Following the pics of Dodgeman's rod failure,Broken rod I thought it might be worth explaining typical rod prep for a race engine and why its worth doing properly.

First get a set of rods that are suitable for preparation. The rods should have very close weights at each end so they can be easily adjusted during balancing with minimal material removal. This may require checking quite a few rod sets to find the best suited.

The chosen rods are X-rayed to check for casting inclusions or voids. Next they are crack tested by both magnetic flux and dye penetrant methods. If these processes do not show any problems, the rods are aligned and closed/honed to size.

Polish them along the beams to remove dimples and surface bumps and balanced them to 0.25 grams at each end.

Finally the rods are shot peened. Shot peening involves small steel shot being fired at the rod surfaces at very high speeds. When the shot hits the surface of the rod it makes a small dent in the steel, compresssing the surface, making the steel move outwards around the impact area. As the steel moves, any small surface cracks or deformities are sealed over or removed by the impact.
As the steel moves, it work hardens the metal surface skin of the rod increasing beam strength. It is becoming more common to double peen rods using a large shot to get maximum surface movement of the steel, following with a fine shot to get into areas where the large shot is not able to move effectively.

On average to fully prep a set of 4 rods costs around $1000 - $1200 for the processing and larger rod bolts

that's cool info.

here in WA there is only one place in the whole state that does x-ray work - and they charge like wounded bulls for it.

i'd say most of that cost would be in the x-ray process and balancing yes?

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Lexus motor? what was wrong with the VH45 infinity engine?

heh heh....

bunny! But think about it: Toyota V8s run in NASCAR, but Nissan V8s don't. That says something right there (but I'm not sure what).

In adition to what Feral has written another treatment that is becoming more and more common is Cryogenic dipping. This method is employed only after all other wrok is done to the component. The idea is to imerse the part in liquid Nitrogen until the part reaches the same temp as the LN2, this will be evident by the part "not boiling" anymore. Then the part is removed and allowed to slowly reach the ambient air temp. This is usually done a number of times. The process helps remove any stresses that may be inherant due to its manufacture. All metals have some inbuilt stresses associated with their manufacture and or machining. To stress relieve a component this way is just one more method of insuring the part will do what it has been designed to do. It's a popular treatment these day and something that was considered too much trouble only a couple of years ago because I was laughed at in the 90's when I undertook this process here at my work.

thanks feral and 1200coupe... always wondered wat shot peening is ..

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nothing is wrong with it at all! it's a fantastic engine but the vee is a little flatter than the 1UZFE - hence making it wider in the block. not that this is a problem, but the heads are also MASSIVE due to the std DOHC timing belt arrangement per bank- this combined with the extra block width and flatter vee make it physically too wide to fit between my chassis rails and leave enough room for an exhaust. the 1UZFE has a centre cam gear arrangement which means the timing belt only has to drive one cam, with the centre gear driving the other.

as it is, the 1UZFE is a tight fit !

and yes, i think cryogenics is a definite improvement over heat treating - mainly due to the fact there are no warping issues whatsoever, because it compresses the 'slag' created from the casting process into malactite (it sounds like that anyways - i know it starts with 'm') which is 4x stronger.

anyone who thinks the deep freeze is a gimmick should have a look at why the metals on the space shuttle are stronger after being in space than when they left earth - and although re-entry heat is around 700

Actually, the Lexus 8 is a great engine.. I'd do one too, just because they're a known quantity these days....

These guys are a couple of mates of mine

1UZ gofast parts

Damian runs one of these in a AE85 rally car (eek, it's fekking fast) and Tony in a stunning convertible...

i think there are so many great features about them too like 6 bolt mains, cross bolted and webbed block, all alloy, quad cam, 32 valves, 70mm TB, individual runners, indivudually measured and weighted pistons (early models like mine), forged crank and the fact that you can balance a 50c piece on end on the inlet manifold and start the engine without it falling over.

that's some cool sh1t.

I get my rods X-Rayed by an aircraft engineering company who do my rods when they are doing a batch of their own parts. This minimises costs. It still costs $300 for the X-Ray and crack testing.

Yes 1200 coupe, cryogenic treatment is good for lots of applications. I also get gears and shafts done this way to increase durability.

As Pro-240C pointed out it causes free carbon particles in the steel to form molecular bonds between the iron and free carbon particles.