Let's See If We Can Save Some Engine Blocks .........

T

The Radius Kid

Active Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2002
I was reading a thread over at Speed Talk the other day and one of the engine builders mentioned a coating process from these guys:

http://www.line2linecoatings.com/video3.html

IIRC,he stated he has had good luck with it.
Have any of you guys on here tried it or even heard of it?
Apparently you can take a piston,coat it,hone the cylinder out and it'll work well.
It's supposed to be good for saving a block from being bored out to the next size if you have a few thou' too much wear.
Any thoughts?
 
Check out this company. I had some used custom 4.1 stroker pistons coated with PC-9 to take up about .005-.006 clearance so I could use them on another block that had to be honed straight. Swain says they can add .004, but they added more at my request. They looked great. The ceramic coating is as hard as aluminum. I have not started that engine yet, but others that have had this done say it works very well.

http://swaintech.com/race-coatings/race-coating-descriptions/piston-skirts/
 
Last edited:
ek02 said:
Check out this company. I had some used custom 4.1 stroker pistons coated with PC-9 to take up about .005-.006 clearance so I could use them on another block that had to be honed straight. Swain says they can add .004, but they added more at my request. They looked great. The ceramic coating is as hard as aluminum. I have not started that engine yet, but others that have had this done say it works very well.

http://swaintech.com/race-coatings/race-coating-descriptions/piston-skirts/
Click to expand...

Did you have them do the tops with TBC or Gold Coat ?
 
I left the spherical dish JE piston tops polished aluminum, but the top coating is probably a good idea for a little more $.
 
I have been looking into the coatings offered by this company. I sent them a message with several questions. Here is the email response I got from them. Look at the prices!!! Not inexpensive.......but if it saves a set of high dollar pistons, it would be worth the price. I discovered, they also coat oil pump housings and gears/rotors. This might be a good process to restore a front cover when the pocket is worn beyond limits.
Subject: Technical - Product Info/Support
Message: I am considering using your coatings to decrease piston to wall clearance during an engine rebuild. I specialize in building Buick V6 turbo engines. My engine builds range from stock rebuilds up to 800 HP full race engines. We have been coating various parts of the power train since 2000, and our coatings have been used on pistons in applications ranging from chainsaws to 2000+ HP drag race engines.

Can you effectively coat used pistons to compensate for honing the cylinder a couple thousandths oversize? We can add up to .012" on the diameter with APC™. Our coatings are self-clearancing, so we recommend building the engine tight (a little too tight) and then allowing the pistons to find the geometry of each individual cylinder while under temp and under load during the break-in cycle.

This is a situation I run into often with customer\'s engines.

How durable is the coating? Theoretically, after break-in and as long as it is riding on the oil film it could last indefinitely. I could give numerous examples but here are just two: Mike Janis, a 2X Pro Modified World Champion, ran the same set of coated pistons for the entire 2014 season and reported that the pistons and the coating still look good at the end.
Roger Williams is a sprint car engine builder who normally replaces pistons after two seasons. He first tried our coatings in 2013 to see if he could get a 3rd season out of a specific set, and after a tremendously successful race year he contacted us in January to have the same pistons recoated for a 4th season. At PRI in Indianapolis last week he said that the pistons and bores still look good so he is going to have us strip and recoat them again for season #5.
As an aside, his driver stopped by our booth at PRI and said "with an 840 HP engine I didn't think I would be able to tell the difference, but since we've started using your coatings my engine runs smoother."

Do you have any issues with delamination? No

How much do you charge per piston? The cost for 6 pistons is $33 each for up to .006" on the diameter. For coating over .006" diametric thickness add $2 per .001". For 8 or more of the same part number the cost is $30 per piston, so you could save by having multiple sets coated at the same time.

Looking forward to your response. Looking forward to coating your parts! Other successful applications for our coatings include oil pumps, blower rotors, bearing shells and gears.
Thanks again for your interest.
Click to expand...
 
Swain Tech charged 26.00 per piston and I paid UPS ground shipping both ways. It was under 200.00 total. Their PC-9 ceramic coating can't be perfectly applied and can vary by .001. My cylinders were all honed to the same size. I had to sand the skirts on a couple of pistons to get the clearance perfect, which is what they recommend. I used 1200 wet and it took a while to remove .0005. It looks like two different processes between these companies. I won't know the results of my experiment with this stuff until I get time to swap engines. I feel pretty confident the ceramic coating will work OK. My ring gap was a little wide on the oil rings using .005 file fit rings. The top and second were acceptable without filing.
 
They will coat a crank with oil shedding material, but not the journals. They will coat rod and main bearings, but I don't know if that will take up any clearance. It's probably a friction reducing coating.
 
Heard lots of great reviews on Swain coatings, glad to see you guys are adopting the same technology now.
 
Here is another cool process. This one is for cylinder bores. Flamespray. The Blue Oval guys have pioneered this process for production. I saw this process in person at a Caterpillar plant in Franklin, IN. This plant does all the service rebuilt diesel engines for Ford and some for GM. They are using this process to restore the bores back to the standard size. This makes piston sizing simple. Every engine leaves with a standard size piston.

I wish there were a vendor to do this to a buick block..................hmmmm maybe a business opportunity!
 
The Flamespray process adds .6 mm or .0236 to the cylinder wall on the Ford engines. That would save most any worn block. It would be interesting to know what the cost is, not counting shipping. You could ship a block UPS Ground for about $200.00 round trip.
 
The finished thickness for production blocks ends up at the .023". For rebuilding, They can and do, go beyond that thickness.

What you didn't see is the honing process that they do after the coating. At the Caterpillar plant, they use conventional Sunnen honing machines with special production honing heads and diamond tooling.

I don't know of anybody offering this process to the public just yet. This process has been around in production environments for 3-4 years as best I can tell.
 
turbodave231 said:
The finished thickness for production blocks ends up at the .023". For rebuilding, They can and do, go beyond that thickness.

What you didn't see is the honing process that they do after the coating. At the Caterpillar plant, they use conventional Sunnen honing machines with special production honing heads and diamond tooling.

I don't know of anybody offering this process to the public just yet. This process has been around in production environments for 3-4 years as best I can tell.
Click to expand...
Nemac (please excuse my spelling) in Mexico has been doing the spray/finish hone technique in Mexico for about three years. 5.4L for sure & maybe Coyote. I had an opportunity to attend a seminar with their principle engineer in Detroit 2 years ago. Sealability, and friction reduction were benefits as well.
 
Mike Licht said:
We used to do coatings at the old shop, I was trained by the guy who owns techline who make a lot of the coatings you see sold by many people http://www.techlinecoatings.com/hi-performance/bs-internal-engine-coatings.html
Click to expand...
Mike , I used techline for years. In my opinion they are the standard. Alot of these company's re sell there products as there own. As far as adding for thickness this is 2 different animals. Coating to add to side wall has been around for years. but just not to this extreme. Most techline products where burnished back to spec. and remained in the metal.
 
ek02 said:
Check out this company. I had some used custom 4.1 stroker pistons coated with PC-9 to take up about .005-.006 clearance so I could use them on another block that had to be honed straight. Swain says they can add .004, but they added more at my request. They looked great. The ceramic coating is as hard as aluminum. I have not started that engine yet, but others that have had this done say it works very well.

http://swaintech.com/race-coatings/race-coating-descriptions/piston-skirts/
Click to expand...

I started this engine yesterday, and the coated pistons work fine. I used .005 file fit rings for a 4.1 standard bore. The pistons were custom made at 3.962 for a 3.967 bore for another block. I honed the new block to 3.972 to get the bores straight, and with the thick ceramic coating, ended up with .0045 clearance. I had to wet sand the skirts on a few of the pistons to make them the same size per Swains instructions. The rings did not need any filing, and I ended up with .021 on the top ring and .023 on the second. The oil ring gap was .025. I saved a set of low mileage custom stroker pistons and did not have to bore the block. It was well worth the $200.00 to have it done. I was skeptical about this coating, but now I know it works.
 
My first stage 2 motor had Calico Coatings apply their dry film lubricants and coatings to it. Literally everything that they can do to a NASCAR motor was done to it. I would be interested in knowing how the Swain Tech coatings last in an ultra hi po motor. I mean over time will it start to flake away or break down from the heat, pressure and fuels used.
 
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