Chrome cylinder bores ?

Status
Not open for further replies.

Rohan

Joined
Aug 26, 2010
Messages
8,215
Country flag
Just out of curiousity, has anyone explored getting the cylinder bores chromed/ceramic coated ?

BMW and Guzzi etc etc etc get some rather impressive cylinder life out of their chrome bores ...
 
When BMW tried to Nikasil car cylinder blocks, the life wasnt quite so good..............
 
There can be compatibility issues with the type of pistons and rings neccesary for the type of cylinder lining material. So you would need to find correct sized pistons first to determine what treatment is going to apply to the bores.

Mick
 
There are hundreds of possible materials that could be used, chrome or Nikasil wouldnt be very high on the list though (the BMW issue was partly ethanol related)....... You will find that the better coatings are plasma sprayed and then ground, usually onto a prepared (bored and blasted) aluminium bore, this leads to one potential sticking point with a Norton and that is the bonding of the coating to the cast iron, a nickel-aluminium bond coat may be required first. Cast iron is a very good wear surface but some of these sprayed coatings are so far ahead in terms of wear that it is not funny. As ring materials have also been mentioned it is possible (probably preferable) to use thin coated rings (TiN etc), these may not be of such an advantage in a Commando but in high reeving engines the reduction of mass in the top ring will significantly reduce the stress on the top ring land.
 
swooshdave said:
Carbonfibre said:
When BMW tried to Nikasil car cylinder blocks, the life wasnt quite so good..............
Click to expand...

Jaguar too.
Click to expand...

Still better than the Porsche and Norton etched hyperutectic aluminium bores/end plates
 
My 93' guzzi has 110,000 on it with no ill effects to the nikasil cylinders from the modern gasoline's or oils. The compression reading is still at factory specs as well. And there are hundred's of other loyal guzzi owners that can say the same. My guzzi motor also hasn't ever been apart for anything other than valve adjustments and oil changes. Has the original clutch too. I can't say that for my beloved Norton ........... :roll:

Tim_S
 
Nikasil cylinders are far superior to cast iron in most ways, but unless you have a new alloy cylinder, its not a good idea to plate cast iron as this can mean all sorts of problems, and doesnt seem to be something which has had much success from the perspective of production applications.
 
I know a couple people that have had Bore-Tech do their carbide treatment. Seem to be working fine, although one is a racer and the others probably have not done enough miles to have worn out a standard bore job.

Anyone on the list have it?

http://www.bore-tech.com/carbidebore.htm
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top