should i go forged?

[trooper182]

Ok so this may be a dumb question. I'm going to go with the sts turbo system. Should I go ahead and get forged rods and pistons or can the stock setup hold up? I'm not looking to push a lot of boost (6 psi) so the car is street safe. If I go forged, what is a good company to buy from? Thanks in advance for your help.

[scrming]

Originally Posted by trooper182

Ok so this may be a dumb question. I'm going to go with the sts turbo system. Should I go ahead and get forged rods and pistons or can the stock setup hold up? I'm not looking to push a lot of boost (6 psi) so the car is street safe. If I go forged, what is a good company to buy from? Thanks in advance for your help.

The 3.6 LLT is a pretty stout motor. You should be able to run a turbo system without cracking the motor open... Key is going to be a reasonable boost level and a good tune.

There was a good tech article on the LLT that talked about the internals... it's should be around here some where..

[GretchenGotGrowl]

Originally Posted by scrming

The 3.6 LLT is a pretty stout motor. You should be able to run a turbo system without cracking the motor open... Key is going to be a reasonable boost level and a good tune.

There was a good tech article on the LLT that talked about the internals... it's should be around here some where..

What Scrming said, he's usually right!

Exactly. They have forged rods and crank. The pistons are high-silicon alum., but so are most of the FI cars from the factory these days. Until you there is a solution for the fueling issue, you can't safely run enough boost to make it a concern. If you do go big boost you will probably want to get better rods, rod bolts and forged pistons that will lower the compression ratio.

Here's a wiki page with some of the specifics of the engine.

http://www.camaro5.com/forums/wiki.p...specifications

[Beauwulf]

Originally Posted by GretchenGotGrowl

What Scrming said, he's usually right!

Exactly. They have forged rods and crank. The pistons are high-silicon alum., but so are most of the FI cars from the factory these days. Until you there is a solution for the fueling issue, you can't safely run enough boost to make it a concern. If you do go big boost you will probably want to get better rods, rod bolts and forged pistons that will lower the compression ratio.

Here's a wiki page with some of the specifics of the engine.

http://www.camaro5.com/forums/wiki.p...specifications

One minor correction Gretchen... the rods are "sintered" and forged. They are stronger than a traditional forged set. We have heard that the stock stuff should be good up to about 650 HP at the crank....

Process Definition
Custom blended metal powders are
fed into a die, compacted into the
preform shape (different from the
final part shape), ejected from the die
and then sintered (solid state
diffused) at a temperature below the
melting point of the base metal in a
controlled atmosphere furnace.

The heated preform is then withdrawn from the
furnace, coated with a high
temperature lubricant and transferred
to a forging press. The hot preform is
then close die forged (hot worked) to
cause plastic flow (melted), thus reshaping and
identifying the preform.

The compaction step requires the preform
to be removable from the die in the
vertical direction with no cross
movements of the tool members.

The sintering step creates metallurgical
bonds between the powder particles
imparting mechanical strength to the
preform. The forging step reshapes
the preform to its final configuration
and reduces the porosity to nearly
zero.

Advantages
*provides mechanical properties
equal to wrought materials
*a net shape process technology,
requiring only minor secondary
machining
*greater dimensional precision and
less flash than conventional
precision forgings.

One reason for using sintering is that you can make alloys of materials that won't normally alloy - that is, you can blend powders and make an alloy that would not work in a liquid form.

So, you could make a better material by sintering, and still have all of the advantages of forging. (Thanks Wally for the info)