rods

Boris · Post by **Boris** » September 25th, 2006, 6:57 pm

i know that JWmotorsports ran his B6T with around 400hp for 10,000 miles on stock rods with arp bolts. I am really not sure whether I am going to buy new rods, or even pistons right now. I would like to be making 200-250hp. Anyone here running that much hp on stock rods??? I'd really like to avoid buying new rods, and new pistons. I'm an optimist and think I could do without them, and to just rebuild.

Any input is appreciated.

Oh and what are the best rings for the B6??

Josh · Post by **Josh** » September 25th, 2006, 8:06 pm

stock rods and pistons will be fine for 250 WHP as long as your tuned. it would help if you balanced your engine while you were rebuilding it too. the best berrings to use would probably be the Toda berrings, as i have heard they have much larger oil passages than the stock ones. i know the berrings i got from Carquest had larger oil passages too. but stock would be just fine as well.

JWMotorsports · Post by **JWMotorsports** » September 26th, 2006, 12:41 am

Stock rods and pistons will hold up very well at that power level. Use a Cometic or Fel-Pro MLS head gasket, ARP head studs, ACL race series bearings with Calico CT-1 coating, also shim the oil pump relief spring 0.200" with appropriate sized washers and you'll be golden for a REALLY long time! I shimmed the Mazdaspeed High Volume Oil pump and get around 75psi of oil pressure at highway crusing speeds. You DEFINATELY need the extra oil pressure with the ACL race series bearings as they have an additional .001" of clearance. I set my oil clearances at .002" for the rod and main bearings. You don't want to go much more on our engines with out dramaticly raised oil pressures (100+psi at 3K-3.5K rpms). Our bearing journals are not wide enough to support larger clearances like domestic race engines with usually run a min of .003" oil clearance on the rod & main bearings.

http://www.calicocoatings.com/

They keep the ACL race series coated bearings in stock for the Mazda B6Ts and last time I ordered the Rods, Mains, & thrust extra clearance & coated ACL bearings were $135 for the whole set plus shipping! This company is located in North Carolina and has excellant services!

Rings...well, we could talk all night about this topic...lol.....I used Beck/Arnoly base cheap rings in my first motor (test engine) which held up to the 400WHP for over 10,000miles. I'd recommend most people to use either a premium set of rings or the Mazda OEM rings as most people can't measure and adjust the clearances, etc... as needed when using other rings. A really good investment would be Wiseco Pistons & rings for a really long life reliable engine. The stock cast pistons do give very little room for error when tuning in the 250 up range. The Wiseco Pistons have a supposedly the highest silicon content which is supposed to give them the least thermal expansion of any piston currently on the market. If you use those pistons with the plasma moly rings you'll have a very tolerable motor for years of abuse. The plasma moly rings are stonger than regular rings and they also seat almost instantly when you start the engine. I recommend a MINIMUM of 30 minute idle after starting a freshly built engine with cheap oil and a cheap filter. After that change the filter and the oil. Then drive it for a while...accelerate half throttle or so to 4k-5k rpms and then let of the throttle allowing the engine to slow you back down (engine breaking). Do this repeatedly for a while (30 min or so for example). Then let the car cool and repeat for a few days or times allowing the engine to cool between times. Change the oil & filter again at 150miles and every thing should be well seated and ready for fun! For the first 150miles avoid WOT acceleration and keep the rpms down under 5k. This should yeild an optimal breakin of the engine and is just a general guide line. You should never start a new engine and just bounce it off the rev limiter...BIG no no and asking to start un even wear & tear on a new engine shortening its life and performance. You could probably run the crap out of the motor after the first 30 minute idle of initial startup when using plasma moly rings and not see any differance in wear or performance long term.

Boris · Post by **Boris** » September 26th, 2006, 12:55 am

Whooa that was a whole lot of extremely useful information... Thanks a lot guys. I've been debating buying wiseco pistons, and I'll probably end up buying them and sticking with stock rods. I was going to get some arp bolts for the connecting rods, too.... Luckily the wiseco distribution center is somewhat close by so I can hopefully pick up pistons for a little cheaper...

But yeah it's really helpful getting pointed towards some good bearings too!!!

Very interesting information about rings, too. I don't think I'll go for the plasma moly rings unless I keep my stock pistons in there, in which case I'd be putting new rings on anyways so why not go with the best...

Anyways I can't thank you enough for this info, it was really really helpful and will definitely be important to know while building up this engine!

projectmx · Post by **projectmx** » October 2nd, 2006, 1:36 pm

i have the wiseco pistons and b6t rods they look really good and strong

Spinkx79 · Post by **Spinkx79** » October 2nd, 2006, 5:23 pm

JWMotorsports wrote:A really good investment would be Wiseco Pistons & rings for a really long life reliable engine.

With all the talk of bad valve pockets and thin ring lands, do you know of any alternatives.

After sinking a boat load of $$ in to this project i really dont want to get screwed like Janz99 and Babyblue did with the Weisco's.

Thanks