I was lurking around today for some piston/Cylinder kits and came across these and wanted to know if they were good for a "Street Performance" engine. I do know that these are less expensive then the Nickeys. But still could be a good product.


103mm Aluminum Alloy, NiCaSil-coated cylinder From European Motorworks $735.00

And then came across these from AA. And was wondering if these are better then the stock cast iron type?


96MM ALUMINUM BIRAL CAST IRON PISTON/CYLINDER KIT $385.95

If anyone has any experience with these I would apreciate it to hear from you.

Thanx, Dave

i saw those too. and was wondering the same thing.

So far I've talked to a few VW high performance shops and people online and the verdict is, they work fine but their quality control is terrible. So inspect them very carefully when you get them.

I have a set of them in 103s on the bench. When the motor goes into the racecar in the spring I'll let you know how it goes.

quick edit: the ones I have are from QSC

Sub

IIRC Supertec sells them for the 911 crowd, he gets whole pallets and rejects something like 75-80% and sends those back.
The ones they send back are most likely the ones being sold on evilbay.

Thanks for the info. Its good to know that you can get Niks for a good price. Please update when you have some hours on your set-up.

"Birals" have iron liners and alloy fins. They are NOT to be confused with either "Alusil" or "Nikasil" piston/cylinder sets. It's old technology, used by Porsche (and, I'm sure, others) in the 50s and 60s.

The Cap'n

What I'd like to know, are these (Birals) a better choice then the all iron type?

Aluminum does a much better job of shedding heat than pure cast iron does...so they do that much better..
the core cylinder is still the same..its iron with no fancy coating to have issues with.

Its also 356 technology..which has been replaced my the nickasil or alusil units a long time ago....

Rich

I'm at home today and can't look it up, but I think they used Biral until the 2.2 engines, and maybe the 2.4s.. ol, yes, but it's still viable technology. BTW, I think it was also used in aircraft engines, but I could be wrong.

The Cap'n

Have you read this article? LN Engineering. The third section talks about Birals. Good info.

Don't mean to be negative, but you have to consider that the source you are linking to is an advertisement for a particular product.

NPR made big-bore biral cylinders for type-IV engines for years and they worked great for a reasonable cost.

NPR is a HUGE company with vast experience. they make OEM for major Japanese car companies today
http://www.npr.co.jp/english/index.html

only tetsing and real world experiences could convince me to use those new birals...or a sponsorship to test them

Thanks for the info. Clearly a biased rant for thier product, but they do admit that:

"biral-type aluminum finned iron-lined cylinders do typically cool better than cast iron cylinders"

So I may try those if the Aluminum cylinders dont work out.

When LN Engineering first got started they offered biral piston/cylinder sets along with their Nickies. For some reason they chose to discontinue the Birals. I never read anything more about them.

I don't think the 103mm aluminum cylinders shown above for $795 are Nickies. The LN Engineering web site indicates a price of $2131 for their Nickies and $3199 with JE pistons and ARP head studs added.

I wonder who makes the $795 103mm aluminum cylinders shown?

Yeah. I was asuming that the Aluminum Cylinders were Nikasil coated hence "Nicks". It will take some investagating to find out more about these cylinders.

Birals look like they take way more work for not much gain or profit. Others were making birals, no one was making nickies. Smart marketing. If these competition ones become reliable then the market may dictate lower prices on LN. You pay for name brand and high quality, but 4x more seems a bit steep.

Quality of Chinese knockoffs will never impact the price of Nickies by LN Engineering.. Because much like my company LN has diversified and does not depend on AirCooled cylinder/ component sales to continue to grow. As it stands now LN is happy selling most all their TIV cylinders to us... If I didn't buy any more, Charles wouldn't even care. The same extrusion is used for big bore Porsche M96 engines and now in our Subaru engines.

The Nikisil plating process for LN cylinders alone cost more than the knockoffs sell for complete.
Anyone waiting for the cost of Chinese knockoffs to reduce the cost of things like our engines and quality USA made components are waiting for Hell to freeze over.. The knockoff parts are only increasing the demand and cost of quality components and engines as one by one people learn that they can spend the money now or spend more later- either way it's gonna be spent.
While others are cutting prices and competing we are busy having more parts made in USA and offering complete engines comprised of them.
"Nickies" is a registered trademark of LN Engineering.

Can you explain how lower cost component availability increases demand for higher cost components?

Also I don't understand how the availability of lower costs components guarantees that in the event of failure that a higher priced alternative will be purchased. Could the consumer simply elect not to purchase the component, or purchase a different type of component (stock cylinder vs Aluminum, Subaru vs air cooled, etc.). Alternately, couldn't the consumer decide that the performance of a lower cost component, while not as good as that of a higher cost alternative, is nevertheless sufficient to justifty the cost differential?

...walmart nation in a pick n save world where GEX and motor meister rule the roads

viva la empi china

In summary a prior poster had stated that these cheaper parts would at some point force Nickies and other higher value components to drop in price through competition.
I had stated that this won't happen because the cylinders cost what they cost and the material used for the AirCooled cylinders won't be under sold, it woul just be used for Porsche M96/M97 or DFI Nickies. It could also be used in our Subaru program.

In short a bunch of low priced, sub standard, less than adequately developed and tested components will never drop the price of these components. It hasn't yet.
To be quite frank the low quality junk has driven the demand for high quality components. My engine program now has a record backlog of 13 months and I have proposals under review now that could drive that to 15.5 months by as soon as Wednesday. All the junk experiences are illustrating exactly why real engines have a Porsche price tag.

I don't get how a 13-15.5 month backlog is viewed as positive. I would love an engine from you Jake but it's completely out of my price range which I'm sure put me outside your demographic in marketing. If i did decide to come off my savings account to the tune of 13k for a good turnkey motor, I would not be pleased about waiting a year and a half for a company to deliver on it when I paid top dollar. I understand the careful selection of parts and endless qc and testing. It just seems a bit excessive to toss in as bragging rights.

Just remember you get what you pay for JUNK= low price Quality = $$$

These days it takes 105 hours to design, machine, assemble and test one of our engines. This is up tremendously due to aging core components and a down hill spiral in the OEM based components that require meticulous preparation to achieve reliability, longevity and performance.

My current backlog is kept up to date weekly right on my website and very seldom does anyone expect it to be a faster process than what it is. its not a secret or surprise to my purchasers about our current backlogs. We never rush to accommodate those people- they can buy a lesser engine for less money and get it delivered more quickly from every single other company in the industry. The difference isn't just the engine, it is also the process and how the entire creation of the engine is handled to include post delivery support.

You will walk through our entire 30,000 square foot facility and will not find a single clock. No one here is paid to do their work "quickly". The day that haste doesn't make waste is the day when I will find it acceptable to turn an engine around in one week.

The other difference is I propose a strict delivery date for my purchasers based on the current backlog and their particular engine. I do this at the onset of the project and we deliver on time. Lots of companies these days will say "Yeah, I can have it done in 2 months, give me your money and lets get started"... The difference is they get the engine a year later and get lied to the entire time. One example can be found on my forums where someone was promised an engine in 3 months (from someone who wishes he was a competitor at our level) and 20 months later he still doesn't have it. I state the facts up front and if people can't wait that long- so be it.. We won't rush or hire lesser experienced and trained assemblers just to get more work done/ quicker.

The key is the fact that the majority of our purchasers are building a car from scratch which will take them more than 13 months to finish. Knowing that piss poor planning leads to poor performance means that people order the engine early and the car is ready to accept it upon delivery.


You can't rush success, but you can damn sure rush failure.

Bump to see if the quality of those P/C's from European Motorwerks is better or the same or worse or?

I think it was indicated, that its not bad, but you will need to measure the cyls to make sure they are straight and round...

Any update on the European Motorworks Nikasil cylinders?

You can call them and get one.

I'd call and see if they can give you a referral to a purchaser.