Howards rods-The Club

We bought a nostalgia Fuel Altered with a 426 JP1, it came with a new set of Howards rods bought last summer. I don't know anything about them & have always used Brooks in my KB Olds & Chevy stuff but I use the B2 hemi forging. Should I use these rods? We don't get crazy, 82-85% nitro, 30 over on a worn out 14-71 & 55 degrees of timing & one Mallory mag. Thanks for any input, Dale "Lurch" Wilkens

 

Maybe Dave Germain can get in on this one and tell you what happened to his screw blown Hemi that had Howards' rods.

 

hey lurch... i know it's not a nitro deal but i always ran howard's rods in my blown alky chevy deal. 498", older 14-71 blower, upper 6sec/200mph car. i'd put a whole season on them (80+/-runs) and never had a problem. pulled bearings every few weekends and really never had any issues

whatever you end up doing it might help if you'd quit draggin your damn knuckles ya big ape!!

 

I don't know about the newer rods but, the 3 sets (24 total) of older HOWARDS rods we had come thru the shop ALL 24 of them failed ZYGLO, All were cracked just below the pin.

 

Howards rods

A few years ago I bought a set of new Howards rods for my TAFC. We made 4 pulls on Walt Austins dyno with the motor then took it to the division event at Mission, BC. First pass it kicked out the rods- broke one in the middle. The bearing was still good. No loss of oil pressure according to the racepak. After the dyno session at Walt's shop he asked me who's rods were in it. When I told him they were Howards his reply was to get them out out of the motor as soon as possible. He said they had used them and sometimes they would break while warming the motor on the jacks. I didn't have the time or money to pull them immediately so I thought they would last one event-nope. I will never again use them. I currently use the Brooks B-2 and have used the GRPs. Both seem to be good rods. I am sure there are other guys who will tell you how much they love Howards rods. Good luck with them- Dave Germain

 

Yep, everyone has a "I tried such and such rods and they suck" story.

How we got onto Howards I don't recall, but in one of our motors we even have hemi rod journals so the rods are even thinner in that area. We put new rods in that motor this spring, after 70+ runs and some of those last runs were 9,700-10,500 RPM. I do try and keep the pistons light, but I don't stray from .250" thick wall pins. Ours are tractor pulling motors and I don't know how that changes things...
We've run many many sets of Howards rods. We ran'm through the time when the bolt threads weren't right, but all in all I have no reason to change away so I won't.

 

I was at Indy Goodguys in June. Dale suhr broke 6, on 3 runs. According to his RacePak, nothing wrong. They broke on closing the throttle. I had Venolia's, broke two, also on shut off. Let me know if you want Dale's number. I think he broke a couple more later, at Cordova. I went to BME. Oops. these are in NTF's.
Art

 

what's the consensus on BME rods for alcohol applications, mid-high 6 secs?