Duesenberg Straight Eight rebuild

[squirrel]

I guess you have to figure out how you define "street car". Brian uses aluminum rods in his nitro coupe, that he drives on the street (mostly on Drag Week).

but that's kind of off topic in a Duesenberg thread.

[Hemi Joel]

I think ol' Fred Duesenberg settled the argument about whether you can run aluminum rods on the street. But the old caution about not running aluminum rods on the street probably had more to do with aluminum RACING rods. CLearances, thermal expansion, oil temps, etc, is all an issue, and race motors and street motors have different requirments.

[squirrel]

what you really don't want to do, is get a set of used (up) aluminum racing rods, and put them on the street.

[Deaf Bob]

what you really don't want to do, is get a set of used (up) aluminum racing rods, and put them on the street.

Started this and deleted it before posting:....
We have the remains of a 700-750 hp (dyno tested and set up) circle track car. One of those winged modified or something.
Aluminum rods... Motor was used up when we got it.
Made 20 some runs with it and won 7/8 of the shows it ran in..
All we did was re ring and bearings as well as bushings.
Many of these runs were 15+ minutes of no water.
A run of 35 minutes without water "killed" it
On teardown, it all spec good. New bearings/bushings and rings and he is back to running it.
Idles 1100-1300rpms. A screaming run that I can hear is near 6-7000 rpms. Checked with a tach temporarily mounted on the farm..
The good drivers pump the throttle to gain traction in the dirt/mud. so this motor goes from 1100 rpms to 5000 rpms quickly.
Of course derby motors are set up at the high end of tolerances to combat seize
Nobody else seems able to make alum rods last..
Good oil is a must. Run zinc based all the time.
I remember when I was in my 20's it was not reccomended to run alum rods on the street
In the last 20 years I know of 6 different cars running alum rods on the street.
Moot point, my opinion/experience.

[mike343sharpstick]

Shim-under-bucket “adjusters” on an OHC engine a hundred years ago! These are amazing.

[DanStokes]

That adjustment system is not unlike the shim process in the old Fiats that I worked on Way Back When. I had the special service tools to release the cam buckets for many years but got rid of them when we moved to NC. When we did a tune up us mechanics always had our fingers crossed that the clearance would be OK - it wasn't difficult, just time consuming and tune-ups payed flat rate.

Dan