titaninm retainer failure?

has anybody heard of titanium retainer failures related to the locks pulling thru the retainer?1.625 triple spring,brad 5 head-425 lb seat pressure,the retainer fit the spring as far as properly fitting the inner spring assembly.13 passes on these retainers,11/32 stems.was only reving the motor 9200 on shift,spun the tires and reved it 10,000 by the computer,but with new springs on the motor ,everbody says it should have took it!!have heard of some poor quality retainers being made overseas that are not of good quality,but just wanted some imput from the long time experts that have done this a long time? ta/fc with psi.you know the saying-if you do the same thing over and over,why would the results be any different!! drop 2 valves,it was ugly!! had more that were pulling thru as well!!

 

It is true. Heard the same thing selling them as trick titanium retainers.

 

Minnesota barnyard logic here; 1. hold hand out, palm up, with V for victory fingers sticking out. 2. hang valve with retainer and locks between those fingers. 3. push like hell with thumb. 4.reach under with other hand, grab head of valve and try to gently turn the valve. 5.if retainer turns, locks are locking! 6. if valve turns and retainer does not, the locks are not locking and will certainly fail. This test was done with brand new parts from a major supplier and did NOT lock. Two different times I solved it two different ways. First time, I bought Crower locks and 64 sets all locked. The others went 28 out of 64 only! Second time I called Conway and bought the retainers and locks from him, 64 for 64 also.

Can you guess how I had to learn this stuff ?
BTDT !! But remember, I'm just a welder !

Bob

 

Sounds like bad retainers. Or.. did it blacken the push rods? How close to coil bind?

[ March 25, 2004, 09:45 AM: Message edited by: T.Howell ]

 

As Bob Meyer said, Buy your Locks and Retainers from Tom Conway. Problem Solved.

Absolute Pleasure Racing

Gary Mangiafico

 

OK before everyone gets their panties in a wad and starts running around yelling the sky is falling here is the whole story.

I know someone once said "never let the facts get in the way of a good story" however the original poster forgot to mention some things that are pertinent to making an intelligent response. I was there and here is what I saw.

First of all no one REALLY knows what RPM the engine saw because the tach was NOT working because someone forgot to charge the battery AND that same someone didn't know how to set up the computer so the computer was not working either.

The MSD box had a 10,400RPM chip in it so when the engine saw that RPM it went silent and the engine continued to spool up. God only know what RPM it ACTUALLY saw. 11,000? 12,500? Who knows? I can tell you this since I was standing directly behind the car. It spun the tires so violently and so instantly that even though the tires were grown to the point that they were about 10" wide, the car jumped up so fast that it left the gound and both rear tires were at least 6" off the ground.

By the way this incident didn't happen at a shift point as the original poster would lead you to believe. This happened about three feet off the starting line. (remember I mentioned there was no tach so the leave RPM is yet to be determined) I won't even go into changes that were made to the combination that led up to this.

As far as the engine "should be able to take that RPM", also make note that the engine had STEEL springs on it not titanium. So with that in mind consider this. The engine would surely go into a coil bind situation since in order to get the required spring tension using steel springs in the first place requires shimming them fairly tight. Lets see if we can do the math on this one now.

The engine sees some god-awful RPM free-wheeling, oh and did I mention that it has 1" lifters in it? The entire valve train goes into float and as a result the spings go into bind. At this point the lifter, push rod, rocker, lash cap, retainers and valve try to push their way through the retainer which is the only thing trying to stop all that movement after the spring goes in to total bind and guess what; it can't do it. CAN YOU IMAGINE JUST EXACTLY HOW MUCH THAT WHOLE ASSEMBLY THINKS IT WEIGHS AT THAT RPM? I can tell you it is a bunch. That whole assembly simply tried to push it's way through the reatiner and unfortunately it did on two reatiners. Fortunately this engine had enough piston to valve clearance that the valves did not contact the pistons or the whole situation would have ended up much worse.

Here is another point. If the retainers themselves were the problem they would not have made the intial twelve passes prior without a failure or at least beginning to deteriorate. However the retainers were on the heads for only the second pass after being thorougly checked and determined to be in perfect condition.

Addtionally, though it would not be appropriate to state here where the retainers came from I can tell you they are the kind that everyone uses successfully, not cheap imports. They are 21 gram retainers and the major builders/teams use these retainers successfully. I have run these retainers myself over 11,000RPM.

So before everyone goes on a witch-hunt beating up and or defending every retainer manufacturer out there, just be advised there is a lot more to know that the original poster would lead you to believe.

I am guessing the responses and advice would be much different when taking into account all the facts.

So as Paul Harvey would say, "now you know the rest of the story"

Love, Bill

 

By the way thowell, no it didn't blacken the push rods and basically no other dammage was done. The only thing to add is that someone also forgot to tie wrap the injector lines that run under the front of the injector and when the blades came open one line found it's way to the injector and held it about 3/8 of an inch open and the car continued all the way down track at about 6500RPMs or more and gobbled up parts all the way into the shout down area.

 

Yea, but,,, other than those few small things. It was on a pretty good pass right????

[ March 25, 2004, 01:13 PM: Message edited by: Rapid Randy AA/FA ]

 

Figured if it coil binded it might blacken the tips. Don't know, never been there.
You running this weekend?

 

Randy....I've seen that puff of smoke and it's a fun ride!

thowell....It didn't run long enough to blacken the tips, LOL. But seriously though. This engine has the Drazy modification on the rocker arms and my advice is don't leave home without it. That modification is the single best thing that has happened to a Brad rocker assembly since Brad introduced the rockers to begin with. It also has outside oil lines feeding the rocker stands so it is double covered and seem to be working quite well

Now if we can just get the owner/driver to get the computer and the tach working we will know exactly WHEN it blew up!

Bill

 

Oh yeah sorry about missing the other part. No we aren't running this weekend. I wish we were. We are hopeful we will make Houston Apr. 15th. We are only lacking two things to make it. One is money and the other is, well in a word................money. BUt fear not, we are always working on it. More to follow.

Bill

 

bill is correct in the things he has quoted,but hear is what he left out of the story,2 different style retainers on engine-some on intakes-some on exhaust,only one style failed on every valve they were on ,the other style look perfectly fine,but will not be ran again,both were made by same company,so says bill!! and I was told it was gust a act of god that all of one design failed and none of the other design did!! thats bull as far as the failure of one design and not the other is concerned!!!and yes,it did spin the tires of the line,but with 3 crew members around the car at launch-nobody saw 6 inches of air between the tires and track except bill!! I was asking a generic question about retainers and if anybody else has had a problem in the past. did not expect to be attacked on the website for asking a question and sharing my grief with other alcohol racers!!!

 

OK, you got me. There was only 4" of air under the tires. However off the ground is off the ground. The results are still the same.

Nobody is attacking anybody here but if you are going to put this information out there for the world to see then you have to expect responses that the whole world will see. You put it out there to begin with.

Back to the situation at hand. Both styles of retainers were manufactured by the same company out of the same material so that shouldn't be a problem.

By the way "so says Bill" and "nobody saw 6 inches of air between the tires and track except bill" are VERY attacking and indicate that Bill might not be telling the truth. Now who is attacking whome?

Tag your it

 

so ,who's attacking who? you said tach wasn't working,then went into detail as why it was not-but you said at the track that you were standing behind the car and said" THE MOTOR SOUNDED FINE " your the expert!!bought the computer from you,but got no help from you programing computer at the track-you were their!! motor continued to spool up after it spun the tires-your opinion!!you said that I got off the throttle instantly-your the expert!!you said rocker arm pushed valve lock threw retainer when the valves floated-your opinion!! why didnt it push all of them threw!! that right,it was a act of god why it only allowed just one design retainer to fail!!you can't have it both ways-quite talking out of both sides of your mouth!!!

 

You two might want to call each other on the phone and hash this out in private...that way you might still end up as friends...In my humble opinion..any time you experience a situation similar to the one you two are talking about...you should be happy you weren't picking up little, hot, oil covered aluminum pieces off the starting line...now that's embarrasing..obviously you don't put your motor through this "experience" every run or you wouldn't be asking about the retainer "problem".. but to ponder the failure of a couple retainers after what they went through...I think is losing focus of the real issue..and that is what started the series of events that "led" to the failure of the retainers...as a side note you may want to check the entire rotating assembly for evidence of excessive rpm damage....10,000 rpm free wheeling is way more abusive than 10,000 rpm at the second gear shift...

 

Gerrywoz, you don't understand this is not a big problem. He has been at my house pleading this case for a week. We are friends and will remain so. He is just looking for support for his theory that the retainers failed and as a matter of fact it doesn't make a hill of beans to me. I just call as I see em. My statement that I thought the engine didn't go TOO high was merely trying to make him not feel too bad but the fact is when the engine goes silent it is very difficult to determine what RPM it is running at and I certainly don't claim to know what it went to. The evidence of broken parts indicates that it went higher than we probably first thought. I guess that's what I get for trying to support and bolster the confidence of the driver. Now it gets fed back to me as inaccurate information.

Of course now I am expected to speculate why the incident didn't push ALL the valves through the retainers? Not on your life am I getting into that can of worms.

You are right. The bigger picture here, which is what I have been saying all along, is if you simply blame the retainers and don't address the real problem you are doomed to repeat the incident. That would be a much greater loss.

I am sure if we keep this up we can all convince ourselves that the retainers failed. They should have withstood the abuse. Now we can all go down the road fat dumb and happy. The question is what will be the excuse next time?

By the way I was misquoted in the original post also. My original statement (not made public) was the first form of insanity is to repeat the same action again and again amd expect a different result.

Now, can't we all just get along?

Bill

[ March 26, 2004, 01:34 AM: Message edited by: topfuelscum ]

 

I never saw that car 6 inches off the ground. If Bill knows so much, how come he kicks the rods out every pass.

 

My buddy Little John. Hey John, Eddie and I are just pokin a little fun at one another and you jump in and want to start a fight? What's up with that?


Bill

 

Oh and just so you all will know Eddie and I are just fine and just pokin fun at one another. It's 12:32AM according to my clock and I am in my shop working on the remains of Eddies heads in order to get him back out soon. Free I might add.

Now everybody just calm down ok?

Bill

 

slit a mans throat,bleed him to death,then throw his body under a bus on the internet for everybody to see! then say "everybody settle down" let's be freinds,yea right!!!