or woman. As we say in the north salt of the earth. It is not about the money it is Steve’s integrity that counts. Keep it up steve.
being a engine builder I commend you for putting this failure out there for silly ideas to be thrown at you . good job and keep up the good work.
Thank you very much!
Had the pleasure of meeting Mike (MGP) and toured his shop back in the day when he was starting out, great guy. When we were broke we would put over 100 passes on his rods in a 632 nitrous engine, never one issue.
The amount of spring back that rod had when you released the tension on the press was impressive!!! And I’m sorry, but I saw that coming with the hammer, and couldn’t help but laugh 😂
thank you for going into such detail about the rod failure. I'm with the guys saying it was a metallurgy issue.. someone had a bad day at mill and added the wrong metal or something along those lines
Have not seen anyone put a bend like you did with a press. That was informative and impressive. Thanks for doing this bend and video recording it.
Glad that rod didn't snap with your hand in the press! Safety 1st Brother 😎👍
Nice job Steve. I agree that the material used to make your rods is a superior material to the one that you tried. Hopefully that Rod manufacturer will improve their material down the road. I’m learning and that’s a good thing.
You have the best shop dog. So cute and always involved. Dogs are a blessing. Love your videos!
Years ago I work as an engineering tech.
One of my tasks at the time was to do destructive testing. We had several machines that were very effective for testing tensile and compressive strengths of many different materials.
The sledge hammer test wasn't one of them..... lol
We had a Rockwell hardness tester which, of course, measured material hardness on the Rockwell scale. One material of interest was BILLET ALUMINUM. Starting with the material as it came straight from the foundry as the base test , and recording successive predetermined test points as the material was heated , cooled etc.
The aluminum ALWAYS became more brittle the more it was heat cycled.
Tensile strength in most cases wasn't effected as much as hardness was.
Not a linear curve as we first thought would be the case.
thanks for the vid. Steve 💪
Isn't the Charpy test a calibrated version of the sledgehammer test?
Rockwell on AL? That seems odd. Brinell is typical for AL hardness, unless you're simply using Rockwell for reference?
@@strykerentllc kinda what I was wondering
I've never seen aluminum shatter like that. There has to be a manufacturing screwup. It shattered like magnesium are a flawed cast rod. Thanks Steve for all the information and time you spend videoing and editing.
The biggest problem with the mechanical breakage (locking up)) theory is that that very unlikely scenario had to occur in all 8 cyls within a few milliseconds in order for a simultaneous failure to occur. So you take the odds of that happening, we'll say 1000 to one, multiply that by eight (because we need 8 failures) and then we try to factor in the odds of all eight failing exactly at the same time- and we end up with a scenario that makes winning the lottery, getting struck by lightning (and surviving unscathed), and hitting 18 holes in one all on the same day look like an absolute cakewalk.
Yeah, there are millions of things that in theory could happen, but you have to look at the odds of those things occurring not only once, but eight times simultaneously.
That being said, I still plan on buying a lottery ticket.
Yep!
Yeah that theory is mathematically impossible
l think I would say the harmonics theory is the most likely due to the way it all went at once and fast enough to not grenade the rest of the engine
I don't believe that you have to justify to anyone the rods that destroyed your last motor were not up two the task. You are a premier engine builder and your content is greatly appreciated.
Yeah you could have never seen the inside of a engine before in your life and know that those rods were junk from looking at the pieces/shards
Honestly man, I think you've explained it plenty. If people don't understand after the first videos. Let them re watch. Lets get back to making motors and engine dynos. Love your work man! Your one of the engineers that make me strive to be better! More Powa Baby!
He’s building a channel. Finding things to make content with. Lot of money in RUclips! I know he’s been at it before.. but he’s had a big influx of subscribers and he is trying to capitalize on it!
@@nsboost totally understand that. But how much can you beat a dead horse. I would hate for him to become the blown rod guy. He explained it way plenty. Let's move on to bigger and better things. Sweep the rods into the dust pan. Or get them shipped off already.
I've learnt and enjoyed this series more, based on the failure of these Con-Rods. Over the success of your 1/4 mile times. Thanks guys 😉
I love how far you go to explain stuff to some people
Almost broke a wrist and press in one vid to prove its not a me (Steve) problem 🙏🙏🙏🙏✊✊✊✊ truly dedicated to the craft of quality products and services...... absolutely the greatest doing it right now and much appreciative of the knowledge you kindly share 💯💯💯
Hopefully you talk about the metallurgy report when that comes in. Thanks for the in-depth detailed explanation. Appreciate the videos and your work. Thanks
As soon as I saw you swing that hammer my hands tingled hahah great content as usual
The only way to find the “horsepower limitation” is to test it until it breaks, then test it again. Fascinating stuff.
Its good that you explained that the connecting rods that disintegrated are NOT the same brand that you use in your other / customer motors. I do hope that you share the details of the metallurgy report before you put this subject to bed. Enjoying your informative videos.
Steve, we all understand they were the Earl Scheibe of connecting rods. Well done Sir.
Quality wise yes price wise no
Its understandable, being an engine builder, to explain vendor product failure that could impact business. Good job. Admit nothing and deny everything is common with producers of products that fall short . Every result is a result especially during cost/fail analysis....live and learn .
Hey Steve. You've got that thing loaded with 60,000 pounds. You might not want to put your fingers in there. If it let go those bearing plate would jump up and smash your fingers.
that type of catastrophic shattering of 8 aluminum rods you defiantly pushed the material beyond its capability... cool as hell brother... keep up the great work....
I’d love to see you do that same test with a brand x rod!… Results would be quite different I’d speculate 🧐
Yes, I would like to see that test. I'm sure the shop hammer test would break or shatter the brand x rod.
Same test maybe, but not exactly the same way. Only to be done behind the safety of a proper thickness lexan shield!
Me too
Right on what I was thinking the cause of failure was. I posted that somewhere in the second video of this series. May not be bad rods, but not enough rod for this SMX. Shanks for taking us along on the journey Steve.
Be honest steve, you bought those rods in the hope they would blow up like that :)
This series is just youtube gold.
Uhm yeah that’s not the case you don’t intentionally blow a 75k+ engine up in a 250k car that can be doing 200mph at time of failure
I've never speculated on what could have happened. Your engines speak for themselves. Well done, hope to see that car back at the strip soon.
I have seen pictures in old text books of a rod in a vice where a pipe in the pin hole could twist the rod 90 degrees. There is a lot of science in different rods for different engines.
Shuda called it Can I break my wrist. Gotta suck when your own junk goes out the oil pan for all to see. Good job explaining the failure mode and figuring it out. The shredded AL tells the story.
The materials remaining of the failed rod looks exactly like a cast/pot metal which is never going to have the strength needed for rods period.... a billet grain structure and proper heat treating is a must...
Yes Sir .made same comment earlier..
An over hardened rod will have a higher tensile strength than a properly hardened rod, but the toughness will be much lower. Glass is incredibly strong but very brittle.
SM, fascinating journey, you are going to develope such a huge following taking all of us along.
God bless!
As a former Thermal Spray Operator I’m stoked to hear you’re getting metallurgy done. I believe you’re correct with the hardness issue. Are they doing a full cut and polish?
You learn so much here, I LOVE THIS CHANNEL
For everyone saying those rods were brittle due to quenching, alluminium doesnt work like that. Contrary to steel, if you cool it while it's red hot it gets softer and squishy. Nontheless all those shards looks like a brittle material. Probably it was not pure alluminium but some sort of alloy easier to mold like zamak or similar, that are in fact pretty brittle.
Pure aluminum would make a very lousy rod....too soft. Any aluminum tough enough to work as a connecting rod is for sure going to be an alloy of some sort. My only question about the broken rods are did they shatter under compression or tension? People saying a rod is rated for 'XXX' HP would depend on how that power is being made. NA motors rely on displacement and rpm...and it's the rpm that normally hurts the rod at the end of the exhaust stroke when the piston needs to be stopped then pulled back down with no compression pressure pushing it. Supercharged motors don't need to rev nearly as high to make the same power....so the tensile forces on the rod will be less while the compression forces much greater. To actually compress a rod would take a LOT of pressure..but on Steve's crazy motors maybe that is the higher force? For sure the rods that failed were too brittle for the job at hand.
They were definitely heat treated and alloyed, just not the quench and temper treatment typical of carbon steels. Alloyed aluminum alloys are typically age hardened (precipitation hardening, either artificial or natural). The designation for the type of heat treatment used is the "T" in the alloy designation (6061-T6 aluminum material is the most common aluminum alloy, I'm not saying that was what these rods were made of). My guess is that the alloy used was age hardenable and spent enough time above 240F inside the engine to continue to harden and lost ductility until they were no longer able to withstand the system stresses. Either that or they were over aged and just got to their ultimate tensile stress level on that particular run. No way to know unless Steve discloses the alloy and heat treatment used in the "brand X" rods.
@@TheKajunkat Brand X (though you can figure out who they are by looking at the rod markings visible in part 1 on the wagon engine rebuild video) used "a proprietary alloy" which they claim has a 35% higher yield strength than the competition. With "a strength-to-weight-ratio on par with titanium".
That isn't typical for precipitation hardened aluminium, that suggests severe cold work hardening. The latter would nicely explain the brittle fracture mode too.
So-called overageing can happen with precipitation hardening alloys, and that does reduce the ductility somewhat, but it does not make the material fracture as if it were plain cast iron.
This is, by far, the best explanation of why you use those rods 😂
On the grain structure: It depends on the orientation of the material in the machine's fixture prior to the machining (manufacturing) process beginning. We can load a block of AL in the machine to cut the part at any angle to the grain structure's orientation, including zero (in alignment) orientations of L-T, T-L, T-S, S-T, L-S, S-L... Interested in what the FEA metrics state aside from the obvious being the load exceeded material design parameters. It would have been nice for the rod manufacturer to tell you that, "Oh by the way, don't go anywhere near the 3000 HP level with these or they'll fail catastrophically" before you installed them in the wagon's SMX.
We live, we learn. Keep up the great work and give the doggo a solid belly rub for us! Cheers! 👍
well, if anything.... you've just made a great video for the strength and durability of MGP rods ;)
It’s a metallurgy issue. The brand X rods shattered like glass. I wouldn’t use those particular rods in a lawn mower.
You just might buy a set of brand X rods and not even know it
I actually commented exact same thing about not trusting them in a lawn mower before seeing this comment lol
@@jimmyneal1988 he’s said the brand multiple times in videos before it got to the point that he had to watch what he said to avoid it being possible to consider it bad mouthing the company by saying the name when talking about the poor quality
The rod manufacturer may have received a batch of rods with a dodgy heat treatment. I really doubt the manufacturer would attempt to heat treat them himself (if they did, they were truly to blame). He either machined them and sent them out for heat treatment or machined them in the heat treated condition. Either way, I wouldn't be so quick to crucify the manufacturer without the facts.
HOLY, bro youre lucky you didnt break your arm on that first hit! The rebound on that was GNARLY!
When did the explosive rod manufacturer decide the HP capabilities for their rods? I don't think if they gave you specs to show the rods would not handle the power in your engine you would use them just to prove their point...
Hopefully nothing over a 5hp briggs and stratton
the guy claims steve's 4k hp engine was the most they've ever seen. from what i can tell they sell sub 2k hp rods a lot. this was a beta test for them. the guy is hating this negative exposure, btw. posted a huge response on their facebook. i'm not going to name names, but you can tell the brand from one of steve's earlier vids.
@@vinny6_9 destructive testing should not be performed by an unsuspecting customer
@@jerrycann6374 He wasn't unsuspecting. Steve went into the test eyes wide open. It was an experiment and the experiment failed. Now they go back and analyze what happened and fix that issue and try to break the new ones. That is the whole process of racing. You don't get from a model T to Formula One without breaking tons of parts. It just so happened that this failure was very dramatic and highly visible.
@@TheKajunkat if Steve knew he was installing rods that would not survive then why was he surprised at the outcome? You do install parts in an engine that you know will fail, then install that engine in a car and then head to a track to race. If you watch the build Steve chose those rods due to the availability of the rods he usually ran. The "new" rods were also more expensive. Steve never stated or implied he was testing those "new" rods.
Wow! Makes me glad I have MGP rods for my high rpm destroked setup.
Darn, that is impressive!
Getting all those fragments, sure seems like low grade cast (aluminum) alloy, getting lots of microcracks, and then just letting go. Scary, not sure i would like to have such in my engine.
Forgings will do that too if the heat treatment (or basic alloy) is wrong enough.
Even low grade cast aluminium would still bend _some_ but this stuff didn't. This really is high-end material, but completely the wrong choice for the application.
@@Hydrazine1000 Agreed. It probably has great fatigue characteristics for an aluminum rod, just not fit for 4000hp @ 8500rpm. And to be clear the manufacturer doesn't claim they are. They have a good track record at 2000hp apparently though.
Nah. Look at the incredibly tight and consistent grain structure. That's a high end alloy for sure, just too brittle for this application.
Thanks Steve for taking the time to post these videos.
Steve, would enjoy learning more about your background and journey with high performance racing engines, where you started, who you worked with, why you decided to open your own shop etc. Love the vids. thanks
Steve you make and build phenomenal engines and engine parts alike so anyone who has the time to throw any shade at you needs to get a clue. I'm not a professional mechanic by far but I do know quite a bit about turning wrenches and do know a bit about building engines. I work with hazardous waste/substances which entails knowing intricate chemical properties of the materials so I know for a fact that the materials you use when designing your parts and engines from a huge block of BILLET aluminum are top notch. Let them talk and hate because they are just envious which is one of the greatest sins🤣. Oh well, I love watching all your videos especially because I always learn something new. Keep em coming! 👌🏼💯🇬🇺
Still tend to believe they saw a frequency.. resonant condition that caused them,,all 8,, to shatter at critical speed for that rod material. Thanks for sharing available info.
It could definitely happen under extreme stress, the rotating assembly was still rolling
Thanks for showing what a FANTASTIC rod looks like!! That is a VERY well made billet aluminum rod!!
I cried breaking a nice rod when I could have put that in my old school small block Chevy!! HAHA!!
i still think that harmonics had a big part to do with the rods exploding, like for example with glass and a note, it does the same thing and its also happens suddenly, i know there are balancers for this but when a product is stressed beyond its limit, it blows
Sorry, it's not harmonics. The natural frequency of an aluminium rod that size is about 15 to 20 kHz. 8000 RPM is 133 Hz. Off by at least a factor of 100.
@@Hydrazine1000 I agree and not only that but aluminum rods act like shock absorbers unlike steel rods.
On a crystalline or microstructural level, aluminum is way too "squishy" (even the highly alloyed and heat treated varieties) to allow that type of failure mechanism. Also, as stated in other posts, the natural frequency is way up there and you would have to maintain it for a much longer period of time at a steady frequency to build enough amplitude to cause a crack to form. The engine was accelerating so the frequency wasn't stable (it was rising). Good thinking but not in this case. This failure was due to a heat treatment issue, such as over aging, which will be revealed in the metallurgical analysis.
@@TheKajunkat If anything, this material was probably cold worked to within an inch of its capability, hence the high yield strength (it _did_ survive 6 full passes) and brittle fracture mode.
This wasn't some production error, I think, this was the wrong material for the application.
@@Hydrazine1000 I would agree if they were forged but I think he stated they were billet rods (in which case the cold working would be really shallow under the milling tools). You would also expect the cold working to be concentrated in the areas with the greatest working and see most of the failures there. These rods had failures initiating all over the place and fragmenting into tiny paritcles. The material was embrittled throughout not just in the cold worked areas (if they existed). They were probably over aged (common and easy to do) or less likely, the chemistry of the alloy was off (really difficult to do with today's super tight manufacturing processes).
Hello Steve, you definitely have a valid point that due to the revs continuing to smoothly climb before they all let go & exploded, that a possible rod clearance issue/jam under the piston crown is not the reason. I agree entirely that this is a material grade issue 100%.
Those MGP rods a super tough 👌....Great video & content.
All the best.
It would be virtually IMPOSSIBLE for all rods to grenade at the exact same time due to over powering them. You could try to make it happen and it wouldnt happen in the time remaining in this universe.
Maybe not all at the same time, but could one breaking cause a chain reaction of the rest breaking?
@@legionofanon No, as soon as one breaks, power drops by 1/8. You'd never reach the breaking force required again after you broke one.
@@mjay6245 ah, that makes sense, thanks
MGP makes a great set of rods. I have used them in customers builds before. 300 to 600 runs before noticeable need to replace. A shirt order will be coming soon from me. Great video
The exploded rods look like they where made out of old Hyundai and Geo engine blocks and heads you know the ones that look like aluminum styrofoam. They must have made them with the slag that you scrape off the top when you melt aluminum lol. I've never in 53 years seen a engine eat every rod in it and have just crumbs of shards in the pan.
No kidding that about what they looked like
I’ve seen people do some stupid stuff to engines and never anything like that
Best MGP advertisment ever lol. Hope they throw you a few free sets for that.
100% the rods that shattered were more than likely heat treated and then immediately quenched from high temperatures. Causing them to be extremely brittle. I'd be willing to bet if you tried the same test in your press with a rod that shattered it would fracture under load not bend
Correct, but they are aluminum rods, and you don’t heat treat aluminum. Those are 6061 AL rods. Bought the only thing you’d do is nitrite treat them. If you heat treated them, they’d just be molten AL
aluminum should never shear off like that rod did, even if it was precip. hardened. And no shit, they probably wouldn't bend at all.
@@vikeskie My guess is it was a batch of really poor grade 6061 AL. Either that or someone dropped Cast rods in the box on accident
@@Andrewlang90 could have required annealing, aluminum can be no different to other metals if over hard.
If you heat aluminum and you don't exceed transformation temperature of alluminum and subsequently quench the material it will harden. And yes they do heat treat 6061. By multiple processes. Have at the internet. Good day
I flinched every time you stuck your hand into the press with 30T of pressure on that rod
Hi Steve, thanks for the awesome videos! You may have covered this before, but just wondering if you have tried titanium rods? Obviously lots of pros and cons... cost would be astronomical, and if something ever did let go it would probably do some severe damage to the block. Super strong and lightweight though etc. Thoughts?
Yes I have
long story, the MGP rods last great
The manufacturing consistency of the brand X rods is pretty impressive. For all of them to go at the same time is crazy consistent. Probably really good rods for s smaller build.
I think it was some type of heat treat or material issue. Those rods were crazy brittle. I have never seen a rod burst. The whole point in aluminum rods is to take shock.
Absolutely, my guess is that the material was over age hardened and had lost too much ductility.
I have no clue but those shattered rods look more like cast than billet FFS, clearly terrible base metal
Thanks so much for taking us inside this failure analysis.
Is that grain structure consistent with a forged part, or does it look more like a casting of some sort?
That's exactly why you use alloy rods. Made to take the power Steve. Awesome content 👍🤣 Aussie Fan 🤘💯🇦🇺
Hard to take anybody seriously that uses emojis on a post 2020 account.
Aren't all rods alloy? Do you know what alloy means?
@@substrate007 Shhh... he's coming up with a real good emoji zinger. Just wait for it.
hoe many tons does the pistons in your engine put into the rods at 4500 hp?
Yeah that would be interesting to see.
Well the math is complicated, but speed of movement the downward force heat vibration etc.. and muddle it up in a muddler and start writing out LARGE on a napkin. But nothing compared to a top fuel engine detonating rocket fuel on top of the piston and making 2-3 times that.
@@Scootermagoo I was impressed when I calculated that a small 75mm piston, making 180 psi of compression while cranking is puting 0.5 tons of pressure on the rod and the same pressure into the head, and head studs.
I think you know your engines better than all of us... If you said it blew was because you had yellow socks on I would believe you 🤣👍🏻
You know you have an experienced shop dog when you say "go away" once and the dog leaves with zero hesitation because he knows something loud/dangerous will absolutely follow.
Right. He just walked off like not this sh!t again
The reason why the bad rods shattered was because the material they were made from was completely unsuitable for the intended purpose, ie brittle instead of tough, to say that the problem was that the rods load limit was exceeded is stating the obvious but there is a lot more to it than that, when the test pieces come back from metallurgy all will be known and there will be no excuses. My guess is that a vital part of the heat treatment process was left out, in other words, bad quality control..
Exactly, it's just a excuse if they say "oh but they exceeded the hp", there's a lot more to it then just that, looking forward for the reports.
30 Tons in the middle of a con rod. 60,000 lbs. A loaded semi truck is 80,000 lbs. Amazing strength in these parts.
Only difference is the force applied by the press took a few seconds.
The force applied to the rods in a running engine were applied in a single multi thousand pound blow in milliseconds..... Multi ton blow to be more precise. In addition it might be vibrating at the same time.
I'm a flooring installer and my comment is a total guess.
Nope, didn't sleep in a Holliday inn either. 😁
Love to see you take a brand new rod from the blown up engine manufacturer and put it through the same experiment on the press.
Good to see your making fun and having fun playing around with stuff in your shop!
Oh shoot just saw this I was at work.
That opening sequence is hilarious! Steve is crazy!
Super cool that you have taken the time to explain this like you have. Also an interesting demonstration of the strength of your 'normal' rod.
Good stuff Steve! Irrespective of what anyone thinks about either of the brands of rods, this type of content is just super interesting to people who like to build engines.
You could straighten the bent rod run it in an engine along side some X rods and the brand X would shatter but the bent rod would survive. Try it !!!!
Your assessment of the rod failure is ironically exactly what I suspected/stated many videos ago when they first failed!
It shows what a class act you are by not naming the failed rods manufacturer
Extremely Rare to Build an Engine,of Any Type, that Exceeds the Design Limit of Someone's Best Parts!🤔 You Sir, Are On A Whole Nother' LEVEL..👍👍👍🤷
Man you are killing it with these videos. I like it
You are freaking awesome !!!Steve I love your analogy on this whole situation. Your videos are the beat most informative ones on the net keep it up 👍🏻
The shattering aspect comes from hitting that
Perfect resonance frequency of the given material.
It was interesting to see how much that rod sprung back as you released the pressure of the Jack when in the press. Shows how that rod is no where as brittle as the ones that came apart. The way the broken pieces look, it’s almost like they had some laminations in the grain structure of the forging.
I think most of us figured out on the blow up video that it was bad rods at this level. I would say, on any level with the way they shattered like glass.
Great series of videos thanks Steve, much appreciated. When you did bend that good old rod, something that really got my attention was how much spring or elastic strain it had in it as you released the press. That is obviously an incredibly strong alloy and still capable of being bent (not breaking) if enough force is applied.
Best video series I’ve seen in a long time! I’ve never been so impressed exceeding the hp of the rods turning them to dust
The "other guys" now require you to tell them your estimated hp before they will sell you rods. To be fair, the other guys have been in business for quite a while without issues, but to a much lower hp market.
I believe the failure happened due to multiple forces affecting brittle aluminum. Massive reciprocal force +heat + harmonics, and I believe the harmonics are the underlining factor that caused the simultaneous disintegration of the rods!
It's impressive how much flex that rod had in it.
Funnily enough we had (what was purported to be, no idea if had been rebuilt again since purchase) one of your Big Block Chevy engines in for a rebuild where the little end of the rods was binding up on the underside of the piston crown. Because it was cockled over the piston had been hitting the valves one eventually snapped and did a bit of hammering of the combustion chamber and piston crown, but that was the only damage. The rod failure is definitely a metallurgical issue.
Those rods are some bad mother truckers!! The rods that shattered might have a lil to much nickel in them ... I would stick with the bad mother rods!! Enjoyed it Steve!! 💥💥👊💥💥
I've done alot with metals and found that the casting of rod is not at correct temperature while forging to eliminate air pockets, I believe that it shattered due to incorrect pressing and heating to eliminate bubbles that it shattered like ice cubes under extreme force.
wow after as nice as you have been about those rods trashing your motor and their failure.. they say that too you...they knew what hp you run ...they had to.. otherwise they would not have offered those rods up to you.. they wanted to be able to say "Hey!! Steve Morris uses our rods.".. man .. i would tell all the racers out there.. never use them because that lack of class and not taking responsibility for their defective product.. if anyone knows what rod manufacturer that is please let me know.. i do not want to do business with them ever. that was metal failure at it's finest(worst?)...Steve I will one day buy a motor for my truck from you.. just because of the class and patience you have shown with these disreputable people. my thanks for all the info concerning this failure and my thanks in general for all of your content. this old dog has learned a few new tricks. be well and be safe.. cant have you breaking a wrist now LOL
Absolutely adore you doing stuff like this....
150k subs soon, superb real content