WOW Yall really put it in prospective.....
Im with Jaun though $500 would be doable.
Thanks
Frank

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Scrapple: Because a mind is a terrible thing to waste.
73 Duster - Race Car
66 Dart Wagon - DD
178" FED
82 D150
All Slant powered

wow thanks for the long thread, that was very helpful. My dad and I were discussing the difficulties with the bottom end and attatching the halves, then cutting some more, I think I have it thought through.
The "reasonable" I metioned earlier was that I'm fronting to have the set/s made and I can't afford $420 in labor, than material, arp bolts, and shipping to sell for $500. Though a profit is not my goal, losing 200 bucks isn't either. I don't mind fronting to learn, but I got a budget of a college student also.
I believe I found a couple places that can do it cheaper, but think I might make some jigs to help also, including undercutting the main hole than honing with a drill press setup and a jig (any ideas gearhead?). Right now were planning on finishing the efi and foundry. I'm also playing with making a couple hpaks out of lost foam casting. The foundry's secondary goal will be to heat treat the rods accordingly.
On a last update, I tried emachineshop that somone had metioned. There program is... primitive. But might try a little bit more cause they seem extremely reasonable.

hi all

just my 2 1/2 cents witch with the current R to $ exchange comes to 0.0035714 us cents

so it is not worth much but still

Dan knows that I am involved with a project to recreate 2 RSA designed manifolds

due to only having one of each original there is a long process involved to recreate these boys without destroying the originals

and cnc milling is part of it - take it from me your rates are reasonable

Have you thought off rapid prototype development?

My guess is you could send emachinshop your file and they could read it or convert it. No sense in re-entering info if they can access your file.

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

That is what I am doing with my machining

Personally I'd be interested in a set but no offense to you I'm not going to be in on the first set made. Being a machinist I know it's expensive to do and even stupid little jobs can take many operations. We make aluminum valve blocks that are 1"x2"x3" long and have anywhere from 3 to 10 holes in them and take from 5 tools to 25 tools. total of about 2 to 5 setup hours average just as a rough estimate. But I also know it's hard to make a good setup of strong material with durability. You can make a rod that is extremely strong but one sudden violent detonation would blow it up. It's like if you were to train for a marathon and decided all you needed to do with lift weights and ignore cardio doesn't matter that you can lift 1000 pounds when your trying to run 6 miles and don't have the cardio for it.

Personally I think your best option is drop forging. I'm sure you could get a company to lazer cut some rods out of steel and then have somebody forge it into a general shape and have another company machine it into the right tolerences. The shop I work at does stuff like this all the time but we can't forge or lazer cut. look into that it may be your best option to keep this cheap.

I have to agree with that. when I was in waterjet we rough cut blanks for everything you could imagine for later machining for someone else (rough cutting inconel and titanium saves a TON of down-the-line machine work, not to mention tool life). It was always much cheaper that way.

I posted a mini-review of emachine shop elsewhere so I won't get into that here.

Well, I'm currently finishing up our small foundry that can melt about 50lbs of aluminum and ect. I haven't found a shop that can or wants to do our con rod job. We've been keeping an eye on some "bridegeport" sized machines as I don't want to sacrifce the entire garage for this. Oh, and yes I would either do a hard test with the first rods we cut or send them to Doc. I've been reading up on engine design and other books. So this winter break were going to start with some manifolds, and look at this spring getting our own cnc machine. The rods hopefully can be heat treated in our small foundry, also we have a machine shop across the street that will sort of help us with shoulder looking, but they do A LOT of industrial stuff and can't afford to cut them for the price we want. Thanks for keeping the interest and being patient I know it's easy to talk, but Dad doesn't move like he used to and I'm full time student.

I think your best option would be to see how much getting pieces lazer cut into a general shap would cost and having them them sent to a foundry. This would make it much easier. If you did that you could get the parts within a certain tolerence(lazer cutting is actually pretty decent for maintaining sizes) and then if you took it to a foundry and had them drop forged that would get them into basically the right shape and then the only thing you would have to do would be:

mill out the piston pin hole, and the connecting rod bearing hole to size and mill the width of the crank end of the rod to size. that could all be done in one operation you just make a plate that holds the rod perfectly flat and grabs it at say the middle of the rod. A half decent cnc shop can do them a set at a time(6 per run) and I don't think run time would end up being to long for that maybe 20 minutes with a good cnc operator as long as tools stay sharp.

Actually this could all be done thinking about it in a matter of just 5 operations:

1st- after rods are lazer cut and drop forged you get the machine shop to drill the holes for bolting the rod to the crankshaft.

2nd- after drilling cut crankshaft side hole in half so the halfs can be milled to a good flat mating surface

3rd- mill long side of crank opening

4th- mill rod cap

5th- bolt the rod together and stick it in the mill in a jig that holds the rod down flat and then mill the piston pin hole to size and the crank opening. you will also have to mill the width of the piston pin opening to an acceptable width tolerance and the same on the crank side probably best to simply flip the rod over and mill both sides so their equal.

As far as rod length and design I would not go with the .100" longer design. Just out of personal opinion not everyone is going to be interested in that compression bump. My personal wants is a stock compression ratio because I'm running a turbo setup so 8 to 1 compression is a good ideal ratio for boost. now if you were to make the rods only in the longer type(which from the sounds of it you can only afford right now to make one length) would push me out of the market for your rods. I would look at it this way if someone wants that .100" extra compression bump they can mill the head down .100" or mill the block .100". Just as a suggestion I say build your rods so they will apply to the largest audience It's the most cost effective way to do it for yourself.

correct, but with a laser you loose tenstile strength depending on the material. thats why GE went with us (a waterjet company) for their internal engine components. the heat warpage can get pretty bad if you have to cut through allot of meat.

See I don't know a whole lot about lazer cutting or water cutting so ya water jetting the parts would probably be better. But I think the way I have listed is probably the best way and cheapest way

Is the rod project still alive? Last post I see is Dec 07.

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Dave

1977 d-200 crew cab ex-army pickup wants it's /6 back
1962 Valiant 2 door, 170, three on the tree
1972 d-100 parts truck
80 volare wagon now a parts car

K1 has a rod offering for a slant six in a 198 rod length. Search for it.

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