Racing with lightened connecting rods

The late Mike Belfer recommended no more than two racing seasons on lightened production rods. He also shotpeened [stress relieved] the oil hole. He told me this after my lightened rods without stressed relieved or filled oil holes let go in Corner Five at Blackhawk Farms.

Since then I have used Corrello rods without incident. That includes many racing miles [shift point 6000] and occasional excursions to 7000

Bob Wismer

Interesting thing about the oil hole in the rod. In days past when we had found that the oil hole indeed was the problem and could not use alternate rods, we would pull down the rod from the crank, spray acetone on the rod around the oil hole to clean it then spray on the crack detect stuff and do a crack check with the ultra violet light. It saved pulling the entire engine down all the time . It saved a lot of engines for us.

Kas Kastner

Kas, that's an interesting approach. I think your 'little black' book suggested magnafluxing the rods after every 4 races. Since the cranks were also weak, I thought it was a good idea to pull everything apart after every 4 races and check the rods and crank. As long as I followed this routine, I never had a problem. The one time I didn't, sure enough, I ended up with a gaping hole right above the starter! I raced the car for 8 years before they let us use Carillo rods. During that time, I only had the one rod failure - so your formula must have been correct. Thanks!

Jack Wheeler

> I am trying to order new rod bolts for my TR-4 from ARP fastners and
> they asked me if they were the same as TR-6,s or TR-7,s or gt-6,s .They no
> listing for TR-3,s or TR-4,s . Can anyone help out on this ?

I bought some from ARP a few years ago. They were ARP Part # 200-6021. They are 7/16 x 1.8 12pt rod bolts 2P. You need 4 sets. Back in March 2000 they totaled $40.18 with shipping. They looked them up by the dimension, and that is what worked out. I think they fit Fords.

Joe(B)

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