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06-17-2009, 01:01 AM
#46
This is just a little bit of trivia, but it's not the sleeve that wears, it's the piston. Nickel plating is supposed to be much harder and more abrasive than chrome, so it wears the piston more quickly than with a chrome sleeve. the result is the same, but I thought you might find that interesting.
06-17-2009, 01:10 AM
#47
Houston,
I have a question for you. Some of the local racers here just returned from the Hank Perry Race in Spokane and they were informed from more than one Pro racer to not touch the flywheel to shut the engine off. They were told that method is hard on the rod. I'm not trying to start anything here, but that doesn't sound logical about the rod IMO. These guys were told to cover the exhaust pipe stinger to shut the engine off is a better method. I know that can cause a hydraulic lock in the cylinder and dissagree with this method. Am I wrong?
What is your opinion and reasons? Thank you for your time.
I have a question for you. Some of the local racers here just returned from the Hank Perry Race in Spokane and they were informed from more than one Pro racer to not touch the flywheel to shut the engine off. They were told that method is hard on the rod. I'm not trying to start anything here, but that doesn't sound logical about the rod IMO. These guys were told to cover the exhaust pipe stinger to shut the engine off is a better method. I know that can cause a hydraulic lock in the cylinder and dissagree with this method. Am I wrong?
What is your opinion and reasons? Thank you for your time.
06-17-2009, 05:16 AM
#49
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correct
The nickle plating is softer, and with thinner wall thickness,than chrome plated liners. In most cases nickle plated liners DO wear quicker than the piston. I see it very often. Hope this helps you guys. RayA
06-17-2009, 05:52 AM
#50
06-17-2009, 07:07 AM
#51
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abn verses abc construction
You are correct with all said above, except actual wear factor of nickle plated liner is greater than piston wear.the nickle plating is,as everyone understands,very thin + not at all as resiliant as chrome plated car truck buggy + truggy engine model sleeve liners.I agree although nickle plating is harder than piston,it is not as resiliant.I have seen thousands of both ABN + ABC piston and sleeve sets. Never seen a chrome plated liner worn through, and have seen many nickle plated worn behond acceptability.in addition, every set I receive I look over inspecting surface finish conditions + wear factors, documenting both.just what I do in my work process and am always pleased to share with the racers.hope this helped.RayA
06-17-2009, 08:22 AM
#52
I know a little bit about this. I've been running nitro engines for 30 years and have been in the business for 25 of those 30, but the point isn't relevant to the topic so I'll just agree to disagree with you. This is the reason I avoid posting on forums too often - there's always an internet expert that wants to challenge the most benign statements. Back to our regularly scheduled topic of engine tuning.
BTW, I grew up and worked back in that neck of the woods for a long time. You and I have probably raced together on occasion.
BTW, I grew up and worked back in that neck of the woods for a long time. You and I have probably raced together on occasion.
06-17-2009, 08:09 PM
#54
Ok, let me give you a little background on this, because like many other urban legends, this is one that a lot of people have never tested or researched. It’s easy enough to see a worn coating and, combined with the complaints on the internet about how nickel-based engines don’t last as long, assume that one has something to do with the other. I made the same mistake myself, so I;m one of those people that made an incorrect assumption, but more on that later.
I started running nitro cars in the late 70’s. I started with ringed engines cast in molds that were hand machined, and using parts that were hand machined. There was no CNC back then. Slide carbs didn’t really exist and some engines even used exhaust throttles. The point is, it was pretty Flintstones. A few years later I started Car Action magazine with Chris Chianelli and the owners of Air Age Media. I served in just about every position over the years and finished up as Executive Editor during my tenure, and I also started and ran RC Nitro Magazine. I’ve been running nitro cars ever since. I have a particular interest in nitro, so I did many of the nitro-related tests in the magazines. During my time in the business, I’ve had access to the most experienced nitro people in the world. I picked everyone’s brain, shared observations and, suffice it to say, I think I picked up a fair bit of knowledge and experience over the last 30 years – it’s hard to avoid it. I don’t call myself an expert, but I’ve amassed a lot of information and experience on the subject over the years. So I don’t make these statements based on assumptions – it comes from experience and testing.
Having said the aforementioned, I also shared the same belief many years ago that the nickel silicon carbide coating was too soft and wears too quickly, but I was told otherwise by a good friend that’s a lot smarter than me and a legend in the RC engine business – it’s not the cylinder wearing, it’s the piston. Not willing to accept this at face value, I pulled out a couple of engines with nickel sleeves. I measured both the piston and the cylinder for each, then ran them for a roughly a gallon each and compared the measurements with the original numbers. The results were exactly what he told me to expect. That’s not to say that nickel silicon carbide coating doesn’t wear, but it wears a lot less than chrome – roughly half as much. But, it kills the piston much quicker and that’s what we see in our engines. If you don’t want to take my word for it, the same information is contained in an SAE publication (Society of Automotive Engineers) that I read about 13 years ago, which chronicles a battery of tests performed by a research engineering who worked for Mahle, the company that invented NSC coating. It directly compares Nikasil (Mahle’s brand name) with hard chrome plating in small two-stroke engines and confirms the same result. In every test, the engine exhibited twice as much wear of mating components, such as piston and ring (where applicable), and half the wear on the sleeve in the NSC vs. hard chrome comparison.
Why do some sleeves exhibit wear in some areas? Nikasil or other varieties of the same coating are applied much thinner than chrome. It’s much more ductile than chrome, so combined with the better wear characteristics; it can be applied really thin. Some manufacturers may take this to an extreme with a very thin coat, but the piston will be gone well before you wear out the sleeve. In either case, it has less to do with wear characteristics and more to do with the thickness of the plating.
I don’t want to turn this into a “My Cousin Vinny” moment, but a suspension of the laws of physics would be necessary in order for the sleeve to wear more quickly than the piston in a NSC-based engine. Either that or someone was duped by the plating company and they got gunmetal anodizing and not NSC. ;-) But I digress; the end result is the same – the engine just plain wears out more quickly, so we’re on the same page there, but it’s a fact that NSC is harder, more wear resistant and unfortunately more abrasive and twice as hard on the piston when compared to hard chrome.
Sorry about the blather. I know half of you were probably reading this as “blah, blah, blah” after the first sentence.
I started running nitro cars in the late 70’s. I started with ringed engines cast in molds that were hand machined, and using parts that were hand machined. There was no CNC back then. Slide carbs didn’t really exist and some engines even used exhaust throttles. The point is, it was pretty Flintstones. A few years later I started Car Action magazine with Chris Chianelli and the owners of Air Age Media. I served in just about every position over the years and finished up as Executive Editor during my tenure, and I also started and ran RC Nitro Magazine. I’ve been running nitro cars ever since. I have a particular interest in nitro, so I did many of the nitro-related tests in the magazines. During my time in the business, I’ve had access to the most experienced nitro people in the world. I picked everyone’s brain, shared observations and, suffice it to say, I think I picked up a fair bit of knowledge and experience over the last 30 years – it’s hard to avoid it. I don’t call myself an expert, but I’ve amassed a lot of information and experience on the subject over the years. So I don’t make these statements based on assumptions – it comes from experience and testing.
Having said the aforementioned, I also shared the same belief many years ago that the nickel silicon carbide coating was too soft and wears too quickly, but I was told otherwise by a good friend that’s a lot smarter than me and a legend in the RC engine business – it’s not the cylinder wearing, it’s the piston. Not willing to accept this at face value, I pulled out a couple of engines with nickel sleeves. I measured both the piston and the cylinder for each, then ran them for a roughly a gallon each and compared the measurements with the original numbers. The results were exactly what he told me to expect. That’s not to say that nickel silicon carbide coating doesn’t wear, but it wears a lot less than chrome – roughly half as much. But, it kills the piston much quicker and that’s what we see in our engines. If you don’t want to take my word for it, the same information is contained in an SAE publication (Society of Automotive Engineers) that I read about 13 years ago, which chronicles a battery of tests performed by a research engineering who worked for Mahle, the company that invented NSC coating. It directly compares Nikasil (Mahle’s brand name) with hard chrome plating in small two-stroke engines and confirms the same result. In every test, the engine exhibited twice as much wear of mating components, such as piston and ring (where applicable), and half the wear on the sleeve in the NSC vs. hard chrome comparison.
Why do some sleeves exhibit wear in some areas? Nikasil or other varieties of the same coating are applied much thinner than chrome. It’s much more ductile than chrome, so combined with the better wear characteristics; it can be applied really thin. Some manufacturers may take this to an extreme with a very thin coat, but the piston will be gone well before you wear out the sleeve. In either case, it has less to do with wear characteristics and more to do with the thickness of the plating.
I don’t want to turn this into a “My Cousin Vinny” moment, but a suspension of the laws of physics would be necessary in order for the sleeve to wear more quickly than the piston in a NSC-based engine. Either that or someone was duped by the plating company and they got gunmetal anodizing and not NSC. ;-) But I digress; the end result is the same – the engine just plain wears out more quickly, so we’re on the same page there, but it’s a fact that NSC is harder, more wear resistant and unfortunately more abrasive and twice as hard on the piston when compared to hard chrome.
Sorry about the blather. I know half of you were probably reading this as “blah, blah, blah” after the first sentence.
06-18-2009, 06:02 AM
#55
Well written! And a history lesson thrown in for free 
06-18-2009, 06:52 AM
#56
06-18-2009, 11:19 AM
#57
You are correct with all said above, except actual wear factor of nickle plated liner is greater than piston wear.the nickle plating is,as everyone understands,very thin + not at all as resiliant as chrome plated car truck buggy + truggy engine model sleeve liners.I agree although nickle plating is harder than piston,it is not as resiliant.I have seen thousands of both ABN + ABC piston and sleeve sets. Never seen a chrome plated liner worn through, and have seen many nickle plated worn behond acceptability.in addition, every set I receive I look over inspecting surface finish conditions + wear factors, documenting both.just what I do in my work process and am always pleased to share with the racers.hope this helped.RayA
Ok, let me give you a little background on this, because like many other urban legends, this is one that a lot of people have never tested or researched. It’s easy enough to see a worn coating and, combined with the complaints on the internet about how nickel-based engines don’t last as long, assume that one has something to do with the other. I made the same mistake myself, so I;m one of those people that made an incorrect assumption, but more on that later.
I started running nitro cars in the late 70’s. I started with ringed engines cast in molds that were hand machined, and using parts that were hand machined. There was no CNC back then. Slide carbs didn’t really exist and some engines even used exhaust throttles. The point is, it was pretty Flintstones. A few years later I started Car Action magazine with Chris Chianelli and the owners of Air Age Media. I served in just about every position over the years and finished up as Executive Editor during my tenure, and I also started and ran RC Nitro Magazine. I’ve been running nitro cars ever since. I have a particular interest in nitro, so I did many of the nitro-related tests in the magazines. During my time in the business, I’ve had access to the most experienced nitro people in the world. I picked everyone’s brain, shared observations and, suffice it to say, I think I picked up a fair bit of knowledge and experience over the last 30 years – it’s hard to avoid it. I don’t call myself an expert, but I’ve amassed a lot of information and experience on the subject over the years. So I don’t make these statements based on assumptions – it comes from experience and testing.
Having said the aforementioned, I also shared the same belief many years ago that the nickel silicon carbide coating was too soft and wears too quickly, but I was told otherwise by a good friend that’s a lot smarter than me and a legend in the RC engine business – it’s not the cylinder wearing, it’s the piston. Not willing to accept this at face value, I pulled out a couple of engines with nickel sleeves. I measured both the piston and the cylinder for each, then ran them for a roughly a gallon each and compared the measurements with the original numbers. The results were exactly what he told me to expect. That’s not to say that nickel silicon carbide coating doesn’t wear, but it wears a lot less than chrome – roughly half as much. But, it kills the piston much quicker and that’s what we see in our engines. If you don’t want to take my word for it, the same information is contained in an SAE publication (Society of Automotive Engineers) that I read about 13 years ago, which chronicles a battery of tests performed by a research engineering who worked for Mahle, the company that invented NSC coating. It directly compares Nikasil (Mahle’s brand name) with hard chrome plating in small two-stroke engines and confirms the same result. In every test, the engine exhibited twice as much wear of mating components, such as piston and ring (where applicable), and half the wear on the sleeve in the NSC vs. hard chrome comparison.
Why do some sleeves exhibit wear in some areas? Nikasil or other varieties of the same coating are applied much thinner than chrome. It’s much more ductile than chrome, so combined with the better wear characteristics; it can be applied really thin. Some manufacturers may take this to an extreme with a very thin coat, but the piston will be gone well before you wear out the sleeve. In either case, it has less to do with wear characteristics and more to do with the thickness of the plating.
I don’t want to turn this into a “My Cousin Vinny” moment, but a suspension of the laws of physics would be necessary in order for the sleeve to wear more quickly than the piston in a NSC-based engine. Either that or someone was duped by the plating company and they got gunmetal anodizing and not NSC. ;-) But I digress; the end result is the same – the engine just plain wears out more quickly, so we’re on the same page there, but it’s a fact that NSC is harder, more wear resistant and unfortunately more abrasive and twice as hard on the piston when compared to hard chrome.
Sorry about the blather. I know half of you were probably reading this as “blah, blah, blah” after the first sentence.
I started running nitro cars in the late 70’s. I started with ringed engines cast in molds that were hand machined, and using parts that were hand machined. There was no CNC back then. Slide carbs didn’t really exist and some engines even used exhaust throttles. The point is, it was pretty Flintstones. A few years later I started Car Action magazine with Chris Chianelli and the owners of Air Age Media. I served in just about every position over the years and finished up as Executive Editor during my tenure, and I also started and ran RC Nitro Magazine. I’ve been running nitro cars ever since. I have a particular interest in nitro, so I did many of the nitro-related tests in the magazines. During my time in the business, I’ve had access to the most experienced nitro people in the world. I picked everyone’s brain, shared observations and, suffice it to say, I think I picked up a fair bit of knowledge and experience over the last 30 years – it’s hard to avoid it. I don’t call myself an expert, but I’ve amassed a lot of information and experience on the subject over the years. So I don’t make these statements based on assumptions – it comes from experience and testing.
Having said the aforementioned, I also shared the same belief many years ago that the nickel silicon carbide coating was too soft and wears too quickly, but I was told otherwise by a good friend that’s a lot smarter than me and a legend in the RC engine business – it’s not the cylinder wearing, it’s the piston. Not willing to accept this at face value, I pulled out a couple of engines with nickel sleeves. I measured both the piston and the cylinder for each, then ran them for a roughly a gallon each and compared the measurements with the original numbers. The results were exactly what he told me to expect. That’s not to say that nickel silicon carbide coating doesn’t wear, but it wears a lot less than chrome – roughly half as much. But, it kills the piston much quicker and that’s what we see in our engines. If you don’t want to take my word for it, the same information is contained in an SAE publication (Society of Automotive Engineers) that I read about 13 years ago, which chronicles a battery of tests performed by a research engineering who worked for Mahle, the company that invented NSC coating. It directly compares Nikasil (Mahle’s brand name) with hard chrome plating in small two-stroke engines and confirms the same result. In every test, the engine exhibited twice as much wear of mating components, such as piston and ring (where applicable), and half the wear on the sleeve in the NSC vs. hard chrome comparison.
Why do some sleeves exhibit wear in some areas? Nikasil or other varieties of the same coating are applied much thinner than chrome. It’s much more ductile than chrome, so combined with the better wear characteristics; it can be applied really thin. Some manufacturers may take this to an extreme with a very thin coat, but the piston will be gone well before you wear out the sleeve. In either case, it has less to do with wear characteristics and more to do with the thickness of the plating.
I don’t want to turn this into a “My Cousin Vinny” moment, but a suspension of the laws of physics would be necessary in order for the sleeve to wear more quickly than the piston in a NSC-based engine. Either that or someone was duped by the plating company and they got gunmetal anodizing and not NSC. ;-) But I digress; the end result is the same – the engine just plain wears out more quickly, so we’re on the same page there, but it’s a fact that NSC is harder, more wear resistant and unfortunately more abrasive and twice as hard on the piston when compared to hard chrome.
Sorry about the blather. I know half of you were probably reading this as “blah, blah, blah” after the first sentence.
This is great info! I enjoy reading topics were people can have a discussion and even disagree and not have it turn into an argument. A LOT of people read this including myself and take everything in, look at both sides, do their own research and form an opinion. I wish we had more discussions like this. Everyone learns and the hobby/sport benefits.
06-18-2009, 03:49 PM
#58
You have it mostly correct. It's not really wearing because it's thin. Both coatings will wear, but the nickel wears half as much as the chrome. Lets say for example that the NSC sleeve wears 3µm, then the hard chrome would wear about 6µm under the same conditions. The piston however, is where there's a big difference. In an engine with a hard chrome sleeve, this piston may wear 20µm, but the same piston under the same conditions with a NSC sleeve will probably wear 60-70µm. So, it's easy to see why the performance degrades more quickly in engines with NSC sleeves - it kills the piston.
If the NSC coating is applied via chemical process instead of electrochemical, it can be as thin as .3µm, whereas chrome starts about 2 to 3 times thicker, and gets multiple passes. So, the opportunity for the coating to wear through a NSC sleeve is greater if it's not applied thick enough. but the RATE of wear is still much lower when all other factors remain the same.
If the NSC coating is applied via chemical process instead of electrochemical, it can be as thin as .3µm, whereas chrome starts about 2 to 3 times thicker, and gets multiple passes. So, the opportunity for the coating to wear through a NSC sleeve is greater if it's not applied thick enough. but the RATE of wear is still much lower when all other factors remain the same.
06-19-2009, 12:17 AM
#60
I think I'm decidedly un-funny, but I make a lame attempt every once in while. Sams is coming down to So Cal next week, so I'll get a chance to abuse him then. I'm sure he's as busy as ever.
