PPM Rods Pistons any good? is 8.5 ratio good for a 15 PSI

[tomli123001]

I have seen some PPM rods and pistons here for sale, but I never heard of them before. I did google search and they came up on some of the Porsche and BMW forums with mixed reviews and customer services.

I am wanting to find out 2 things:
1. Do they fit into the engine nicely and have good quality to justify their price?
2. How do they compare to more commonly used brands such as Carrillo H-Beam and CP Piston Kit
3. PPM comes in a few options. The guy here selling it had it in 8.5 : 1. It will be used in a SE which had stock 9.5:1. I had my last engine built at 9:1 for a good balance of lower end RPM range. What is your view on the 8.5:1? I felt a bit too low, as I wanted to run 15 PSI only for a more reliable set up on the streets rather than a track only car.

thanks for your inputs.

[NitroDann]

What fuel, what turbo, what hp goals?

Dann

[bear2230]

I have 8.5:1 Arias pistons on a Daniel Deckers built motor with 15psi. His recommendation on compression.
http://arias-pistons.myshopify.com/prod ... -bp18-1-8l
Using BP Ultimate with no other mods and getting an honest 220hp
The RPM stuff is high end gear.
Dann can tell you what he would use and would be way less than 1K landed I would imagine. Plenty of options there.
All depends on budget but plenty of 300hp cars on cheaper forged internals with zero problems.
I chose Arias and Carillo H beam but could have gone CP and Eagle and saved $1000
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/CP-Forged-Pi ... 0325272733


Richard.

[tomli123001]

What fuel, what turbo, what hp goals?

Dann

Hi Dann. It will be just normal 98 fuel, 2560R turbo and hoping for 330 HP at the engine at the turbo's limit.

[tomli123001]

I have 8.5:1 Arias pistons on a Daniel Deckers built motor with 15psi. His recommendation on compression.
http://arias-pistons.myshopify.com/prod ... -bp18-1-8l
Using BP Ultimate with no other mods and getting an honest 220hp
The RPM stuff is high end gear.
Dann can tell you what he would use and would be way less than 1K landed I would imagine. Plenty of options there.
All depends on budget but plenty of 300hp cars on cheaper forged internals with zero problems.
I chose Arias and Carillo H beam but could have gone CP and Eagle and saved $1000
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/CP-Forged-Pi ... 0325272733


Richard.

Thanks for the input.
My budget is up to $2000 or a bit over. I hope to get 330 HP at the engine.

From what you said, you would rate PPM higher than CP and Carillo?
If the PPM sale thread did not come up, I would have gone down the track of using Wiseco and Carrillo rods.

Again, I am after reliability here and it is more important than just horse power to me.

[NitroDann]

What bear said.

I also doubt you will make 330hp crank on 98.

I also feel that when you make 270whp or so you will realise it is already an amazing amount of power.

Dann

[Lokiel]

MT.net agrees with bear2230's comment: "... could have gone CP and Eagle and saved $1000".

You really should spend a bit of research time at MT.net when doing an engine/turbo build - but remember to use the Search function first for common questions otherwise they'll deservedly eat you alive.

Some facts:
*Eagle/K1/Manley rods are about 40% the cost of Carillo rods - Carillo rods are rated to ~1000hp whereas the former rods are ONLY rated to ~600hp.
*The stock MSM/SE gearbox can only handle around 300hp.
*For the cost of Carillo rods, you could have Eagle/K1/Manley rods AND pistons with no reliability penalty (I haven't found any bent Eagle/K1/Manley rods on MT.net yet).


For my build, I was going to use Wiseco pistons but MX5 Plus recommended CP pistons instead since their engine builder prefers them because they require less machining to balance them. They're about the same price so I chose the CP pistons but also got the optional CP piston top coating which, according to CP:

"The top coating is designed to reflect heat into the combustion chamber, thereby increasing exhaust gas velocity and greatly improving scavenging potential."

- sounded like a good thing at the time.

CP also offer the same piston skirt coating too but a bit of research indicated that this rubs off so I saved a few $$$ there.


One thing you haven't mentioned is what boresize are the PPM pistons?

* 83mm is the stock NB boresize
* TrackSpeed Engineering recommend a maximum boresize of 84mm for high-power engines, otherwise the cylinder walls start getting a bit thin
* Your engine block was hardened at the factory and the surfaces, including the cylinder walls, are hardest on their surface; as you go deeper into the block, the block gets softer so boring the cylinders actually reduces the longevity of the motor - this is really only an issue on dedicated track cars but is something to consider.

I chose 83.5mm CP pistons because they were the smallest boresize available and my EFR6258 is going to generate shedloads more power than I need anyway.

[tomli123001]

MT.net agrees with bear2230's comment: "... could have gone CP and Eagle and saved $1000".

You really should spend a bit of research time at MT.net when doing an engine/turbo build - but remember to use the Search function first for common questions otherwise they'll deservedly eat you alive.

Some facts:
*Eagle/K1/Manley rods are about 40% the cost of Carillo rods - Carillo rods are rated to ~1000hp whereas the former rods are ONLY rated to ~600hp.
*The stock MSM/SE gearbox can only handle around 300hp.
*For the cost of Carillo rods, you could have Eagle/K1/Manley rods AND pistons with no reliability penalty (I haven't found any bent Eagle/K1/Manley rods on MT.net yet).


For my build, I was going to use Wiseco pistons but MX5 Plus recommended CP pistons instead since their engine builder prefers them because they require less machining to balance them. They're about the same price so I chose the CP pistons but also got the optional CP piston top coating which, according to CP:

"The top coating is designed to reflect heat into the combustion chamber, thereby increasing exhaust gas velocity and greatly improving scavenging potential."

- sounded like a good thing at the time.

CP also offer the same piston skirt coating too but a bit of research indicated that this rubs off so I saved a few $$$ there.


One thing you haven't mentioned is what boresize are the PPM pistons?

* 83mm is the stock NB boresize
* TrackSpeed Engineering recommend a maximum boresize of 84mm for high-power engines, otherwise the cylinder walls start getting a bit thin
* Your engine block was hardened at the factory and the surfaces, including the cylinder walls, are hardest on their surface; as you go deeper into the block, the block gets softer so boring the cylinders actually reduces the longevity of the motor - this is really only an issue on dedicated track cars but is something to consider.

I chose 83.5mm CP pistons because they were the smallest boresize available and my EFR6258 is going to generate shedloads more power than I need anyway.

Thanks lockiel for the in depth. Really look forward to your power figure after you finish your project. What hp are you expecting?

When Dann said 270hp atw, isn't that close to 330 at the crank?

[NitroDann]

I doubt it. Think about what 60hp is. if you were losing 60hp to friction thats the equivalent of a 40,000 watt heater inside your gearbox, considering that your average bar heater at home is 2000w there is no way you are generating 20 times as much heat inside your gearbox and its doing just fine.

Dann

[A.Chen89]

Read some more miataturbo as above.

General consensus is just pick any forged rod and piston then forget.

I went with 84mm Supertech's/Scat rods and they are holding up fine with a Borg bolted on.

I wouldn't worry too much about lower compression being sluggish off boost - when you get a tune you'll be able to pump more ignition advance. It'll feel torqiuer.

[orx626]

I doubt it. Think about what 60hp is. if you were losing 60hp to friction thats the equivalent of a 40,000 watt heater inside your gearbox, considering that your average bar heater at home is 2000w there is no way you are generating 20 times as much heat inside your gearbox and its doing just fine.

Dann

You know as well as I do Dann that drivetrain power loss doesn't just take the form of rejected heat. 18% (60/330) drivetrain power loss wouldn't be unreasonable. So why make this statement...unless you were teasing Tom?

Cheers,
Danny

[NitroDann]

I know, it was a general statement of "I doubt you will make 330 crank with a 2560 on 98 and a stock head on 98".

Apart from friction, which is dissipated at heat where else does the HP go?

Dann

[orx626]

Apart from friction, which is dissipated at heat where else does the HP go?

Dann

As loathed as I am to type it...."Google actually has the answers!" There's an SAE paper(s) from 2002 that covered drivetrain losses in detail.

With regards to a percentage loss...it is not a "constant number" as some people have historically advocated. There are so many variables. It's really powertrain loss (not just from the crankshaft back) so parasitic losses to belt dríven powersteering units and air-con compressors (not engaged though) also need to be included when you're modifying the same engine/vehicle as they probably wouldn't be on the engine if it was run on an engine dyno. It wouldn't be unreasonable to find that by raising the engine's operating rev range the efficiencies of these items will change (probably for the worse). Even as small as they might happen to be, they all add up and it will be different from vehicle to vehicle. A well documented issue is the variance in chassis dynos. A roller dyno versus a hub dyno provides another inconsistancy when measuring wheel horsepower. Rolling resistance is lower on hub dynos and can change from roller dyno to roller dyno depending on the operators settings for tyre pressure, roller coefficient of friction the and vehicle restraint method. This is why we can never factor an accurate claim for flywheel horsepower from a wheel horsepower reading (and vice versa) without a whole lot of real world testing on "the test" vehicle.

Now back to the OP topic.

Cheers,
Danny

[NitroDann]

I forgot inertia, thanks,

Dann

[tomli123001]

Thanks for all the input.
I think I will still go with CP, as Jason is more comfortable with it.

I will of course gather more information and also watch Lockiel's thread on this, after his build.
I will report on the dyno result after I do my engine towards the 2nd half of the year.