Drag Racer magazine, January issue. Has an article covering cryogenic treatment of engine parts. Haven't read the whole article yet, but a quick once-over sure sounds like something one would want to do to those hard-to-get flathead engine parts. Just a little something that might interest some of you. Roger
Hey! I was going to post something about this today as well. Stole my thunder, man. A while back, I was looking something up here in the Kansas City Yellow Pages and saw "Cryogenics". WTF? Freezing people? No way! Anyway, I called the guy and he told me that it's done all the time, especially in the aircraft industry (and on the Space Shuttle's landing gear). Apparently freezing metal parts at EXTREME TEMPERATURES lines up the molecules and makes the part stronger. He went on further and said a lot of racers have it done to their bottom ends, and one famous Corvette racer (he wouldn't say who) as an experiment had the brake discs, calipers and pads for one side of his car done before a race. On the side that wasn't treated, they had to change the brakes out something like three or four times. On the treated side, they didn't have to do anything - the brakes lasted the whole race (several laps, I guess). I thanked him and hung up. That was like ten years ago. I don't know if he's even still in business, but that was his story. If this stuff does what I've heard, then it sounds pretty awesome. ~Jason
Sorry for stealin' your thunder, Jason. It sure sounds like it's worth it. Here's an excerpt from the article; "Camshaft; The camshaft was used for five years before being cryogenically treated and has now been in service six additional years, for a total of eleven years." (This was originally in a bored & stroked iron 460 built in '96, then was transplanted into a 572 inch aluminum motor in '03. Keep in mind that these are grass-roots sportsman drag race engines. My thoughts are that the process will lengthen the life of older parts, many that are no longer available new from anywhere. And yes, one can treat disc brake rotors, axles, rear gears, etc. Roger
I knew this would show up here sooner or later. The cryogenic treatment industry is about 98% snake oil. Terry, the HAMB metallurgist, just posted a nice quick summary of cryo treatment over in the Heat Treating thread. Basically, all it does is convert retained austenite in highly alloyed steels. The practice has been around for a long time. Its common in the bearing industry to help with dimensional stability. Its also common in the aerospace industry on parts such as landing gear, where retained austenite can severly limit the fatigue life and fracture resistance of the parts (which, for obvious reasons is bad). Most of the people pushing cryotreatment today don’t have a clue what they are doing. The only benefit it provides is through reducing retained austenite. This will only provide a benefit if the material actually has retained austenite. And if the material is not tempered after cryogenic treatment, the freshly formed martensite will be brittle, which will significantly reduce the toughness of the part. I’ve never seen any evidence that it is effective on anything other than heat treated alloy steel. I spec cryo treatment for about 2/3’s of the products I manage, including such parts as racing gears, camshafts, and aircraft landing gear. These are all high-alloy steel parts, where I know I get significant retained austenite. I cryo treat after quenching, BEFORE tempering. Its beneficial on high alloy steel and carburized parts. For everything else its unlikely to provide much benefit.
When I build my Hemi, I'm going to have everything Cryo'd. I've read to many testamonials about it's benifits from people I trust(including a few $100K for just the engine Porsche race engine builders) to not have it done.
Ah, that's right! The dude on the phone said he tempered the parts afterwards. I forgot about that. The part of his story that captured my imagination was the treatment of the pads, and how well they did. ~Jason
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