New motor / crate engine

I was curious as I've removed them in other race engines (cars) but that's was for clearance reasons and it was a race motor so was not as concerned with longevity. Do you know if the R, SL, or RS engines have them removed?

They have to be there to pass the Euro NOX requirements. They also run the O2 sensors at gasoline stoich for the same reason. Kills some cruise fuel economy. We built twin turbo'ed motors and never squirted more oil at the walls. Nickasil has serious longevity. If the pistons have enough silicon in the alloy you're essentially running silicon on silicon which doesn't wear much.

Mcv4 said:

… Do you have logs of oil pressure tapering off at high RPM?

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Mcv4 said:

Also do you know of someone who have gun barrel drilled OEM Ducati V4 rods?…

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baggerman said:

There maybe some more oil ending up on the walls but they're aimed at the back of the piston top. The R's now have gun drilled rods. And gun drilling them would be tough. The small ends because they park at TDC never achieve hydrodynamic lubrication but pumping oil into the loaded side of the pin has to help at 15,000 RPM. But i suspect this change was probably because the WSBK mechanics were tossing the squirters in the trash. I'm simply looking at apparent lubrication failures leading to rod failures. So if the oiling can be improved why not. Running bearing clearance at the loose end of the spec wastes pump volume. And every Ducati oil pump I've ever measured has had too much end float. Tightening the bearing clearances towards the minimum end of the spec helps. I like Italian engineering therefore many Ducati's. That being said Italian assembly generally blows. I'm always happier when it's my work. It's the mechanical failure induced crashaphobia thing.

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So, “no” to both questions then?

Nope no logs. And I've not had anyone gun drill a set. It'll be hard for sure but I have a retired machinist friend who could absolutely do this if I asked. CO2 laser would work for this also. You can buy a set of R rods. Like I said I'm looking at failures. I've not looked at the pin oiling. There are multiple ways to oil the pin. Gun drilling just makes more sense because it's pressure fed. Ever have an oil pressure gauge on your bike before you took it out and blew it up? Every ducati I've ever been into had too much rod bearing clearance. Ducati made a whole bunch of 1098's that were crank shimmed too tight. When they starting seeing track use they blew up. I like their engineering but their quality control is terrible still. Did you read what I posted about how the heads were shimmed as delivered? Just done by someone who couldn't give a ..... I had one cam 8 degrees out of time. The rear hub in my bike was under lubed as delivered. And they lied (and are still) about the steering head geometry. That being said there's a reason when I buy a bike typically the first thing I do is check the valve shimming, cam timing and check the oil pressure. If I were going to run these as track motors I'd tape a real undamped oil pressure gauge on the bike, point a go pro at it and do a couple of full load drag race like passes and take a look at what I had. Do you guys actually understand your failure? Underfilled, overfilled, pressure failure, scavenge failure? I've been doing this for a long time. If there's things I see that I can do to preclude failures that's what I do. I would remove the squirters but if one doesn't the tubes should be tacked or brazed to the main body and the union high temp loctited. Go back and look at Panibadboys R failure. Tube fell out, got picked up by oil film on the counterweight, tube diameter being greater than the clearance between the counterweight and piston at BDC, puts a moment on the pin and grenades the motor, locks the wheel up.

Not under miming your experience but for you to want to (recommend) delete important parts of an oiling system like oil squiters you should have the data prior to show why. You wouldn't tape a mechanical gauge to the bike, you'd data log pressure via a pressure sensor/s in the correct positions. If you had oil pressure taper off in the higher RPM range then removing the oil squirters would be a band aid solution at best. Drilling a hole through the centre of the rod beam to counter act this is just a counter intuitive measure. The rod would not have been designed to have this material missing through the beam. Buying a set of R rods would make more sense but I'd still hazard a guess that the R engine runs oil squirters due to their positive effects on a modern highly stressed engine.

Your comment about the hole drilled in the rod defines your understanding of mechanical engineering.

Because you have more information than the engineers at Ducati, and there's no difference between the R rods and those in the V4 and V4S and gun drilling rods is a relevant and achievable thing for a garage mechanic to accomplish.

baggerman said:

Your comment about the hole drilled in the rod defines your understanding of mechanical engineering.

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Are you not discussing a pressure fed gallery being introduced between the 2 rod journals?? Even if you're discussing a squiter gallery through the big end only it has it's draw backs on rod design. Especially a stressed rod that was never designed to run with this. I work for a company that designs and manufactures steel rods for sport compact engines. Used in applications of up to (so far) 385 HP per cylinder on small capacity engines. Carrillo manufacture our alloy rods which are up into the 565 HP per cylinder range in 195ci 6 cylinder engines. We also design and manufacture wet sump oil pumps and have an in house oil pump dyno set up with logging. Not via a taped up mechanical gauge haha. No disrespect at all my friend just saying keep humble and listen to everyone's thoughts and opinions on topics. We all never stop learning.

Mcv4 said:

Are you not discussing a pressure fed gallery being introduced between the 2 rod journals?? Even if you're discussing a squiter gallery through the big end only it has it's draw backs on rod design. Especially a stressed rod that was never designed to run with this. I work for a company that designs and manufactures steel rods for sport compact engines. Used in applications of up to (so far) 385 HP per cylinder on small capacity engines. Carrillo manufacture our alloy rods which are up into the 565 HP per cylinder range in 195ci 6 cylinder engines. We also design and manufacture wet sump oil pumps and have an in house oil pump dyno set up with logging. Not via a taped up mechanical gauge haha. No disrespect at all my friend just saying keep humble and listen to everyone's thoughts and opinions on topics. We all never stop learning.

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Interesting experience. I have a big turbo Toyota Supra - ran several sets of Carrillo rods, now R&R aluminum rods.

craig bush said:

Interesting experience. I have a big turbo Toyota Supra - ran several sets of Carrillo rods, now R&R aluminum rods.

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You've shown me a pic in another thread. Beautiful machine Did you move from Carrillo steel rods to the R&R aluminiums?

Mcv4 said:

You've shown me a pic in another thread. Beautiful machine Did you move from Carrillo steel rods to the R&R aluminiums?

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Ah yes - I remember.

I think you said you do mostly RB stuff?

Yes - we moved to the AL rod when we were running the 8685 and a 300 shot on top.

Nice.

A tonne of RB stuff yes. Also JZ, SR, VR, VQ, 4G, 4B, EJ, Barra etc etc.

bp_SFV4 said:

Because you have more information than the engineers at Ducati, and there's no difference between the R rods and those in the V4 and V4S and gun drilling rods is a relevant and achievable thing for a garage mechanic to accomplish.

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Mar 10, 2024
I recognize you're being facetious but if you actually understood the various stresses on the rod you'd realize that you're exactly right (and if you understand good). Gun drilling a small hole up the center of the beam only loses you tensile/compressive strength and very little of that. In bending (which defines rod design), either plane, the hole essentially means nothing. People oil feed the pins from the top of the rod (think about the change in tensile there and the forces there), from beneath angled in with small holes off center, grooves in the piston pin bore and by pumping oil from the back of the oil ring primarily. And our friend here can name a lot more I think. The real issue in gun drilling rods would be the loss of pressure in the wedge at the top of the stroke when the combustion pressure is highest. Small feed, the pin fitted tight, good oil pressure no problem in this application or they wouldn't have added it to the R's. A good 1198 makes 200 HP. No squirters. The squirters are pointed at the back of the piston to cool the crown because this lowers NOX. I suppose you could use this to thin the crown and lower the weight some but then poor detonation resistance. Recognize squirting oil at the back of the pistons raises oil temp. And I can see applications where their use could be useful to transfer heat I just don't think this is one. No matter what if you choose to run the squirters I'd tack or braze the tubes to the main body and put the union in with high temp, oil resistant loctite or some other method to insure they stay in place because we already know that not all of them stay put and the result is ugly and possibly fatal. BTW one of the things I did was drill a small hole 90 to the cam chain plunger bore and added a grub screw to lock it in.

Mcv4 said:

Are you not discussing a pressure fed gallery being introduced between the 2 rod journals?? Even if you're discussing a squiter gallery through the big end only it has it's draw backs on rod design. Especially a stressed rod that was never designed to run with this. I work for a company that designs and manufactures steel rods for sport compact engines. Used in applications of up to (so far) 385 HP per cylinder on small capacity engines. Carrillo manufacture our alloy rods which are up into the 565 HP per cylinder range in 195ci 6 cylinder engines. We also design and manufacture wet sump oil pumps and have an in house oil pump dyno set up with logging. Not via a taped up mechanical gauge haha. No disrespect at all my friend just saying keep humble and listen to everyone's thoughts and opinions on topics. We all never stop learning.

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Perfect we can have a discussion about I beams versus H beams. BTW I did exactly what I said, taped a little undamped gauge to the bars and went to my "test'' spot and rolled it on ha ha. My point was how many people actually ever check the oil pressure. It would be nice to have an undamped one built into the bike and data logged by the bike itself. Oil pressure gauge what a concept. When my friend evaluated wet sump pans and windage stuff for track V8's years ago he'd cut a window opening in the side of a pan, seal a piece of glass to the side and film the motor on the dyno. Then watch it all in slo mo.

baggerman said:

Mar 10, 2024
I recognize you're being facetious but if you actually understood the various stresses on the rod.........

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baggerman said:

Perfect we can have a discussion about I beams versus H beams. BTW I did exactly what I said, taped a little undamped gauge...

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All good my friend. That's what we, along with every manufacturer, have FEA analysis for these days and I can advise that it can become detrimental in a lightweight rod especially being introduced after the fact. When an engine is built for endurance as opposed to drag racing, things like oil squirters are extremely important from an engine longevity stand point. I would classify any street bike engine or track bike engine into this classification. We are talking naturally aspirated 1.1L engines making upwards of 200 HP which is no easy feat on components. My standpoint is still the same on oil pressure. If you don't have pressure issues logged, then I don't know why you want to change anything? Slightly different tech to a small block chev too. This engine would be equivalent a 1200 HP NA 350 that was designed to reliably run for many many miles or do circuit racing.

Anyway, if you ever actually do any of this I honestly look forward to seeing the results. Much like your extremely low pressure rad cap. I like the theory but I think in real life it may not work exactly how you preach it will.

Also no, let's not debate H vs I-beam rods I have to do this every damn day lol. I do love the lengths people had to go to in the earlier years to evaluate engine components. It's impressive. These days we can 3D print everything for test fitment and evaluate a large portion with excellent software. Even new rods we do are 3D printed as a proper assembly. Bolts, dowels, LE bushes the lot. We install into an engine with bearing shells and pistons fitted to check clearances and carry out measurements. Crankshafts the same.

Mcv4 said:

Also no, let's not debate H vs I-beam rods I have to do this every damn day lol. I do love the lengths people had to go to in the earlier years to evaluate engine components. It's impressive. These days we can 3D print everything for test fitment and evaluate a large portion with excellent software. Even new rods we do are 3D printed as a proper assembly. Bolts, dowels, LE bushes the lot. We install into an engine with bearing shells and pistons fitted to check clearances and carry out measurements. Crankshafts the same.

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All right. Don't laugh I've hand prepped a few chevy rods when there wasn't any other option. And flowed a bunch of chevy heads. It was way different when you couldn't just go buy what you needed. What's the most cost effective piece of speed equipment? Die grinder. How are you guys doing with titanium rod life with the most recent alloys. As in cycles to failure vs percentage of tensile.

Yep understand all of that. Ti rods are still a development thing for us and not a high priority tbh. Super cool but for our market would be a minimal seller. Been testing some shorter 121.5mm items in a decent HP endurance application for a while but like you say the variations in new available alloys, the costings in repeat testing vs the potential return in sales has withered this out a bit. Also real world testing to failure is a hard and expensive thing. Leave this for the big players I think will be head honchos thoughts.

Yep I never wanted to be a beta site for ti rod longevity testing. Understand that I too believe that the stock oiling system when appropriately assembled is not an issue at any level. So the oiling failures are assembly issues from the factory. My greater concern is the squirters are a reliability issue as delivered by the factory. I'm in a parts collection mode for next winter. Hopefully I can find a set of R cams cheap or a motor or remains of same I can scavenge. A set of R heads alone would be perfect. Maybe north of 250 as a prepped 1103. But next year the new bike with a motor based on GP? will arrive. Has to be another 25 HP? The real problem with building ducati's is you can't call a cam grinder and just tell them what you want. Too bad the Australian firm V2 didn't morph into V2/V4.