I have reviewed all the messages from the foum regarding cryogenic processing of engine parts. However, it lacks good/significant documentation regarding the different processes done.
Does anyone know the source of technical articles regarding this process.
There must be some University site with this information.
Yes, I have searched the MIT site without success.
Anyone have the information?
Thanks,
L. McChesney

It wouldn't surprise me if the legitimately developed and tested methods are held as trade secrets. As you say, university research may be the best source of information. I'll talk to some people and let you know if I find any leads that have actual test data to back up the claims.

Are you planning to DO IT, or USE it? Have you called some local heat treatment shops and asked them about it?


***********here's a nugget of nfo for you***************
A quick patent search yielded this as a hit. Note the austenite decrease claim.

Patent Assignee: INST STIINT ING TEH
Inventors: BUMBEA E; DRUGA L; FRANCISC V; GIACOMELLI I; MUNTEANU A; PANTEA V; TEACA M; VASILIU A
Patent Family Patent Number Kind Date Application Number Kind Date Week Type
RO 92459 A 19870930 RO 119206 A 19870619 198804 B

Priority Applications (Number Kind Date): RO 119206 A ( 19850619); RO 119206 A ( 19870619)

Abstract:
RO 92459 A

The process comprises nitriding or carbonitriding to give a 0.05-0.15 mm hardened layer. Thus thread rolling jaws and other cold plastic deformation tool can be hardened in this way.

The heating is followed by sub-zero treatment to decrease the residual austenite content to below 5%.

ADVANTAGE - The process increases cold working tool quality.

Wear \"Chilled Out\" of Stamping Dies & Punches

Cryogenic Tempering Extends Part and Tool Life

Cryogenic Process Improves Engine, Brake Life
I found a patent to go with the above link: US 20020179204


[/URL]Thiokol to Use Cryogenic Tempering Technology

My first reaction to cryo was "snake oil". But heat-treating is almost cryo in reverse so maybe it has some merit. In doing the little bit of research that I have done I couldn't find any hard data that came from "independent" sources. So for now I'm keeping an open mind but I find the claims dubious at best.

I know Jake swears by cryo and I respect his opnion, but again he's not what I call "independent" from the cryo industry.

kdfoust said:
"It wouldn't surprise me if the legitimately developed and tested methods are held as trade secrets."

The process is a trade secret but the end result should not be, what's the rockwell hardness before/ after, etc.

An interesting article came from a woodworking tool catalogue that I just received last week. Veritas tools are made by Lee Valley, high quality and costly, sort of the Snap-on of woodworking tools. I know it may not directly relate to engine parts, but it was interesting to see.

One day I was in my ocal Barber shop... My regular guy was on vacation so I went to some chick... well.

About the time I'm about to fal asleep in the chair the "Scissor shaprenin guy" comes in... He takes a ton of scissors from everyone in the place except the chick cutting my hair. He asks her "So why haven't you needed your shears sharpened in the last year?"

She comes bback with "My husband froze them" and then the conversation began... Come to find out her husband "Freezes" almost every engine in the NASCAR field.... I did not believe it till he froze the engine parts for my bus and I went over 15K miles without touching a valve for an adjustment....


I'm independant in the cryo industry... I don't own one cryo tool but have helped to perfect 31 cryo profiles for my engine components.....

it's pretty well thought of in the rifle barrel industry.

think about this: why would we believe the effects of heat-treating stop at room temperature just because that's a comfortable environment for humans ? the theory, as i've heard it explained, is that the heat-treat chemical process in the steel continues right down approaching absolute zero.

i have seen before/after tests on gun barrel accuracy in which residual stresses produced 'stringing' (asymetrical thermal expansion causing barrel curvature and a 'string' (line) of hits) that wa eliminated following cryo treatment.

i know some people who claim wonderful effects in aluminum alloy, but as that does not have the austenite/martensite bi-phase thing, i'm skeptical there. but i haven't seen any 'before and after' product tests either, so i donno.

i know life extension is claimed for brake rotors, but since it seems to double life at double the cost, i'd think it beneficial mostly to endurance racers who could potentially avoid a mid-race rotor swap and gain a competitive advantage.

for other parts - connecting rods ? crankshafts ? camshafts ? i s'pose it couldn't hoit, especially if there were a friction reduction. my water-VW camshafts have shown no visible lobe wear after 350,000 mi so i hope it has a more compelling reason than just wear reduction. OTOH - those cams may have had an expensive surface treatment that costs more than cryo would. i'm no metallurgist, i just know what i read ...

Cryo treatment is common as part of the heat-treatment of several carbon and stainless tool steels. When heat treating steel it is taken to a specific temp where it undergoes a molecular change to a state called austenite. The steel is then 'quenched' to quickly reduce it's temperature. Quenching changes the steel to a state called martensite (assuming everything went according to plan). Some steel has molecules that tend to linger and may not fully convert to martensite, but instead end up as something else like pearlite. Cryo treatment of certain steels can get some of these lingering molecules transformed to martensite. The result is more uniform grain and hardness. Cryo treatment of certain stainless tool steels can increase hardness after heat treat by one or two points on the Rockwell C scale. I don't know what legitimate benefits can be had from cryo treatement of metals that are not being subjected to a heat-treating/hardening process. When I hear about iron brake rotors and the like being cryo treated I tend to raise and eyebrow. Sounds like snakeoil (but I could be wrong).

-Ben M.

Rich,
Your comments about gun barrel stress are interesting. Cryo treatment actually can increase stresses. You can actually fracture some hardened tool steels durring cryo treatment if they haven't gone through a tempering (moderate heating - usually something like 500-650 degrees F for a regulated period) cycle first to releave internal stresses. I bet these gun barels are going through several preperatory steps before and possibly after the cryo treatment. Interesting stuff.

-Ben

To me the discussion is not around "the whether" or "the how" of it working in one application. The important discussion is around practical significance. I'm reasonably certain that structural changes are manifested in materials through cryo treament processes. The question is: "does it matter?"

The cryo rotor application is an easy target for the "who cares" sort of argument.

Substantial test data is lacking to say the least. Ancedotal evidence...well "in god we trust, every one else bring data."

The concept is intriging but the lack of data is worrisome.
I can understand that each company can develop their proprietary methods to achieve a desired result. This provides for a market advantage. However, it also provides no assurance to the consumer as to what company method is successful.
There also has to be ranges of successful methods. Rember, our fathers/uncles placed their crankshafts out at night. DD reminded us of the serindupitous finding of the results of metal objects returning from space.
I have some experience with cyopreservation and destruction of cells. Some time ago, to control the nucleation step required an expinsive equiptment for the step wise cooling and freezing of cells. Creative research techs found that they could approximate, not match, but approximate the same process using a alcohol bath and step wise use of the refrig, freezer, gas phase N2 and then Liquid N2. Same way with the thawing fo the cells.
I continue to seek the .edu sites in hope to find a grad students thesis.

L. McChesney

I talked to my cryo guy- he'll be here later..

I plan on incorperating this process into my engine rebuild. I found ONE guy in the bay area that will treat parts, engines, etc. The proof I will be looking for will be in lower head temps, lower oil temps, life of valve adjustments, life of engine. It will be an ongoing test until I need another rebuild which I won't plan on for a hundred thousand miles or so.

So far, the evidence that I have seen is all anecdotal. The bit about treated parts having harder Rockwell numbers is new to me, and very intriguing. It could easily lead to the sort of info that could convince me...

Some of the folks on the Racing Rennlist email list tried cryo'd brake rotors. The one application I remember was on a 944 (over 3,000 lbs in racing trim) and the owner found zero difference in the stopping power or life span of the cryo'd rotors versus the plain untreated ones.

At the very least, this says to me that the treatment is sensitive about its application or about how it is applied. It would be helpful to have a way to verify that whatever good things are supposed to happen inside the metal actually did...

I have also heard one metallurgist opine that "even if it did anything, the effects would be lost the first time you heat-cycled it." I think he was talking about rotors again, though. Engines are obviously at least a bit different.

--DD

Everytime you run your engine you heat cycle it..

I know a bit about metalurgy (far from an expert but AWS, ASTM etc seem to think Im ok) Most of the changes in the crystal structure take place when the metal is cooling from a liquid to a solid state... then there are various holds where metals lose the various ferrites ie austentite, martensite etc....

I did alot of searching a few years ago regarding the merits of cryo...... like Dave said alot of anecdotal claims..... no hard #'s..

Having said that I doubt I cryo my $100 rotors

I might freeze my crank though...

Alot of succesful race teams use it....

Do you honestly think he will have anything but positive things to say about cryo?

"I'm independent in the cryo industry... I don't own one cryo tool but have helped to perfect 31 cryo profiles for my engine components..... "

Do you make any money when you (have them) cyro a customers part? If you do, then how can you call yourself independent?

I know a shop down the road that sold and used slick50 "independently" for years, when the government told slick50 to stop making their claims he stopped using it. He found no difference, he now thinks that he had been selling snake oil all that time.


What I think is being asked here is for hard scientific proof from a lab that is independent from the cryo industry.

Yes, but the cycle is different. Rotors, for instance, will see much higher temps than a crankshaft will.

--DD

Dave,
You might like reading some of the info Crucible publishes regarding their products. They pretty much lead the industry (IMHO) when it comes to steel technology.

Here is a link to a very basic overview of some heat-treat steps for tool-steels (in general - not specific) that includes some basic info on the role of cryo treatment in the hardening process. When I said that the cryo treatment could increase the hardness of a steel I mean specific to the heat-treat process. The benefit is in getting some of the more stuborn tool steels to more fully transform austenite to martensite. And you only get austenite when you take the steel to critical temp (as high as 2,100 F for some steels). If you cryo any old piece of anealed (non hardened) steel that's just laying around, the cryo will have no effect on hardness as far as I know.

Elsewhere on crucible's site they have whitepapers with specs on each of their steels with specific heat-treat proceedures for each including hardness tables for different heat-treat procedures including cryo and non-cryo treatments.

-Ben M.

I am INDEPENDANT!

Want to see how??
When my parts are cryoed it means that they need the parts for atleast 1.5 weeks to do their processes..

That affects turnaround time on the entire engine. It als means that I have to do all the work, and mock up/balance the assembly before they pick up the parts for the service. It also means that I have to inventory all the stuff and box it all up for transport.

The standard cryo process for an entire engine cost me 475.00 it cost my customer 500.00 as an inclusion in the process of the build. So for 25.00 I spend all the time to have the parts processed, pack them up and go through those hassles.

I have to for instance buy valve seats, send them out for the process and then have the seats sent back to the head shop for installation since the entire head should not be treated when it is assembled (expansion issues between aluminum and seat material)

I easily LOSE money on the process, and maybe break even. What it does do is give my engines another edge over the rest and keeps my reputation wher its at and has been. Thats more important than a 10 million dollar check!

I have NEVER seen a failure using cryoed parts with the guys that do my work.... I can say that I have seen a broken (cracked 3/4 way through the center main)crankshaft purposely installed into bus engine and driven 10K and it never broke... (don't ask why)

Please don't imply that something does not work until you experience it yourself. It takes risks to find out what works and what don't I take those risks with my test engines and have yet to see a problem with any cryo process. I doubted the cryo process just as much as many of you do here, BUT I can say it has proven its self to me and many others that have been able to directly compare the results we have seen with it against parts that were not treated.

My lab is called a dyno cell.... I'm not a metallurgist and don't care how/why it works.. I just know that I like the results and use the process.

i think all we're asking is HOW has it proven itself ?

"parts didn't fail" - sorry - that's very nice, but it doesn't prove a thing.

have you run tests like cryo'ing half the lifters in an engine and then checking for wear ?
the valve seats on one side of the engine but not the other ?

(don't get me wrong - i actually -do- believe it's helpful, i'm just trying to clarify the question.)

what physical comparison tests have you done to verify the difference between a treated and untreated part ?

the arm-waving part about costs has nothing to do with independence, or metals properties, BTW.
you could just as easily say it's expensive and time-consuming for you to paint every part blue. okay, it's time-consuming and expensive, but how do you know the parts are any better for having done it ?

I see it as a parts don't wear out as fast issue. That's good enough for me. A test on 1/2 of the lifters/cyls etc treated and the other 1/2 not would be good. Granted it'd take time and $ to do such a test.

If people had not experimented with heat treating and rapidly cooling we'd still be in the bronze age or w/ crappy steel that breaks. Must be something to it if the (NASCAR) racers do it...I'd like to see if the Porsche factory guys as well as sportscar/F1 cars do it (especially with the new longevity rules in F1 this year).

My first knowledge of cryogenics was in '93 or'94 when Dean Markley came out with Blue Steel guitar strings. They are regular guitar strings( not like new Excelsior strings that have a nano-web coating) that are cryogenically treated. They are without a doubt different. Without reading whatever it says on the package, when you play them you can feel the difference. The strings last much longer while feeling and sounding new until you replace them. It is also much harder to break one of these strings when it is very easy to break a regular string. They do cost twice as much as regular strings but easily last 4 times as long!

real-world operational life testing does take time and money, but it can be done in ordinary cars and ordinary dyno cells, and if measurable wear reduction is found to be a result, great ! if it's not measurable within the expected lifespan of an untreated part, it was not effective - or at least - not cost-effective ...

experimentation is good, and some experiments result in progress. but we experiment with lots of stuff that turns out to be worthless too. only post-test measurement can tell you if you've learned anything ...

there's so much pressure at the NASCAR and F1 levels that those guys might be doing all sorts of stuff -just in case- it's actually effective. obviously they need to be concerned about costs too, but they're willing to spend lots more for less effect than we are. and at those levels, i have no doubt there's a lot of disinformation going on too - stuff that the top teams have proven makes no difference that still goes on in an effort to confuse the 2nd-tier teams. if you can convince a competitor they need to spend $10,000 on metal treatments, that's $10,000 they won't have to spend on something else.

i agree there's "something" to it, but we don't have nearly enough information to know what :-) ...

FYI, Right now I'm making a special fixture that will be capable of testing lifters and cams directly with variable spring tensions and Then I'll be able to accurately test lifters in an environment exacting the engine.. (its made from an engine case powered by a 10HP electric motor and has an "Oil heater" to get oil to running temps.)

I'm not doing this to test cryo, but rather to see what lifters and cams work and what don't when cycled the same amount of time.... Do you think I'll make a buck off of it- probably not because I don't make cams or lifters.... I'm doing it to create a device that I can run my cams and lifters in to cycle them before installation to look for wear and etc.... The severe issues with cams and lfters at the present are requiring us to use ceramic lifters in every engine to avoid failures and customers are not willing to pay the extra so we cannot do jobs!

When I'm done with it I'll have 4 lifters cryoed and 4 not cryoed and jack the spring tensions to over 500 pounds and run them in the same fixture and see what happens... if anything is gonna happen it will with that severe of spring tension. There are always variables so the only way to do it would be to run 4 lifters on one side of the cam and then at half way stop and run them, in the opposite sides and see which ones are worn mre when we are done....

My cryo"proving" has come from my personal vehicles (5 of them) and 7 different full race engines that have had it done. For instance I had a 1600 offroad engine that kept snapping valve springs. No matter what we tried the springs were breaking from the outrageous lift and fast ramps on the cam. (we did not want to change his arrangement because he had the strongest engine in the field and had the championship for 3 years running already with that combo- he just broke springs once a month) I had a set of the same springs cryoed and the issue simply stopped. That engine has not been apart now for 2 years..


Another example was in my bus engine. I adjusted the valves on the bench when I built it. It went through 3 days of dyno work and 15,000 miles before the first valve needed to be adjusted- I checked them every 1-2 thousand miles and they stayed spot on all the way to 15K, when one of them finally moved and needed backing off. That engine has 45K on it now and some valves still have not been adjusted- just checked.

I did 3 engines for a manufactrer of a special dune buggy kit car. The owner of the company wanted one engine for himself so he sprung for the cryo on just that one. All engines were set up exacting. He uses these for riding trails out west and puts tourist behind the wheel so hw wanted torque... When I dynoed the engines one of them ran almost 25 degrees cooler the entire time- it was the one that had been cryoed.

About the best example is a good friend of mine that is actually a professional "Go Kart driver" this guy goes through engines like butter. He built an engine, dynoed it and then tore it down and had the cryo guys treat it. Then he rebuilt it 100% the same way and redynoed it.. The difference was about 3 HP (But on a small engine thats alot)

I have never had the time to build an engine, dyno it, then tear it down and treat and then rebuild/test it... One day when I quit being 50% of the engine workforce here I'll do it and try to peove it..

what I have learned lately is that guys on the net will even argue with raw data, so that pretty much renders testing nil.... If someone has the initiative and drive and desire to test something and believe in it- have the common courtesy to listen. If not, we may find ourselves in a world where testing is not even done anylonger by anyone because its worthless (we're almost there now)

Testing is the most expensive and time consuming/nerve racking thing in the world- its multiplied 5 fold when people who have not tested, or even experienced doubt your data.

I just finished spending 5,847.00 in test work for type I cooling systems... The system that I sell did horrible in the testing but I continued anyway because had the dyno set up already and etc. When I was finished I posted a few comparisns and people wanted to question how it happened.. well to say the least that set me on fire.

In my professional opinion:
CRYOGENIC ENHANCEMENT WHEN DONE CORRECTLY IS A BENEFIT TO THE AIRCOOLED ENGINE.

I think the main issue is that guys cannot see or feel a difference in their parts after the process and that makes it hard to deal with....

this is my only experience with cryo but to me, it is a definate difference!! I only buy blue steel strings.... and they are not expensive now really... I like them much better than ernie ball's which seem to break every time I use them!

Try the Excelsior nano-web coated strings. they are 4 times as much as reg. strings ($20) but are also very sweet. They will not be as strong as the Dean Markley's but they have an awesome feel and sound and stay cleaner. I would not have payed the money for them but my friend works at a music store and highly recomended I try them and gave me a nice discount to prove it.

Excellent!! That will be a very useful test, and should shut up at least one of the doubters if things work out the way the believers think it should. (That would be the doubter typing this note...)




Listen, yes. Very much so. Believe uncritically? Sorry, I can't do that. There are too many bogus things out there that people--even good-meaning intelligent people--believe in to accept everything that anyone says at face value.

Jake, I look forward to seeing the results from your tests!

--DD

Being too critcal is exactly what I'm talking about.

I'm almost to the point of just holding all the results, and not posting anything- all it does is cause bickering when the results are not considered " conventional wisdom"

lately everything conventional has sucked!

cool. reading about the process, it sounded like valve springs would be an excellent candidate and i'm glad to see this was proven in your real-world experience.

we just needed an example, and you provided some. thanks !

yeah - there are people who will argue anything. but believe it or not, there are professional engineers on this list who know how to ask critical questions and interpret the results. answers like "the engine broke a bunch of valve springs but when we cryo'd a set of springs from the same manufacturing batch and ran them in the same engine the problem stopped" is VERY USEFUL INFORMATION! (an answer like "it must be good, becuase i wouldn't do it if it weren't, and i do..." is less helpful ...

The topic, it seems, has progressed to experimental design. Anecdotal data is very important as the starting point. We are very thankful that Fleming recognized the effect byproducts of a fungus inhibited bacterial growth. Otherwise, we would not have antibiotics with their life saving effects. However, it is truly a starting point because so many variables can affect the results.

Comparative studies are good designs, so long as only one variable is evaluated. Very hard to do in a multifactor process. Then there is the problem with the time length of the experiment. We are discussing comparing a crankshaft, rotor or rocker which would show significant signs of ware at 50,000 miles. Thus, in order to see differences require an extensive study time in which all other variables are kept constant. Impossible to be done in a real life situation, (did one part get the same amount of oil than the other, did one side heat more than the other).

Also, indirect data requires inferences. The Rockwell value of hardness is just that. It takes a lot of inference to decide that only hardness is the pivotal or only factor of the longevity. By the way, if there is increased hardness, (Rockwell value) does this not equate with decreased malleability thus increased brittleness? (I’m not recognized by ASM, etc.)

Jake’s plan is approaching this on the correct line. As stated, if you can isolate the process to test one variable, this testing would result in good reproducible data. But Jake, your are talking about 3,000 rpm to approximate 50mph for 50,000 miles = 41.666 days. Controlling for other variables is daunting.

Professional driver/racers are NOT an accurate source of data. There may well be a correlation between drivers who believe in cryo effects vs. wearing a special shirt or not shaving before the race or carrying a rabbit’s foot (it wasn’t luck for the rabbit).

Jake, I read and have been reading your data on the testing of the Type I cooling setup and find it helpful/useful. However, data will not change the beliefs of those with ulterior motives and you should not worry that you have not changed their beliefs. Readers collect their antipodal data regarding the comments of those with ulterior motives and judge their value. Keep your focus on the process and not on the tomatoes thrown from the sidelines.

L. McChesney

Unfortunately, This issue is going to dog us for a long time. Anecdotal evidence will be all we, the public, will have. I have no doubt there is good experimental evidence in some journal somewhere. Personally I'm not going to take the time to find it or the time to try to understand it. I don't have the skills to build an engine myself so I'll have one built. When I spring for a new engine I'm going to make the best choice I can based on my experience and the information I get from the builder. After that it's a matter of faith.

The inside of an engine is barely controlled chaos. Like a lot of things we depend on it's a miracle it works at all and sometimes it doesn't. Parts fail, especially, as we push the performance to higher levels. There is always a direct relationship between increased performance and increased expense.
There is also a direct relationship between increased cost and increased durability to a point. If I decide to have a performance engine built I'd lean towards cryo treatment.

So when it comes down to cryo treatment or not listen to your builder and have faith in what he says or find someone else. Course you can wade through a bunch of old journals if you want.

Dave

Where's Alfred when we need him for some odd obscure technical article of cyrotreatment enhancement done by the Germans during WWII.


Geoff

The fixture I'm building has a set of variable pulleys top and bottom from an old lathe.. This makes the speed of the crank variable.

Trust me, it won't take more than one day to test the lifters.. Junk ones won't make it 100 miles before they go flat in an engine. Running the spring tension higher increases the effects to the lifter in less time elapsed..

I'm having some of the better lifters I was able to find resurfaced, cryoed and the DLC coated... Testing these is the main objective of the fixture. The secondary objective is to build a fixture to break in the cams and lifters that we use in our engines. If I can cycle each set for a day or two prior to them going into the engine it will decrease the chances of failures drastically.

Sooooo True!!!

We ran a stock car in the mid 90's and won the championship (local, Thunder and Challenger class, twice rookie of the year, and most races won all classes, both years) two years in a row. Three times other drivers complained that we were doing something illegal, put up the $150 and made us tear down the engine for tech. We were always OK, but we would also make the complainer tear down their engine for tech as well. All 3 times they got caught and disqualified. Our driver, Frank Garden, let it "leak" that we were using cryo, total BS. We were using a cam out of a RV that had the same lift but longer duration and was still a stock cam. Tech only measured lift and made sure it was a stock cam. By the third year a lot of the other teams figured out what we were doing and we lost our advantage.


Jake,
As you probably know Berg has been using a similar fixture for cam/lifter break-in since the late 90's. I think you will find that 10hp will not be enough to run your fixture properly. I think they also started out with a 10hp motor and ended up using a 30hp motor.

I was never questioning your views on the subject (you're so touchy) I, like many of the others, was looking for data from an accredited source that didn't care if it works or not.


An interesting side note, Jake’s barbershop shop story made me ask my brother, a 30yr. professional barber, if he hade ever heard of cryo. Sort of… they call it ”ice hardened”. He said that he has 4 ”ice hardened” sets, all high-end Japanese steel, but he had mixed feelings about them. He said they did stay sharp longer, were more money ($200 vs. $140), and cost more money to sharpen ($60 vs. $15).
He said he didn’t know if they stayed sharper because of cyro or if it was just better steel.
BUT he did say that when freshly sharpened the non-”ice hardened” sets were always sharper than the ”ice hardened” scissors. I asked him which his favourite scissors were and he said hands down the non-”ice hardened” scissors.

i've experienced the first phenomonon too, fortunately among "sportsman" vintage racers, where the line is "he must be cheating, because i'm cheating, and he's faster than me!"

as for the second phenomonon - my favorite scissors are Kyocera ceramics...

sometimes it happens that we spend so much effort trying to perfect a process that we are blindsided by a completely new material ...

there are lots of old, good ideas that didn't work because they were unimplementable with the available materials. titanium used to be a borderline strategic metal - but now that we (global 'we') aren't making nearly as many C-5's, and AN-124's, and B1's and submarines as we used to, the price for titanium has fallen to the point where it's a viable material for everyday consumer goods - and with that, advances in handling (stamping, machining, welding) technologies. (i've got a dozen Ti consumer products in arm's reach right now ...)

i bet it's not too long until the 'next big thing' is Ti connecting rods (again - Porsche used them 40 years ago) and Ti valve springs. Porsche was using Ti suspension springs in the 917's and, later, 911 RSR (30+ years ago). Ti valve retainers are already commonplace, but what Ti is really good for is springs...

Yeh... Paul has seen the ceramic scissors, at the time they were something like $1200 for a pair and might break if you dropped them.
He said he drops his scissors way to often to ever consider buying them.

Berg's fixture is much different than the one that I'm using. My fixture has a gear reduction drive from a convet\yor belt, and a 4 speed international harvester gearbox to transmit the power to the pulleys.. Just wait till you what this sucker looks like. I can change gears, and speeds to reduce load/speed at the fixture.

The "Other" idea that I have if the electric motor cost too much (power consumption and initial expense) is to power the fixture with a 1.7 TIV engine and automatic transaxle from a bus.. This would make the fixture larger and more complex but it would be cool.

I think Bergs fixture is just a case with a set of heads on it. I have just seen some older pics of it. This one has alot of time put into it to make it easier and faster to work with. The "Oil heater" and thermostat can keep oil the same as a normal engine and can be a djusted to replicate extreme conditions..

I started this in 1996 when we had mega lifter and cam failures 9 in one year) but it got slid under the table when our cam problems went away after switching exclusively to web.. The problems are back now but its more lifters than cam this time around. Thats easier to test!

It started out as just a case and a cannibalized lathe but I believe things like the lifter bores keep f'ing up with the heavier springs and was a bitch to tear-down/set-up. I think it has progressed to something a bit more sophisticated now.

At the time they tried a lot of different stuff, chilled iron, zircromium (sp?) faced, Torco lube (same as Web now gives you with a cam, they kept the lube), Torco oil, different coatings, scat lifters, re-facing, heat treating, microscopic analyses, metallurgy, billet cams etc., etc.
Drove them total bat shit.

Ti is already "commanplace" in Motorcycle circles. Go look at at an GSXR or R1 eng. specs.

spare me the search and cut to the chase - do they have Ti valves, valve springs, valve spring retainers, connecting rods, and suspension springs ?

those have all been used in race cars for a while, but they're not yet in production engines to any appreciable degree.

if they're in the bike engines, it's a good sign they're moving up ...

"they" have one way of doing things.. and so do "I"

God gave us all a brain, I try my hardest to excercise mine to overload everyday..

They were using a TI case of course.. mine is already better because it is based from a TYPE FOUR!!!LOL

Yes,Yes,Yes, Yes and unnecessary. SportBikes dont have the weight that stress's those pieces enough to justify.

TI valves won't last 2000 miles in a street application...

The 2004 GSXR 600 from Suzuki comes with titanium valves from the factory. I can assure you that if they only lasted to 2000 miles they would not be used. This engine revs to 16k rpm with forged steel rods, titanium valves and aluminum valve spring retainers. I am pretty sure they are using aluminum retainers again that is what they used in the 01-03 motors. I hear at least 30k miles before a valve job might need to be done.