At the very least a thread considering the strength and hardness of the bolts would be far more interesting that the bickering that recently infected this thread. I love to see technical articles on Club Gti even if I dont always fully understand them and it was the main reason I switched here from another forum I was using.
Trying to organise something like that Guys post thanks under this if you agree We can then start thrashing out a plan Go clubgti New thread started about testing failed bolts please comment
As well as ultimate strength, fatigue should be considered. Is there any fatigue evidence on your bolts Nige? This article from ARP should make interesting reading for people who want to understand more about fastener failure modes.
As mentioned earlier in this thread, Nige and now myself could have quite happily kept quiet about these failures and pretended like nothing had happened and kept intact our decision to use the rods in the first place. But instead, we put on our flame suits and took criticism and told you so comments on the chin so that everyone can benefit. Gurds
I'd like to support this, but I think we must ask, and then respect, Nige and Gurds' wishes about how/if they wish to proceed. As I've already said, I'm keen for some testing to take place (out of sheer curiosity and the desire to learn), and happy to support it to some extent financially; but they weren't paid for with my money, so it isn't up to me what happens to these items.
I watched a similar doco on an older Horsepwer TV episode I never knew so much was involved and I learned a lot! My sons told me the hacks that worked on my car stole the ARPs on my Explorers drive shaft. I've recorded the other ARP doco on my Toppy so if anyone wants to watch it I can upload it if you like. Here's a similar doco, it's an eye opener. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubb7hhRehsc We live, we screw up and hopefully, we learn.
Having spent the afternoon reading the whole of this thread I'm left feeling more than a little concerned to say the least about the rods that I purchased a few months ago, the same vmi rods with the same bolts that were in the two engines that have experienced failures. I have not installed my vmi rods just yet and to be honest I now feel very reluctant to. I have thought about buying the genuine ARP bolts, but feel that these two failures would forever be in the forefront of my mind. As mentioned earlier on in the thread, the rods themselves may very well be ok, but after reading about the two experiences of failures and the responses from the vmi seller, I'm not filled with much confidence.
For what it's worth, vw_singh already had ARP bolts to put in his VMI rods. When he undid the bolts on the other rods, they were only at around 30 lbft of torque, when they had originally been done up to 42 lbft (IIRC). Consensus is it's the bolts, not the rods, but there's still that element of doubt.
I can understand your concerns. People were quick to dismiss my failure as a builder error and said I was wrong to blame the rods / bolts. A totally different engine builder (VW_Singh) built his engine around the same time as mine. Similar hardware setup and he had a VERY similar engine destroying failure a month after me, whilst on the road.. After that, those commenting it was down to my building and suggesting it was because I`d bought cheap rods suddenly went quiet. Personally, if I were using the VMI Rods, I`d use Genuine ARP Bolts. I built my new engine with Integrated Engineering rods & Genuine ARP Bolts. At the end of the day, the choice is yours.
Gurds did not fit the ARP2000s yet. He had similar failure as Nige on the day of Westside VW. He was just driving to the show. A component engineer that I know, commented on the thread where we were going to look at the fasteners tests. After he suggested that we would gain very little insight from the tests we were going to carry out, a set of rods from Gurdip's engine, including the failed item and sheared bolts, where given to him for his team to have a look at. A summary of findings will be published soon. In short be very wary of these rods.
Hi ther just cot your post after doing some looking online I to had thes rods on my 20v they also fails due to bolt sheer my bolts are identical to the snap pattern with yours did you have any luck with getting money back from the company thanks Adam
No, unfortunately not. The seller blamed me for `poor assembly` and `being incompetent`. Then Gurds had an identical failure, different engine builder 100`s of miles away. Now it appears you`ve had a similar problem. Sorry to hear about that. Any chance you can post some photos ?