TheSamba.com :: View topic - Nickies

Sat Oct 06, 2007 6:31 pm

Anybody using those cylinders and can give me info about it. I realy like to get info from third parties before spending money on it.

http://www.lnengineering.com/type4.html

Sat Oct 06, 2007 6:32 pm

Talk to Jake Raby.

Sat Oct 06, 2007 7:03 pm

Which brand are you talking about. They aren't created equal.

Sat Oct 06, 2007 7:11 pm

Ace wrote: Which brand are you talking about. They aren't created equal.

Tvättbjörn wrote: Anybody using those cylinders and can give me info about it. I realy like to get info from third parties before spending money on it.

http://www.lnengineering.com/type4.html

Kinda looks like Charles' Nickies ... LN Engineering

Sat Oct 06, 2007 7:11 pm

They are aluminum cylinders either cast or billet that are electroless nickel/silcon carbide plated.
Quality depends on who makes them.
They are much lighter and cool very well. The plating does a good job at holding oil so wear is minimized.
Dirk

Sat Oct 06, 2007 7:24 pm

NascaVW wrote: They are aluminum cylinders either cast or billet that are electroless nickel/silcon carbide plated.
Quality depends on who makes them.
They are much lighter and cool very well. The plating does a good job at holding oil so wear is minimized.
Dirk

quality, that is the point on it. There is lifitime warranty on the coating, but like we all know in many cases is does not mean anything. That´s why I like to get information from different user of the "Nickies cylinder from LN". Daily driver , driver who are using those in desert racing under extrem temps for a long time. - Baja California?? .....

Sat Oct 06, 2007 9:00 pm

The L&N Engineering Nickies are the top of the line, no ifs, ands, or buts. Charles is the man to talk to 8) I run them in my daily driver.

Sat Oct 06, 2007 9:06 pm

redbluebug wrote: The L&N Engineering Nickies are the top of the line, no ifs, ands, or buts. Charles is the man to talk to 8) I run them in my daily driver.

what engine do you have and since how long do you use them.?

Sun Oct 07, 2007 7:09 am

type 1 2275 11:1 compression. I bought the Nickies in 05. I have not run the engine this year, only because I'm having my heads upgraded. Snow will be on the roads before I get it back together.

Sun Oct 07, 2007 8:10 am

Not much of a daily driver engine if you don't use it. :)

Sun Oct 07, 2007 8:32 am

Hey Vikingo.

We build aircooled engine for airplanes, mining equipment and offroad vehicles here in Nasca for almost 20 years. The Technology Nikasil is not new and has been in use for many years in motorcycles, Porshe cars and airplane engines.

They are of great use if you need them for saving weight as in airplane engines or competition road racing or if you have a application where there is a cooling problem. We manufacture our own and we use them for our airplane engines and mining equipment engines

Motor cycle engines use them for cooling. Most motorcycles dont have any fan to help cool the engine so cooling is soley by radiation and convection when the motorcycle is moving.

Airplane engines is mainly for weight.

Porshe uses them because the engines design is for road racing at max power output. Porshe Likes to think that they can get 100 hp per cylinder all day long. At this power output the extra cooling is mandatory.

Most people who race VW engines race them in bracket racing where the power output of the engine may be high but it is of short duration. The few kilos saved and the extra cooling are of no use in this application.

The most power I have ever seen acually documented from a VW engine is about 300 hp. and this was on a dyno where everything was tweeked just to get the maximum HP. Probably this engine could not been driven on the street or even raced.. only used at that RPM. This is about 75 hp per cylinder.

But the typical HP VW engine that can be used on the street produces around 150HP. You can get more than that but it is very difficult to drive the car and the engine life is very short. Mainly bearing wear, not cylinder wear. and most of the time while you are driving your motor is only using 15 or so HP....

The moral of the story is that that the VW engine being used in a car can't produce the necessary amount of power for a long enough duration to make Nickeys necessary

Nickeys are however quite expencive for VW engines. If the price was reasonable I would put them on all of our VW engines but the fact is that the money is better spent in a Turbo or FI or something that will make it go faster or live longer.

Most poeple who buy them for their VW's buy them for reasons of Ego. Not proformance. But personally I think that the Turbo sitting there will add a lot more to my ego than some Nickeys that can bearly be seen.

But if you are rich and Just want to have some, go ahead and buy them They will last a long time and cool very well. The L&N's are the top of the line.

Dirk

Tvättbjörn wrote: redbluebug wrote: The L&N Engineering Nickies are the top of the line, no ifs, ands, or buts. Charles is the man to talk to 8) I run them in my daily driver.

what engine do you have and since how long do you use them.?

Sun Oct 07, 2007 8:54 am

mharney wrote: Not much of a daily driver engine if you don't use it. :)

Ya I know. I feel like I'm in the Wizard of oz, if I only had a set of heads :)
But they purrtyy to look at :lol:

Sun Oct 07, 2007 12:20 pm

Tvättbjörn wrote: NascaVW wrote: They are aluminum cylinders either cast or billet that are electroless nickel/silcon carbide plated.
Quality depends on who makes them.
They are much lighter and cool very well. The plating does a good job at holding oil so wear is minimized.
Dirk

quality, that is the point on it. There is lifitime warranty on the coating, but like we all know in many cases is does not mean anything. That´s why I like to get information from different user of the "Nickies cylinder from LN". Daily driver , driver who are using those in desert racing under extrem temps for a long time. - Baja California?? .....

Hi I missed this part.
What exactly do you mean by desert racing? Are you building a engine for competition? Or just to go out in the desert and have some fun?? Is there a lot of slamming around involved?? Bumps? Ditches? hard offroading or What? The nickeys dont take too kindly to that at elevated temperatures.
Here it is HOT and ohhhh.... so dry. Last time it rained was about 3000 years ago..... Takes more to cool the cylinders when the air is dry and we have little problem with cylinders overheating. Usually it is Oil overheating. We dont use them for normal offroad. The cast iron cylinders cool just fine as long as your cooling system works well.
Dirk

Mon Oct 08, 2007 7:44 am

I have used more sets of real "Nickies" than anyone in the world, having helped develop the product with LN Engineering since 2000.

Today there are knockoffs that are Chinese made and pure junk, using the LN trademarked reputation of "Nickies" to describe their under developed pieces of garbage.

Are Nickies worth the cost for a street car or etc? Hell yes!

I feel that there is no other portion of the engine that can make for longer living, cooler running and less friction. Heat and friction are the only two real enemies of performance or longevity and thats why we use Nickies on so many builds.

It's all about value, most of my clients are doing the job once and won't be doing it again- they choose my engine program for these reasons and I use the LN product to open the doors to reliability, performance and longevity. Most of these people are not "Rich", they are just "smart".

We have done things with Nickies equiped engines that are absolutely impossible otherwise, things like running less than .001 skirt clearance, less than .003 ring end gap and rings with such low tension that the pistons loaded with rings will virtually fall out of the bores if placed vertically on the work bench.

The capability of virtually eliminating heat soak is worth the cost alone.

Mon Oct 08, 2007 8:09 pm

NascaVW wrote: Tvättbjörn wrote: NascaVW wrote: They are aluminum cylinders either cast or billet that are electroless nickel/silcon carbide plated.
Quality depends on who makes them.
They are much lighter and cool very well. The plating does a good job at holding oil so wear is minimized.
Dirk

quality, that is the point on it. There is lifitime warranty on the coating, but like we all know in many cases is does not mean anything. That´s why I like to get information from different user of the "Nickies cylinder from LN". Daily driver , driver who are using those in desert racing under extrem temps for a long time. - Baja California?? .....

Hi I missed this part.
What exactly do you mean by desert racing? Are you building a engine for competition? Or just to go out in the desert and have some fun?? Is there a lot of slamming around involved?? Bumps? Ditches? hard offroading or What? The nickeys dont take too kindly to that at elevated temperatures.
Here it is HOT and ohhhh.... so dry. Last time it rained was about 3000 years ago..... Takes more to cool the cylinders when the air is dry and we have little problem with cylinders overheating. Usually it is Oil overheating. We dont use them for normal offroad. The cast iron cylinders cool just fine as long as your cooling system works well.
Dirk

More or less, I´m talking about to beat the hell out of an engine under extrem heat and for hours / race trak if needed and not cruising down the freeway at 70 mph at 2500rpm. It would not make any sense to me to spend that money on cylinders/engine which see´s higher rpm´s only for a few seconds a day on regular road.

According to his website, He´s makes most of the cylinders for Porsche, so the cylinders have to be very good or he would be out of business already.

I got all the questions answered yesterday already from him. It looks very good to me so far.

Now I have to find STRONG pistons which will not explode under load , higher rpms (6000-7000) and kill all that good stuff.

What piston brand should I use in 100-103mm??? Any experiance from dessert racer or racetrack driver?? or is there any piston from a car manufacture which will fit the size I´m looking for?

Mon Oct 08, 2007 10:06 pm

LN Engineering sells JE Pistons. Go with that.

Tue Oct 09, 2007 4:13 am

Buy both components from Charles at LN. This is critical because you won't be able to take maximum advantage of the Nickies technology and our development with it without using pistons and rings that Charles designs for you.

The difference is night and day. Throw conventional wisdom out the window on this one- trust me.

Tue Oct 09, 2007 5:10 am

Hi Tvättbjörn
For your application the nickies are the right choice. I see you got my point.
We used to use VW Engines for Ball mills here. they run 24 hours per day at high load until something breaks. The VW cases were the problem. Any more than 100 HP and the main bearing journals would become deformed after as little as 500 hours and lose oil pressure. The aluminum cases seem to do a lot better. but they weigh twice as much.
The Nickes help conciderably in the cooling aspect of the cylinders and help quite a bit to slow down the breakdown of the engine oil.

Buy the Pistons and cylinders together as a set. That way everything will match. porform better.

Jake knows what he is talking about. He is a diehard VW fanatic. However he is the type of guy who will try to put the best of everything in any engine he builds. But I am the type who believes that it is best to get what you need and save your money for the next time....

What exactly are yu building?? Anything interesting.
Dirk

Tue Oct 09, 2007 5:36 am

Quote: But I am the type who believes that it is best to get what you need and save your money for the next time....

Doing things my way avoids "Next time"

Thats the whole point.
Build it.
Drive it.
Forget about it.

Tue Oct 09, 2007 6:08 am

I've thought about using these on a future engine project, maybe someone can tell me what to expect (in .0000") from thermal expansion in a 4.000" bore from room temp to say around a 300 F CHT operating cycle.

NascaVW, Jake?..... got any data here?