Diamond Pistons has introduced an ambitious new formula—a notable step forward in piston performance—the Diamond double-coat.
By combining hard-coat anodizing with a moly-skirt coating, Diamond’s double-coat pistons will benefit all engines but is particularly useful in power-adder applications.
Features:
• Provides a thermal barrier and increases both corrosion-resistance and wear-resistance
• Deters piston rings from micro welding themselves to the ring grooves and it creates an excellent adhesion surface
• Resists high cylinder temperatures and pressures and frees-up a little more power; baked-on molybdenum dry-film lubricant skirt coating adds an anti-friction anti-scuffing surface
• Increases machined clearances of about .002-inch on the piston diameter and also on the width and depth of the ring grooves to compensate for the additional build-up from the anodizing process
• Includes submerging in a detergent-acid bath, followed by two rinses before the anodizing process and three rinses after
• Adds five light coats of the moly dry-film lubricant and baked in an oven for an hour.
Diamond, who has been developing and testing their double-coat procedures for over two years, conducts all their coating processes inhouse.
The turn-around time for the Diamond double-coat process is about two days and the cost is $50 per piston. Single coatings, either anodizing or moly-skirt, are still available.
Most everyone would like to have a new roller cam for their engines, but let’s face it, we don’t all have that kind of cash. A hydraulic or mechanical flat tappet is still a good alternative and can give years of trouble free service. By now, most guys in the hobby have heard of the reduced zinc content in most motor oil. This isn’t really that big of a deal. There are several additives out there that work well, and quite a few oils developed for older cars with more zinc in them. Let’s talk about a couple of keys to success in getting your camshaft broken in and happy.
It is critical for the lifters to spin freely in their bores. I ship lifters in a box with individual sleeves on them to avoid any nicks during shipment, as do most of the good suppliers . The key to successful cam break in is all in the prep work. Before I wash a block for final assembly, I use an old lifter to make sure it moves freely in all of the bores. (Both up and down as well as rotation) I also scrub them liberally with a brush during cleaning. Make sure that you have enough clearance when assembling the heads both retainer to guide as well as coil bind on the spring. This is important. A bind anywhere in the valvetrain is certain to cause trouble. Also make sure to check piston to valve clearance. It is smart to remove inner springs on mechanical cams. Lots of people don’t, but its an easy thing to do to insure the long life of your cam.
Inspect the lifters to make sure they don’t have any nicks or surface imperfections. Apply lube liberally to the cam lobes and the bottoms of the lifters only. I like to use either Gibbs assembly grease or ARP moly paste. Use oil on the sides of the lifters and journals of the cam. I use Brad Penn break-in oil on all of my engines. Joe Gibbs has a similar product as does Comp Cams now. When starting the engine the first time, you want a quick, clean start up. Bring the engine up to 2000-2500 RPM immediately and vary it in that range for 20 minutes. If it gets hot, shut it down. Just don’t let it go back to idle. It is wise to use a carburator that you know works well. I am a big fan of changing the oil right away to get rid of any contaminants and assembly lubes that may be floating around in the engine. After that, change your oil regularly with a good, high zinc content oil like the Brad Penn, or a good quality oil with an additive.
Wiping a cam has very little to do with the profile itself. Just like a good paint job, it’s all in the details during the prep work.
We have two products on sale this weekend, starting Friday 3/19/2010:
1) Brad Penn oil. By using the coupon code “bpoil” recieve an extra 5$ off per case. Now is the time to stock up on oil for the season! This offer only applies to full case quantities, and must be purchased online Coupon will be valid starting at 12:01 AM on Friday, and ends Sunday at 11:59PM. Brad Penn Products
2) Rollmaster Timing Sets: Use the coupon “rollmaster” and recieve an additional $10 off on the best timing sets available. Coupon will be valid from 12:01 AM on Friday, through 11:59 PM on Sunday. Online orders only. Rollmaster
John Csordas Jr is a Buick guy through and through. Attend just about any Buick event and John and his family will be there with one of their several Buicks. Our favorite ride of theirs right now is the 71 Skylark street car. Not your common street car, this 71 has a full 25.5 certified chassis from NRC motorsports and is set up to run a drag radial. The car sees some street duty, and is raced in full street trim. One thing a lot of guys fail to realize is that most of these Buicks are heavy. Like really heavy. Junior’s car makes the scales whimper, weighing in just a couple of doughnuts short of 4000 lbs. To run bottom 9’s at 150mph like it does (yeah, you read that right) it has to be making somewhere over 1,000 HP, probably closer to 1100.
Power comes from a stock stroke 455 Buick built by Scotty’s Engine Technology in Florida. The internals are smart, but straightforward. Stock crank, R&R aluminum rods and Wiseco pistons round out the rotating assembly, which is held in check with a Rob Giroux (Precision Billet Designs) halo girdle. The short block is topped off with TA Stage 3 heads and intake. The custom flat tappet camshaft is from Scott Brown at Competition Components, and is around 260@ .050, with .600 lift. A Procharger F1R making 12lbs of boost and blowing through a Quick Fuel 850, is what makes this combo really hum. All brackets for the Procharger were designed by Cliff Gilman, and fabricated by Precision Billet Design. A custom 3500 Converter from Lenny at Ultimate converters transfers power to the Mark Deconti Turbo 400 that shifts on its own with the governor set at 6000RPM. So far, the ten bolt with 3.73 gears has managed to hold up under all that power and weight. So far, the car has run a best of 9.12 @ 150 with 12 psi of boost. Hopefully spring of 2010 will show us even more.
Junior made sure to thank Scott Brown at Competition Components, Bobb and Geoff at Finishline, Precision Billet Design, TA Performance, Scotty’s racing technology, Deconti Transmission, and Lenny at Ultimate Converters.
The purpose behind this engine was to build a max effort street strip Buick 455 combo, using the new Edelbrock heads. The heads are fully ported and will be available from Competition Components. The car is regularly street driven, weighs 3900+ lbs and is cruised regularly, so race fuel was not an option.
Buildup:
Stock 455 Buick Block (+.038)
Finishline Halo Girdle
Stock 455 Buick Crank
4340 Pontiac I Beam rods (modified to fit Buick journal)
If you saw Brian Sobczykz’s Blue 72 Buick GS at Norwalk this past weekend, you probably thought it was a nice looking 12 second car. It can’t be much faster than that can it? Look at that. It has a stock radiator. Clutch fan and stock water pump. All those stock parts add up in weight. The 72 weighs in around 3900 lbs. The interior doesn’t give away the car’s performance either. Stock bucket seats and full interior. Is that a tilt steering column? Nice car, shame it’s not faster. But it is faster. A lot faster. Brian ran a string of passes between 10.62-10.65 all over 124 MPH. Wow, cool! Rumor on the street is it’s a stroker motor with a roller cam. But it’s not. The engine is 464 CID (4.350 bore x 3.90 stroke.) Stock cast crank. Stock rods with ARP bolts. Custom Ross Dished pistons. The heads are ported TA stage 1 units. The TA Single plane intake with a Dominator is one of the few things that give away the car’s potential. It doesn’t even sound radical. The custom 256 at .050 solid flat tappet has a little lope to it, but the X pipe and large case 3″ mufflers tone it down enough that the police barely give it a second look on the way to the local cruise night. The tailpipes running to the bumper complete the sleeper look. A race converter from PTC custom matched to the cam and the rest of the combination, and transfers power through the TH400 Converter and 4.10 gears.
Update: All good things must come to an end. After 7 years of fun and abuse, Brian’s engine expired at Milan last night, 9/3/2009. Watch for a new combo appearing soon!
