atb

I called Millenium two weeks ago for a quote on Nikasil plating for a 928 block. The told me $1569.00. No affiliation with Millenium, U.S. Chrome, or 928 Motorsports, just thought I'd share.

Carl Fausett

Atb - Thanks you for the current price comparison information, atb. We'll do it for $1395.00 and I'll throw in a $50 Rennlisters' discount for you too. Just let me know.

FlyingDog: Picture number 6 is a 2-cycle V-6 Mecury Marine Racing block that they were niCom plating whil I was there. US Chrome does all the Marine Racing engines for Mercury.

Herr-Kuhn

That is absolute hogwash on not being able to run over 9 lbs of boost on Nikasil! I've done it for two years now. This is analagous to the turbo 928 bent pretzel valve comments that have no validity. I'll ask how many blocks you have done and what the experience with boost on Nikasil has been? Millennium uses the same German made tooling and processes and does excellent quality work. They have done many P-51 engines and the like. So their employees left US Chrome, who cares? These guys know their stuff, deliver a good product and offer great customer service. Engine Builders Supply uses them exclusively and anybody who has dealt with EBS knows they are very trustworthy. I've used them for two blocks now with great success. You should not mislead people into thinking US Chrome is the only qualified supplier, because it just isn't true. I'm sure they do good work, I'm not saying they don't. To be fair, you should also tour the Millennium facility. I find the $1,500 price very hard to believe, I do get good pricing from Millennium as I am a repeat customer. I can't give out the number but I will say is it substantially less than any of the numbers floating around on this post. I just talked with these guys two weeks ago as well and they will be getting my 928S4 block later this year...and I do plan on running more than 9 psig on this engine.

Actually I never said anything negative about sleeving in this post, just that Nikasil is superior. There were a lot of you guys who argued this point with me over the last two years. My viewpoint has not changed on these two options, but we do seem to have some people that are changing their colors as of late. The benefits to Nikasil are clear: Superior heat transfer, hard wear surface, tighter piston to wall clearances, minimal removal of block material, etc. My 4.5 liter is likely the first boosted 928 with Nikasil out there.

BC

....John - Sleeving is still a very good option if somehow we get the proceedure correct. Either a dry sleeve or a wet sleeve will work. This would *usually* be oodles more money to do sleeving the right way in a wet sleeve process - close to 3500 dollars for a V-8 block from Chris White on the 944 forum. Dry sleeving currently has some issues in the 944 camp that I am sure some of us are aware of. But sleeving is still an option, and will become more of on later.

The alusil block trumpets and baloons under heat and pressure. Possibly by quite a bit. Maybe not at 9psi, but it happens. That means the head gasket surface moves, and thats a big issue. Some say that the towers also move.

If anyone really wanted a solid block, and liked the nikasil, they could get a block plate, THEN do the nikasil and it has the best of both worlds 99%.

928SS

FWIW, millinium did my block - bored, plated, diamomd honed to fit my pistons - $700.00, and I traded in my old 85 heads.... total would have been $1300.00 last year.... they were easy to work with....

they did trash some dowels that were left in and marked to "protect", and some main bearing threads were a little looser than they were (from etching tank, I suspect).... it's a common issue w/both companies, IIRC.... w/both processes, olification is improved (ability of walls to hold oil), which is why the nicom motors have a bit less friction/more power than a conventional cyl.... I had the same stuff on my race bikes, and after puncturing a rad hose (offroad racing), and seizing a piston in the bore - all we had to do was knock it loose, use a bead hone and the cyl looked perfect again!!! it's really tough stuff, IMO.... the piston was totally melted w/the rings..... that convinced me it's ok....

given the cost of a set of custom mahles that are compatible w/the alusil bores at over $2600.00, IMO, it's a cost effective way to go... my custom forged JE's only cost $1200 or so w/the rings/pins/etc....

the 911 guys have been using both co's for quite some time w/decent results for the most part.... be sure to use a good crate for shipping the blocks - lots of horror stories w/trashed stuff from shippers - they are the enemy!!!

slate blue

Brendan Alusil is quite stiff, that is the reason the bores sometimes split. If you do some research on Hypereutectic pistons and their characteristics you will see that they are also quite stiff. Remember you cannot forged hyper. It just cracks, this again is because it is so stiff. So I would say if it trumpets it cracks.

Herr-Kuhn

Guys run 16+psig on the stock 951 parts all the time...same design on the blocks and heads. I for one am tired of all the misleading happening on these posts as of late. My valves never bent like pretzles from the heat, nor have I blown up a head gasket because of this distortion everybody keeps talking about. It is just another attempt by people to mislead an misrepresent to accelerate their position. I know the S4 block can easily go past the 550 HP mark without issue. Guys are pushing the 944 blocks well past 350 HP without internal modifications, it is the same bore size. It is just 1/2 the 928s block for the most part. The most cost effective route today and probably technically best as well is the JE/Nikasil route.

Glad to see others speaking highly of these other options. True, the Alusil Reynolds 390 is quite stiff...as are the cast pistons. There is not much ductility. Want to have a real laugh? Take a look at the material properties of a cast mahle piston at elevated temps compared to a 2618 forging at the same temperatures. It is enough to make you rush to the forged piston store every time...I want to say it was 5-7 times stronger. Toughness is also a key factor for a piston that lives in a boosted environment. I have some technical data on these materials that was published by NASA I think? Found it online a while back.

Herr-Kuhn

Totally agree on the shipping...specifically UPS. They completely destroyed my 928 crate by dropping off the back of the truck. Luckily the Goldmember's 8 jug casting was totally in tact. UPS employs some realy lazy people. You know, some of their drivers make like $70,000 per year...that is just wrong.

Carl Fausett

John - why all the anger?

I choose my words carefully so as to avoid mis-understandings... I cannot find where I said steel sleeves were "superior" or that Nikasil was "superior". Please do not mis-quote me.

I DID say that steel sleeves are better at preventing cylinder wall trumpeting at high boost pressures - and for point of reference, I chose "10 psi and up" as the "high boost" category. Its just a number. We could say "12 psi and up" is the high-boost category if you want. OK.

We have seen fellow supercharger guys in WI that ran 16 psi on their 928 blocks (just to see if they could and what would happen) and they have had cylinder wall splitting and trumpeting. That is where I got my opinion.

We do not talk about that "North of 12 psi" stuff often as we are a SC kit manufacturer, and none of our kits produce that much boost in their stock configuration, so why put a worry into the head of a buyer who will never experience that much boost anyway.

Our kits offer 6 psi, 8 psi, and 9 psi of boost. All very safe numbers in Alusil.

John - Sorry John, they are not. The 951 cylinder walls are 2 to 4 mm thicker than the cylinder walls in a 928. I know, I've measured. And the 951 block is not made from Alusil - its Nikasil. Wrong metal, John.

Yes, some do run 16 psi in a 951, but not without their mods too. O-Ringed heads or solid gaskets, different waste-gates, etc. They too have their modifications they must make.

John - I never said that, John. Again, please do not mis-quote me.

Maybe I should be angry with you? That's a cheap shot. Nobody paid me to take off of work and go investigate their plant and operation. I did it so I could represent it accurately and with pictures. There is very little profit in it for us, frankly - we do it at a very low markup in the hopes that we can make it up in other purchases surrounding the engine rebuild.

We are not always the least-priced of the vendors (although in many products we are) - we make up for it by investing heavily in new product development and rapid delivery. I hope our frequency of rolling out new 928 Performance Products speaks for itself.

BC

The info I have says that the trumpeting actually stays. Meaning there is no elasticity - as you suggest - it is stiff - to a point.

BC

Carl - Couple things. The 16psi on the LH system will show the holes in tuning with fuel pressure instead of duty cycle and timing retard. I personally am an advocate of the Alusil having weaknesses and sleeves being on of our options, but 16psi, when fueled correctly, and timed correctly should not inherently cause cracking in the alusil bore. 16 psi with some detonation will make that 928 block a grenade, as it would a 944 block.
16psi will also handily break any part south of the flywheel if not handled properly.

Carl - the 944 blocks are the same material ours are. There is no material difference - only shape. They are alusil just like ours. If they weren't, we couldn't run 944 turbo pistons and rings in our engines.

TAREK

A lot to learn from this thread....and I'm having difficulty keeping up...but thanks everyone for your contribution

FlyingDog

That's true, the blocks are the same material. Several of the 951 guys are running over 20PSI. I don't know if there is a difference in wall thickness between 951, 944 NA, 968 NA, and 928 blocks, but the 951 guys don't seem to have any problem swapping blown 951 blocks for 944 or 968 NA blocks.

Carl Fausett

I disagree that the 951 blocks are the same as ours. Not only have I measured my sons 951 when we rebuilt it, but after I found his cylinder walls to be thicker than mine, I posted a thread on the 944/951 forum and asked numbers of 951 rebuilders to measure their cylinder walls - it was consistent - the 951 cylinder walls are thicker than our 928 walls.

(One interesting thing that we discovered - some of the 951 blocks seem to have tapered outer cylinder walls (thicker at the bottom) and we found others to be straight up and down, and therefor of consistant thickness bottom to top. But I digress... )

....and why would we be surprised at this - The Porsche engineers new that the 951 would see boost, so increasing the cylinder walls by a couple mm makes good design sense. As to the 928 - they did not expect that this engine would see boost, hense more traditional cylinder wall sizes for NA engines.

Carl Fausett

From me: I was wrong to say that. ****. Keeps a fella humble, doesn't it?
What was I thinking.... that the 951 blocks are factory Nikasil plated and the 928 blocks are left as pure Alusil with no surface plating?

I do stand by my comments about cylinder wall thickness between the 951 and the 928, however. If you get a chance someday, measure them yourself.

Here is a post from the manufacturer of the Alusil block for the Cayenne:
http://www.rheinmetall.de/index.php?lang=3&fid=1499