Cylinder liner material: hard verus soft cast?

Vincent Brake

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Hi, as I am doing another 2 engines, and seen wear on the previous ones used during 20K Mls.
Does anybody know the advantages and disadv. for hard cast ones: perlitic ("white cast") or even nodulair cast?
I know nodulair cast does not hold oil that good, but pistions I will use are CP or JE forged ones, nowadays owned by Corrillo. with very hard rings, one can even TiN coat them.

Regards, and thanx for your feed back
(if any that is)

Vincent Speed Brake
 

b'knighted

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Just to confuse matters further, have you considered Nikasil bores. My Comet has a Nikasil plated bore, on an aluminium liner I believe, but although I have no complaints I have not done sufficient mileage to comment on its true value.
 

davidd

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Hi, as I am doing another 2 engines, and seen wear on the previous ones used during 20K Mls.
Does anybody know the advantages and disadv. for hard cast ones: perlitic ("white cast") or even nodulair cast?
I know nodulair cast does not hold oil that good, but pistions I will use are CP or JE forged ones, nowadays owned by Corrillo. with very hard rings, one can even TiN coat them.

Regards, and thanx for your feed back
(if any that is)

Vincent Speed Brake

My experience is quite good with the Nikasil plated 4032 aluminum sleeves. I have run the same cylinder in the racer that was done in 1997 with no air cleaner. It is still racing today. The advantages are durability, you can use almost any muff (I would not use the original die cast Series D muffs), and there is great heat transfer, which is good in the hot running Vincent engine. To consider this it is best if you have companies that specialize in it. Here, we can send a piston, muff and liner drawing to Millennium Technologies (http://www.mt-llc.com/) and they have their affiliate, Advanced Sleeve (http://www.advancedsleeve.com/) make the liner, and Millennium finishes the machining and plating and returns it. No less than $400 per cylinder.

The question of cast is sort of like "plug indexing." There is a lot of opinion based on experience, but little hard data. LA Sleeve uses ductile iron, which is not well liked by some hot rodders who prefer cast or Nikasil on cast. I believe Maughan uses cast liners and I would tend to go with their expertise on the subject.

David
 

litnman

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Carlton Palmer is one who has much experience with Nikasil on aluminum liner in his Comet/Flash racer.
In the US, LA Sleeve probably supplies most liners for vintage and racing machines. www.lasleeve.com
Their tech section shows what they make as well as recommendations on applications.
 

b'knighted

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Perhaps we need to start a fresh Nikasil thread to avoid hijacking Vincent's thread.

Why is the Nikasil applied to a liner rather than a new one piece muff being made with an appropriate bore?
Inserting an aluminium liner into a heated aluminium muff must be a tricky business as the heat transfer must make the liner expand into the muff causing a much quicker grab than with you get with an iron liner
 

davidd

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Vincent seems to be most concerned about high wear. I am not sure that the difference in the cast iron properties would yield a big reduction in wear. I know the Nikasil will provide very low wear to the bore. It will not reduce wear on the rings or pistons particularly if no air cleaners are used. I would go with the technology that is easily available and fits the conditions of the engine and the environment.

I may have given the wrong impression about the Nikasil process. I think it is sprayed on the liner while it is in place after machining. It is then finished with a diamond hone. There is very little interference fit between the line and the muff as they are both aluminum. However, only the bore of the liner is coated with Nikasil. The top of the liner is not coated, as far as I know.

David
 

Vincent Brake

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I Have also a B.S. sporting a nikasil (by a dutch company: powerseal) coating in cast liners, (b.t.w. an electro plating proces +diamond honing) but I got very rapid wear as the rings supplied by CP pistons were chromed. So the man doing the plating did do the cylinders a hone of 0.01 mm and had the rings TiN coated, sofar i have done about 7000km, and with one of those thin line cameras i could not see any wear yet.
Good story I think, (apart of the TiN coating, being only a few monecules thick, and would not drill a hole in the cylinders to see their wear) so I am going on to the next story.

Either use a hard cast liner, or new idea: going alu + nikasil + cast or steel (deves??), piston springs.

Now: its only a luxury problem, and very hard to decide onto.
I guess I will order 2 hard cast liners, and fit the other engine with alu cylinders out of one piece milled or turnd.:)

and a big thanx for your ideas.

vincent
 

davidd

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Vincent,

You are certainly correct that you must specify the rings for Nikasil bores. Carleton and I both use Total Seal rings and if you buy either a JE or CP piston you can ask for Total Seal for Nikasil and they will do so. Both Carleton and I used the gapless second ring from Total Seal with good results.

JE and CP are fairly comparable. It used to be that JE had access to some very hard to get alloys. It is not the case now. CP was started by the Calvert brothers (three of them) who all worked for Arias in the early 70's and worked for JE in the 80's. CP stands for Calvert and Pankl. Pankl is an Austrian company know for incredibly high end parts. CP got a good share of the Piston market by offering custom coatings and lightening. So, it is a very small world.

Renwick used to turn the sleeves from solid, but the chips would force him out of the shop.

David
 

roy the mechanic

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Both Jaguar +B M W tried nicasil liners in their street cars, the result can only be described as a disaster. Total-seal rings are really good, I must have fitted literally hundreds of sets," they do what it says on the tin".
 
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