Ebay rods, has anyone actually used them?

[zenyo]

alright guys thinking of buying some ebay rods

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Conrods-Nissa ... 5d2c7db0f2

read the sticky, alot of discussion but not alot of actual feedback on the product, has anyone actually ran these ebay rods? look the same as spool which from what i read isnt that bad.
there cheap as hell and i might buy them and try them out, if i save money buy using ebay rods and supertech pistons i can spend alot on a quality ecu that should hopefully make it run like clock work!
Peace
Zen

[boost_boy]

You can actually save your money and even use your stock rods. I would save as much money as I can towards a real engine management system instead of trying to beef-up an engine to learn to drag race. Tune what you got with a quality engine management system and you can rag on it until it pops its top. I doubt that it will if tuned properly.

[zenyo]

But will the stock rod bolts hold up to 300whp and a lot of hardcore abuse and being revved upto 7.5k? Since I'm stripping it down anyway I want to make it solid now so in the future I hopefully won't have to open it up again. Plan on running a link ecu, what's your opinion on nistune boards? Any good

[boost_boy]

But will the stock rod bolts hold up to 300whp and a lot of hardcore abuse and being revved upto 7.5k? Since I'm stripping it down anyway I want to make it solid now so in the future I hopefully won't have to open it up again. Plan on running a link ecu, what's your opinion on nistune boards? Any good

The stock rods and their bolts can take more than you will ever know. I've seen young engines with fresh aftermarket rods and bearings, spin and self destruct. As for Nistune, I've never seen the system, but I have heard of it. I use a standalone engine management that is better than good for my uses.

[biosehnsucht]

And you can always get the stock rods shotpeened for cheap. I found a place in ft worth a few minutes away from where I was getting my block worked on (at automotive machine), forget the place though for shot peening.. it was like $20.

LOL the guy was like "Yeah, I do this, but I don't know if it really makes a difference. People pay me though to do it, so what do I care! *laugh*"

Does shot peening do anything useful? I don't know, but it doesn't hurt, and for $20... why not?

[zenyo]

Ahhh I know the rods are strong but someone told me the bolts are weak, is it ok to re use the stock bolts? And can the pistons handle 300bhp? If they can il just buy new rings, bearings, and gaskets have the block honed and crank balanced and spend most of my budget on a decent ecu, another person told me to have the rods balanced and have arp bolts installed but the price of that would be the same as buying new rods. It looks like I will be having a stock rebuild and just having a z32 afm, rb20det tb, evo turbo, and fmic and a new ecu, will this get me 300bhp? After speaking to people on here the stock head bolts, gaskets and bearings apparently will handle all this. I'm hoping it does as it will be a lot cheaper to rebuild and get power!

[boost_boy]

Dude, whoever told you that crap is sadly mistaken. If you stretched a rod bolt on the stock CA's rods, it will be because the engine was heavily abused and poorly maintained. Those stock rods are more than capable of 500whp+and the pistons are just as equally up to the task. I've done better with stock pistons and rods than I've done with the aftermarket stuff on the dyno, street and strip. Well to be honest, I have CAs in all trims (ie stock rods with aftermarket pistons, stock pistons with stock rods, aftermarket rods with aftermarket pistons). it's all about how you fuel and time this motor. Folks using chips seem to be whacking motors left and right because programmers are using SR20 programs on CA18s and unfortunately these two engine are nothing alike. All of your add-ons are good for 300bhp, but if the tune is crap, soon your refreshened engine will be scrap.

[zenyo]

Thats crazy for a stock block! Do you recommend having the pistons and rods balanced? Or will they be more than likely be ok? What's the most you've ran out of a stock ca? Which ecu do you run? And when you rebuild your engines with stock internals what do you have done? Just change gaskets bolts and tensioner etc? Or do you have work done on the rods etc, do you have a link to one of your builds? Il be asking loads of questions BTW! Need to learn everything
Thanks in advance!
Zen

[float_6969]

Yea, don't underestimate the strength of the stock bottom end of a CA18DET. I've been running completely stock rods for years without issue. I put ARP's in mine during this rebuilt because I had it a part and they're cheap. I BEAT ON MY MOTOR!!! Daily. It's never had one day that it was started and didn't see redline AT LEAST once. Not one day. Only reason I'm rebuilding is because an oil filter failed and damaged the bearings and head.

The stock rods are fine for 300hp.

[boost_boy]

Thats crazy for a stock block! Do you recommend having the pistons and rods balanced? Or will they be more than likely be ok? What's the most you've ran out of a stock ca? Which ecu do you run? And when you rebuild your engines with stock internals what do you have done? Just change gaskets bolts and tensioner etc? Or do you have work done on the rods etc, do you have a link to one of your builds? Il be asking loads of questions BTW! Need to learn everything
Thanks in advance!
Zen

No need to balance the stock bottom end components unless you've some type of catastrophic failure. The most I've gotten out of a physically stock CA18DET without touching the head is 423whp @ 26psi of boost. The ecu I use is called "SDS" or Simple Digital System and it is a standalone engine management system. I don't even use super expensive bearings. I just clean-up the deck, check my cylinder bore, hone the cylindersm re-ring the pistons, swap to metal headgasket with ARP hard headstuds and the rest is history.

[biosehnsucht]

I had all my rotating assembly balanced when mine was rebuilt, it made it run super smooth.

So smooth that I usually couldn't tell if a coil pack died, cause then it just seemed like it was still running on 4 cylinders. D:

Two coil packs die, "Damn, I lost a coil pack! Better test them to find the bad one... "

I drove for several days on two cylinders at one point, thinking I was just missing one.

[zenyo]

Well it seems there's no point in forging my block as It's pretty tough from stock! Do you have to have the rods machined to have the arp bolts installed or do they go straight in? Also il be using stock bearings as there a lot cheaper and hopefully will be up for the job. which head gaskets do you recommend? as iv heard some bad stuff about cometic gaskets not sealing with arp studs.
Thanks for the help, much appreciated!
Zen

[mdb4879]

Idk if this would be thread jacking or what, but I figure the info could be useful. boost boy, when you say you don't even use expensive bearings do you mean that the local auto parts store brand are fine? I read all the time that oem bearings and stuff are fine, but idk if that means actually going to nissan and ordering them, or if one could go to, say, Advance Auto and get Sealed Power parts and that they're up to the task.

[bimeur]

I have a set, and some friends get them too, nothing to say, they do there job.

[boost_boy]

Idk if this would be thread jacking or what, but I figure the info could be useful. boost boy, when you say you don't even use expensive bearings do you mean that the local auto parts store brand are fine? I read all the time that oem bearings and stuff are fine, but idk if that means actually going to nissan and ordering them, or if one could go to, say, Advance Auto and get Sealed Power parts and that they're up to the task.

You can use any bearing you want and I have used some cheap ones and they have preformed very well. The only ones that let me down were the ACL race bearings and there was nothing physically wrong with my crank nor my workmanship. I immediately pulled the engine apart, cleaned-up the journals, replaced the busted ACL things with less fancier bearings and 8K+ 15-32psi runs and the engine is as happy as it can be.

[mdb4879]

Thanks, that's exactly what I was hoping to hear.

[themadscientist]

The rod bolts can stretch. I have stretched them. I was speed-shifting at 8.5k though which is ignorant. If I was building a motor on a shoestring I would just use stock rods with upgraded bolts and move on. The CA is a tough lil sumbitch and that's the only weak point I have ever found. Spend your money on quality engine management and fuel delivery.