Connecting Rods

Current high end connecting rods are made from 7075 aluminum, not "forged" as some will have you believe. Trust me on this, i asked and have seen how they are made. For many years the weakest link in a .21 racing engine had been the connecting rod and after several redesigns and with different material pairings Nova Rossi was the first engine manufaturer that was producing a "bullet proof" rod for their engine line. Most manufacturers copied the process and some can't even do that right. The main challenge had been in finding the correct bronze material for the bushing, the right crankpin hardness and surface traetment and most of all, how to "bond" the lower con rod bushing into the aluminum structure.

The RB connecting rod on the left represents the standard rod by Nova Rossi. These days the emphasis is on  weight reduction and performance increase of the assembly and the latest R5 connecting rod, pictured on the right, is pretty tricked out right from the manufacturer.

The latest offering from JP Racing even deletes the upper bronze bushing for yet another weight reduction in order to increase

performance even further. Curious, the "no bushing" configuration was deemed absolutely not acceptable to the rc car racers when Andy Brown and myself were proponents of exactly this setup some two years ago. I guess if JP is doing it then "suddenly" it becomes acceptable. Main thing is, it works. Good work JP Racing.

Reid R/C Performance will take the weight savings one step further as part of the process of building refined racing mills.

In general we lighten the rods by additional milling of both sides. Just how much you can remove on the different manufacturers parts without crossing that fine line to an engine failure is information not widely available.;-) Lets just say i have probably blown up more engines than most people will own.

The picture on the left is a comparison in profile of a titanium rod and a 7075 rod. This titanium rod weighs exactly the same as the standard rod on the right but is only half as thick. Titanium is very expensive and very tough on tooling during manufacturing. These rod are very rare, very expensive and mostly not available.In fact, current 7075 rods are so good that there is no more need for them. Tidbit: A popular tuner sent me the Ti rod on the left; he stated that it was too heavy and he reinstalled the stock rod as pictured on the right..?? didn't i just type they weighed exactly (I checked) the same? uh, ok. ;-)

Good Racing,

Rich Reid

For questions or comments please e- mail me at rich@reidrc.com