Connecting Rod

[Newmember]

Who has experience of using chinese h-beam rods? Have bought this kit: http://webshop.cp-service.se/en/533-...udi-5-cyl.html

and I am afraid that these rods are chinese or I am wrong. Poeple from sweden what can you say about these rods?

[caterpillar]

if they are crap; any one seen any pics of the broken one?????.... very bad the cp dont have the specs for the rods... lots of versons of the audi rods.......!!!

[Biturbo]

Who has experience of using chinese h-beam rods? Have bought this kit: http://webshop.cp-service.se/en/533-...udi-5-cyl.html

and I am afraid that these rods are chinese or I am wrong. Poeple from sweden what can you say about these rods?

I have used scat roads from 034motorsport for sale,that was holding my 657hp and 800nm is you are interesting

[popdemonic]

iirc Scat also manufactured in China and finished in USA.i remember i have read this somewhere.i think the only problems for the chinese rods is the balance but does anyone put the rods on engine w/o having them balanced again!?i believe most of aftermarket rods also manufactured in China.i still never found someone having problems with them.

[Jaswan]

i looked into this a while ago and what i found is that it seems that most h-beam rods you see are all made in china and finished/machined in either the USA or Europe (depending on brand)

i have seen a set of "maxspeedingrods" and the wrist pins fit ok but the main bearing end was too small so with a bearing in it didn't fit onto the crank.

my opinion is that Chinese rods will take the power but may need re-finishing or machining.

[Thuppu]

Yes, you always have to check the clearences.

[GazzaG60]

i run scats. have them weight matched. got mine stateside from paul at boostfactory. run them for a few years no issues. soon to run the engine again so wiull update then.

[Newmember]

I have sent to CP mail and they answered me :

Hi!
we´ve have run 1000 hp with those,
and over 600pcs sold, no problem with cracking,

/Thomas


hope this is true

[Wizard-of-OD]

iirc Scat also manufactured in China and finished in USA.i remember i have read this somewhere.

Yes I posted it.
When I worked with Paul@BoostFactory (I was Issam@Boostfactory). I approached SCAT to make a 144/20mm connecting rod. This was a good 10 years ago at least. At the time the only company that made aftermarket rods in 144/20mm format was a US Company by the name of Pauter. There was no Eagle , TODA , IE , Eurospec or any of those names around...
SCAT stated that we needed a minimum of 100 people (400 pieces) in order to make it happen. We all ASSuMEd that SCAT being a California based company were manufacturing the components in there California facility.
No joke , we reached the 100 people list in less than a single week....AEB pistons (we never got offered the AGU) were selling like hot cakes. Pretty much overnight AEB short blocks were sky rocketing in price for the pistons.

So fast forward a few years , SCAT is making 144/20mm rods and expanded into the 159/21mm units for the ABA. A popular company in Northern California were taking the 5 sets of 4 cylinder connecting rods , breaking down the box and repackaging them as a 5 cylinder set (4 sets) which is where the SCAT popularity with the Inline-5 crowd came from. Naturally if you were building your motor you would get the internals balanced so that is why some of the early adopters found that 1 single connecting rod always needed more material taken off from it OR 4 connecting rods needed material taken off from it.

A rumour was started that SCAT's were being forged in China and machined finish in California. After confronting them at an automotive show , this would turn out to be true.

The unfortunate scenario in the far east is Foundries share "intellectual property" with other foundries to keep the factories pumping. Technically SCAT should have been there only customer but that quickly changed with Alibaba.
As a foundry which would you rather have? 1 company buying 500 pieces of X or 10 companies buying 1000 pieces of X?
Within a 12 month span , the Volkswagen / Audi community saw over 7 companies selling "proprietary , Designed in house" offerings. Only 3 of those companies are around today and of course with supply and demand , H-beam & I-beam rods went from $315 USD/ 4 cylinder rods to just over $450 USD/ set.

The other issue is the improvements to the connecting rods which other manufacturers/sellers boast about SCAT refuses to implement such as:
- Rifle drilled hole through the neck to supply additional oiling to the wrist pin.
- Big end lubricating channels so that oil feeds up the side of the big end/crankshaft wall

and so on...

i think the only problems for the chinese rods is the balance but does anyone put the rods on engine w/o having them balanced again!?i believe most of aftermarket rods also manufactured in China.i still never found someone having problems with them.

Today in 2014 most aftermarket rods are made in the following countries:
- China
- Taiwan
- Brazil
- USA
- Greece (yes Greece)
- Turkey
- United Kingdom

You can look @ a connecting rod and see right away where it is made. Simply ask the seller if he can provide technical drawings or a FEA of the connecting rod design. That is usually a tell tale way of seeing if they are just adding a sticker on a chinese box or if they genuinely have control over the manufacturing.

There is nothing wrong with forging in the far east (considering all of the worlds scrap steel ends up there) so long as you have control over the manufacturing / machining For e.g. we use Dynamic Motion Forged connecting rods as they are some what local to us.
Peter Ohlman (B5 A4 w/ AAN inline 5 motor) is making over 900whp on a set of 144/21mm I-beams supplied by us.

Another thing to watch out for is the ARP hardware used. Simply call up ARP in Ventura California and ask them if XYZ company is an ARP distributor. If they are not , then they are selling you counterfeit ARP's such as what maxrpm sends you from "Hong Kong".

p.s. Saying that you have a foundry in Hong Kong is like saying you have a foundry in downtown London UK or Manhatten island USA