There's only ONE place I would get Nickies from.

its not are man schteve is it???

Hmmn,
I wonder which ones those are???

I feel sorry for Charles- He makes a great product that totally rocks, and cannot be paralleled all to have NUMEROUS copy cats follow suite...

There is only one real set of "Nickies" ....

If someone buys a set of these I'll pay you to send them to me for some measurements and material analysis...

Too bad they don't mention that your stock head studs are worthless with this sylinders ability to expand-

Judging from the size of the black coated fins,

I'm not convinced the cylinders are aluminum.

Nikasil in steel cylinders?

Ken

I have Nikisil plated steel cylinders- we have them on the Super 2 Liter project engine...

I don't believe these are that way- they look like someone copied a stock cylinder 100% and then made a casting from it for the fins/cylinder..

real Nickies are 100% Billet Aluminum extrusion- not a damn part of them is a cast part.

Here is a link to their type 1 product.

Better focus on the pictures / more detail and it does state the cylinders are aluminum.

Type 1 Nikasil cylinders

Ken

Hey,

Did a Map and found Huntington Beach is right up the road from Costa Mesa Kali

Wonder if it's a new name for somebody we know. No feedback on the seller.

Ken

No, this person is very reputable in the TI world, a very well known drag racer and an all around good guy...

Makes me think he is just selling these and not making them... They may be the AA Automotive sets- who knows..

QUOTE (Jake Raby @ Dec 12 2005, 12:51 PM)

No, this person is very reputable in the TI world, a very well known drag racer and an all around good guy... Makes me think he is just selling these and not making them... They may be the AA Automotive sets- who knows..

sooo...when do we find out how good they are or how crappy they is?

I expected someone now or later to attempt to copy our product and then do so with an inferior casting, not to mention what of the nikasil. Only Nickies comes with a lifetime warranty on the plating from the guys we use. Plus, no mention of head studs. We learned early on, even before selling a single cylinder, that the head studs would need to be upgraded, and nothing on the market except for the ARPs (which are available only though me) are designed for the task. Just makes it simple- no longer are our ARP head studs or any ARP hardware sold separately from Nickies. Easy solution there. I feel no threat as the only thing these things resemble of nickies are that they are aluminum and are plated. :-)

Someone buy a set and I'll do my best to split them like a piece of Hickory under boost! I KNOW Charles has no problem giving up a set of his cylinders for a side by side comparison and I love to see parts fly in the dyno room....

Thats one thing about Charles- He drops the coin for testing time and time again....

Well judging from the fin area, you would be getting about half the cooling at half the cost. Guess ya gets what ya pay for.

Unless that black paint, er... I mean fin coating is going to REALLY suck the heat out to compensate....

Ken

The Nickies are a really nice product, I have seen them first hand. The quality that went into them is top drawer. But they are not the first company to make them. Yes they may be the first company to make the VW engine, but the nikasil coated aluminum cylinders are not new. Mahle came up with the first setup, obviously. Anyone here ever hear of a company called CMW Racing. They made a nickies setup as well.

I realize there has been dumbass Steve out there but why is that when someone else comes out with a product that is similar to another on the market do we have to start criticizing the product before it is ever proven fake, faulty, etc.

Maybe this fellow had an engineer design his setup also.

I actually have been manufacturing cylinders for CMW Racing (now CMW Motorsports) for almost two years in cooperation with Bob and Scott Cousimano, not to step on anyone's feet when I went into doing late model (930 and later) 911 Nickies. Everything else they had never done or had interest in doing. They have taken the extra time they now have to focus on their billet heads and their new CMW Oil co.

Yeah Bob and Scott are great guys. Why did they quit doing their own cylinders? They had already done the design work.

It was agood idea for you to expand into the 911 market. On a whole there is more money being spent there.

They were working off of old stock for quite some time, right about the time I started working on my 911 cylinders I spoke to them and we worked out an agreement where I would integrate our improvements with those they found through years of building cylinders and cylinder heads. That's the main reason our 964 and 993 cylinders (as well as GT2 & Bi-turbo) are solid .800" down from the top deck. Makes the cylinder that much blow through resistant on high-compression or large boost blown engines, although our material and design had been shown to hold up to 2 bar of boost no problem. With his improvements he thinks our cylinders would easily hold 45 psi or more. We also supply these cylinders set up for their flame ring, which I think is the best, hands down.

Yes I am well aware the Charles and LN were not the first to create an aluminum cylinder with Nikisil plating- Oettinger did it in the 70s for the TIV... BUT those cylinders lacked development, did not have particular head studs developed to work with them and certainly left a lot to guess about. (ring pack, skirt clearance, expansion rates the list goes on)

Charles and his former partner, Shad Laws worked on these nickies for a couple of years before LN engineering ever sold the first cylinder to a customer- I got set #2 before they were even proven.

Basically the best way I can sum it up is the fact that buying a cylinder set from LN gives you the piece of mind that you are buying a part with a KNOWN result that was developed for a certain purpose with components like head studs, rings and even running clearanaces that are pre-specified.. Unlike you will get when buying any other similar cylinder... I want to know how the hell they can dictate running clearances on those cylinders if they are already plated when sold- you can't just hone extra clearance with Nikisil unless you have a diamond hone!

QUOTE

With his improvements he thinks our cylinders would easily hold 45 psi or more. We also supply these cylinders set up for their flame ring, which I think is the best, hands down.

When are you going to offer micro laser welding to eliminate the head gasket all together? You know aka 962 engine. JK. I knew Bob's stuff was stout they did alot of their original modelling off the Porsche factory cylinders, so you know they were god to start with, but Porsche was saddled with 25-50 year old materials technology so there was definitely room for improvement. That is where Bob started and you guys picked up.

Is he still using the Ni-Rist rings? They are supposedly the best thing short of welding the cylinders to the head. Keep up the devlopement. HOw about some watercooled heads and cylinders?

I have a feeling we are not getting all of the information from the Samba ad. Jaycee probably doesn't sell them with out the pistons, this fellow may have trashed a piston or something.

Jake not to confuse this issue I was wondering when You will have a DTM for the 914. I have been looking forward to buying one for a long time

Bernie

Bernie,
Lets don't Hi jack..
wait for the post- 45 days or less.

OK guys I have read all the post and thank you Jake for the kind words. I have to admit I was not complete on my add but will take care of that regaurding head studs and ring packages.By the way there are other head stud manufacturers out there that can make a compatable head stud to eliminate lifting. Raceware for one will make you anything you want!. I know your going to come back and say the magic of arp is this and that and you can only get them from this person or that person (whatever) If I can't buy it I will make it (BETTER). I do not hesitate to say that LN makes a good product because those things are bad ass. I have first hand seen them and dynoed them. YES I HAVE DYNOED LN NICKES and was very happy with the performance just not the price! That is what prompted me to get these going. My goal is to offer a quaility product at a affordable price and if it happens I will be making alot of people happy and if not it wont be a lack of trying. Jake I will not sell you a set but instead will give you a set but remember goes both ways (give and take) Iwill take a set of 101.6 for a test session on a ring study I am doing (ALL CAST) and will give you what you would like!
Jack

Jack...
Thanks for the post.. You may want to go on over to the Cal- Look forum and clear up some stuff there as well on the same subject.

In the early days LN used Raceware for head studs- results with the company and the product were not positive. The metallury of the stud has to be closely examined for total compatibility or you end up with the same results Porsche did in the 2.7 engines....

The problem is not "Lifting" of the cylinder heads, actually its the opposite of that as temperature rises and the cylinders and heads expand.... Studs that can't handle the expansion correctly over torque the heads and then you open up another new can of worms..... Hell it took almost a solid year of playing around with head torques before the optimum torque value was attained..... All this testing has not been cheap for Charles to pay for, He has spent several thousand dollars just with me and dyno time not to mention the strength yield tests and etc that have went into the product....... Jack, you will also encounter this and have to battle with it if you do intend to fully develop your product as well as LN has to date.

I certainly appreciate your offer of some cylinders for testing... I have NO PROBLEM creating a side by side comparison of your cylinders compared to the LN cylinders, even on the same engine (1 bank of cylinders LN and the other bank yours) and datalogging temps as well as overall engine expansion, head torque changes at various temps and etc... Then we'll drop the boost to it if you want! Charles would be the guy that would have to give up a set of his cylinders for the swap because he is the Mfr- I'm only a proponent of a bad ass product that I KNOW works and has all the bugs worked out of it... (thanks in part to your truly )

This LN cylinder is the largest made to date (105.07).. It was ran with .001 skirt clearance for 13,200 miles of pure hell and 27 dyno runs- the oil wasn't even changed from the day it was built on purpose...



Jack, email me productdevelopment@aircooledtechnology.com so we can start some dialogue- I'd love to test the differences between the cast and Billet cylinders just to dis-spel some myths... Glad you joined us here

BTW- don't for one minute think that I'm biased for a single Manufacturer- thats far from the truth! I Love to make things the best they can be and thats what is going to keep this industry growing- not dying. I have no problem treating the two products equally with no bias... I'l try to kill them equally and the one that lives wins!

As i've done in the past more than once, i'm always open to loaning a set of Nickies for a side by side comparision to put on the dyno and collect data with the datalogger. Short of that, some FE or material analysis along with actual long term testing is in order- nothing short of what we went though before selling Nickies to the public with the original 2615 that built and a sister engine built by Jake. The latter has seen 100,000mi of use and abuse. Our test engine went through 35,000mi before it was torn down and parted out. The cylinders were re-ringed and used on another engine built by Jake. Through this testing, we've had cylinders come back for routine inspection and we've been able to verify dimensional stability. CMW has gone one step further and used rockwell testing to monitor our cylinders in their customer's race engines.

BTW, I have all the tooling and master molds for a cast 102 Nickies cylinder. There were just too many compromises going with a casting in our opinion and that's why we went billet, for those who didn't know.

So am I correct by saying there has been no problems to your Nickies even when you sell them with your rings and head studs, lets say in the last year

No, never did I say or claim that. Everyone here knows that. We're very open with the problems we have had over the years. We've had a few issues over the years, but in almost every case that I am aware of we were trying to fit another manufacturer's existing pistons provided by the customer to the cylinder where we don't have control over the existing ring configuration, hence trying to find rings that *should work*. I can count every set of Nickies that have come back in 5 years for replating for one reason or another on one hand, and that's including every line of cylinders.

I can say with 100% certainty that if the customer has a problem and he lets us know about the problem, we will work at it until we have a solution and get it fixed, no questions asked. That's what the lifetime warranty is for, since most any issue will boil down to plating, and that's why I use a plater who backs their work with that lifetime warranty. Do you have a particular person you are referring to. Unless you put a name to the set, it's heresay and conjecture. You also have claimed to have used and dynoed a set of Nickies- whose? I know where most every set of Nickies I have ever made has ended up and who owns them.

If you sell enough cylinders to a vast number of customers in a vast number of configurations, you will eventually have isolated problems. The difference is in how you handle them and what you learn and implement from them.

Thanks for posting here and joining the club Jack.
I'd like to come over and check out your shop.
:PERMAGRIN: Joe

Certain types of issues are actually a good thing... That may sound crazy, but its the truth... Issues have been the basis of my entire engine/research program- without negative results you can't identify positive results.... In the words of Thomas Edison "Results! why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won't work."

Most of the issues with Charles' cylinders have been something that I have found personally on my dyno, or in one of the engines that I built for him specifically for this purpose. Most all of these were in the early days and were simple to "fix" and they have not been an issue since.

I do know of a couple of situations that the installer of the cylinders and their lack of experience with Nikasil have created less than perfect results. The most serious of these was aggrevated by excessive piston/cylinder clearance, improper ring set up (way too much end gap), and improper cylinder head torques just to name a few..... The end user listened to everyone but the Mfr, but none of those telling him how to build his engine had any Porsche experience, nor first hand Nickies experience. This coupled to his desire not to buy another set of more compatible pistons with the proper ring land was the root of his issue- no doubt. Nikisil isn't like a generic cast iron cylinder that can have the hone or plateau finishes altered for better compatibility with almost any ring; it requires certain compatibility and without it you are pissing in the wind.

Situations like this one net a customer very vocal with his issues, yet reserved with the actual truth behind those issues and the fact that maybe he CREATED the issues... Anyone who sells anything to anyone WILL have some sort of an issue at some point and time- the more exotic the project and the more demanding the assembly, the easier and more frequent they occur.

Jack or anyone else creating a cylinder program like this WILL ALSO HAVE ISSUES to work through and if they pay attention to the results, learn from them and take care of the customer it will be to their benefit as time progresses. Hell cast iron cylinders have been in use for well over 120 years in everything from steam engines to todays passeger cars.... even 120 years later there are STILL negative issues with something thats about as simple as they come- a good example of this is the inability of a Total Seal ring to ever really "seat" inside a stock Type IV cylinder, no matter the preparation. Remember that.

My philosophy is that if you don't have issues and break things you haven't pushed them hard enough- Try harder.

QUOTE (Joe Sharp @ Dec 16 2005, 10:30 AM)

Thanks for posting here and joining the club Jack. I'd like to come over and check out your shop. :PERMAGRIN: Joe

come over to joes on saturday....tomorrow....

This is cool! This is how we get the best for less! New products Rawk! Charles an Jack are the Men!

Great, I paid less than half of that.

My weiner...

BTW - a really cool thread on STF about these....

what pistons then...


need special order from what i gather.

Only direct, comparative testing and thousands of miles will prove this.

supposedly a set are on the way to me for observation. Results will be available on CD...

Lets just say I have quite a checklist these babies must pass to gain any respect from us..

Anything that was behind must be approached with reservation.

Jake are you suggesting that is the driving force behind these new Nickie type cylinders?

this is unbelievable

Try just running them like theyre supposed to be run, instead of putting them under 30 # of boost and runnign 1200F head temps.

maybe at one time.... but no longer

Yes, these were a development of our old buddy.. He left the Mfr hanging out to dry, just like dozens of other people...

For those interested in my findings I will prepare a CD available at a nominal charge.

These comparisons will be shared in comparison to cast iron cylinders currently on the market. I will be testing these cylinders against the current "Nickies" but the results of that testing will be for in house use only.

Cylinders are a crucial part of the entire operation of an aircooled engine, my tests will be based upon these factors that I work with everyday and enhanced by my 6 years of developmental research experience with the "Nickies" product line from LN Engineering.

Fact is IF they turn out to be better than cast iron cylinders I'll probably look into using them on my engines currently cast iron equipped.

Many people **think** they know my intent but they have no clue..

Plain and simple, if the components are worth their price and don't require intervention before use I'll probably end up using them.

IF they follow the quality of most Chinese Type 1 parts and harm the Type 4 engine's reputation as being the superior 4 cylinder aircooled engine that will be known soon enough and it won't be me doing the sharing, it'll be the failed engines, head leaks and other issues.

My engines larger than 96mm bore will always use Genuine Nickies, the results and development that we have attained with them in the past 6 years have been incredible.

All I can say is that results will be available to those that don't want to spend 1K bucks on a component that doesn't even come with a proven head torque value.

we are currently assy a motor with these cly.(104s) they are less than .001 out of round. we have J&E pistons made for them and special ($150) rings that are used on 6 cly engines. This in conjuction with Jakes DTM cooling system shoule be interesting.

Bernie

Bernie, was that .001 measured under torque or static on the bench?

static I belive. Doug at Fat Performance did it. he has a lot of experance with these motors in off road racing.

hm......

you hone cylinders under a torque plate.... so shouldnt you measure them while torqued?

Sure, just wondered.. Most people do not understand how much a cylinder can change when put under torque load.

I am sure that Doug Knowes What he is doing. I didnt ask

Bernie

I'm sure he does too... Glad to see that they are getting direct experience with the cylinders.