Platinum Series Rods:

Our Platinum series rods (listed below) are the highest quality rods we offer. We encourage you to shop around and do your research, because we know that no one else offers such a high quality product at an incredibly affordable price. Compare these manufacturing processes, specs and tolerances with the competition:

All our Platinum Series rods start with super strong aircraft quality 4340 steel, certified to meet or exceed SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) standards. We constantly pull samples and run tests on the chemical composition of our 4340 raw steel to make sure it meets every index included in the specifications.

Once we have verified the raw materials are up to spec, we then use a medium frequency sensing electrical furnace to heat the steel up in preparation for forging. Using an electrical furnace ensures that the entire batch of steel is heated to a uniform temperature throughout. This drastically reduces the possibility of carbonization and cracks in the forgings.

We then forge both the rod beam and rod cap separately (a two piece forging) to ensure that each piece has the correct grain direction. Forging the rod cap separately guarantees that the grain structure runs perpendicular to the extreme loads put on the rod during operation. To visualize how this makes the rod stronger, imagine tearing a piece of paper into two halfs, with each hand pulling in an opposite direction. It will rip fairly easily, since you are ripping against the grain. Now imagine "stretching" the paper, or pulling it apart at both ends in opposite directions. It will be much harder to get the paper to rip, since you are pulling with the grain. This is the same concept, magnified by thousands of times. Other than examining the grain structure under a microscope, there is NO WAY to visually tell a one piece forging rod from a two piece. To the naked eye, they look identical. To manufacture a one piece rod, the rod is simply cut from a piece of plate, making it considerably cheaper to make. We have had customers bring in failed "no-brand" rods they found super cheap off the internet or at a swap meet, and upon closer inspection, they turned out to be one piece forgings.

Next, the raw forgings are heat treated in multiple stages on an automatically controlled continuous furnace production line. This multi-stage heat treating significantly improves the mechanical properties (strength, resiliency, etc) of the forgings while also ensuring these properties are uniform throughout the entire piece.

After heat treating, the forgings go through a rigorous process of being X rayed from 4 sides (A minimum of six separate times!), sonic tested, and then finally magnafluxed to thoroughly check for any small cracks or other defects.

Forgings that pass the test are then fully polished to obtain a smooth surface, decrease the amount of stress put on the forging during machining, and prepare the rods for shot peening.

Rods are then shot peened. This is a process in which the surface of the rods are bombarded with smooth round steel shot. Each shot ball leaves a smooth spherical impression, compacting the surface of the rod and causing a compressive surface stress which closes up the grain structure of the rod on a microscopic level. Since rods can fail from tensile loads opening up tiny surface flaws, this microscopically "compressed" surface of the steel greatly reduces the possibility of any stress cracks developing by not giving them a place to "start." Exhaustive testing has shown that not only does this help to increase the maximum load the rod is able to take by over 20%, but it also helps to increase the fatigue life of the rods by up to 50%!

Next, the rods enter the process of Oil Simmering. They are bathed in a high temperature oil bath to help relieve the stress generated from the above processes.

A-18 Silicon Bronze bushings are installed in the small ends for full floating piston pins.

Then the rods are finished honed using only genuine American made SUNNEN POWER STROKE equipment to guarantee dimensional accuracy and absolute roundness of both the big end and the pin bore within +/- 0.00017 (1.7 ten-thousandths of an inch.) This helps to ensure proper bearing "crush." Center to center length is also guaranteed +/-0.001"

Throughout manufacturing, rods are randomly pulled. Clearances are checked and rods are tested using the Rockwell hardness test and metallurgical analysis to insure manufacturing tolerances are always kept to the highest possible quality.

On average, our platinum series rods will be 60-100 grams lighter per rod than an identical style rod from the competition (our H beam vs. their H beam, etc.) The reason for this is twofold. First, we ONLY sell big block Chrysler parts. Many other larger companies that sell hundreds of different part numbers for many different makes of engines will try to save money by using one forging for many different part numbers. While this does save on manufacturing costs because the forgings can be produced in a greater volume, the end result is a heavier forging since it has to have enough material in it to cover the dimensions of the many parts it is being made into. Since our forgings were developed for only Big Block Chrysler engines, the forging was able to be designed exactly as needed and does not contain any unneeded material. This fact, combined with the extra lengths we go to during machining, such as spending more time cleaning up the inside of the beams, etc, results in a product that has significant weight savings without sacrificing strength. When combined with 40+ years of manufacturing technology, our rods are hundreds of grams lighter than original factory stuff, while still being considerably stronger. Multiply that weight savings by 8, and that alone is usually more than an entire piston weighs! - A considerable horsepower gain.

Shown above are the precision alignment sleeves our Platinum Series rods use. The caps use these large dowels to positively locate and "lock into" the rod, keeping the bearing shell fully aligned at all times, even under extreme loading. They also eliminate any cap walk. Our Platinum rods are also different from most other "imported" rods because they use ARP's top of the line bolts. Any competent engine builder will tell you that bolts are the most critical factor in any rods, so they are no place to skimp on cost or quality. Those massive, super heavy duty 7/16" American made ARP bolts (already a step up in size from the stock 3/8" bolts,) are shown above.

Don't get stuck with other "imported" rods which don't have nearly the quality or workmanship our rods do. Do your research... Check into what the competition is offering. We encourage this because we know you'll be calling us back in the end. No one else can offer anywhere near the features our rods have AND at such an incredibly affordable price. Thousands of these sets of rods have been sold so far and are being raced with great results.

We do not like to put a "horsepower rating" on our rods, since the stress placed on a rod is more directly related to piston weight and engine RPM, as opposed to horsepower output. In other words, a 550 horsepower engine with 1200 gram TRW slugs making peak power at 7200 RPM will be putting much more stress on the rods (and bearings and crank and block for that matter) than a 650 horsepower engine with 500 gram ultraLight pistons making peak power at 6200. For this reason "horsepower" ratings on rods can be misleading and we do not like to use them, however as a guideline, we do have many customers using our Platinum Series rods in 900+ horsepower engines, so this should be a safe level. ARP generally recommends their 8740 bolts be used up to an 800 horsepower level, and their ARP2000 bolts be used in applications exceeding 1000+ horsepower.