Census 2011! How are your *standard* rods?

[metricspaces]

people need to make there own minds up on the scenario, no point telling each other otherwise. no one is wrong, people just have there own ways of weighing it up, whether its worth doing or not to that persons needs/situation.

Absolutely. So hopefully this thread will provide people with some useful information to help them weight it up and make up their own mind - as oppossed to general statements that are backed up no with evidence, that amount to nothing more than scaremongering.

As the saying goes, information is power...never a truer word

 

[mikem1]

Rods NOT bent on Revo Stage 1

* What stage map they were on: Revo Stage 1o
* What max bhp they had: 265 Bhp as per advertised figures (not rolling roaded)
* What max torque they had: 285 Ib/ft as per advertised figures (not rolling roaded)
* What max boost they had: Revo Stage 1 Boost
Not known when the engine was mapped originally as purchased for engine conversion into my Mk4 Golf 4Motion

 

[aragorn]

Your trying to statistically analyse something that is constantly changing, varies hugely from engine to engine, and is progressively getting worse as the engines age.

This is why i think its pointless. Theres no control, you're not comparing like for like, so the resulting statistics are largely meaningless.

Even which map the cars on, how long for etc doesnt really help, becuase one guy might have a stage3 hybrid thing mapped up to the eyeballs yet does 20k a year on the motorway at 70mph and rarely sticks the toe down at all. Another guy might have a stage1 car and drives it everywhere flat out all day everyday.

Its like taking a random group of 35year old males, asking how many of them have heart conditions, then using the results to say "not very many males have heart conditions".

 

[metricspaces]

Aragorn, rather than jumping from one point to the next, could you address this one here

We can be absolutely sure these rods ARE running near their limits with remapped engines, otherwise there would be no failures

I asked if you had any evidence to back this up. I'm guessing you don't. So you aren't absolutely sure, there's no way you could be, because you've no evidence of this other than one or two cars having problems. Cars you don't have any information about.

 

[aragorn]

I, personally, am absolutely sure.

Why? Because i've seen failures on here, i've read up on various other forums, i've listened to what tuners have to say, in short, i've researched it and i've made up my mind. This is what one tends to do before spending money on engine internals.

Perhaps instead of looking at a list of cars that havent broken and claiming faulty statistics can prove its a small risk, why not do your own research? Speak to people who know these engines, visit the Yank forums where there are a lot more people tuning these engines and generally read all the information you can, then once you've done that, you can come to your own decision as to whether its hype or a real issue.

There ARE no hard facts. We simply cant say "A rod will break if you exceed 261lbft". These facts are simply impossible to attain without a lot of knowledge that we will never have, and varys between engine to engine.

What we do know, is the stock rod is designed to last forever in its stock application. This is part of the design process, where the stresses on the rod are analysed. We know Audi continued to use a 20mm rod on the 225hp models after they switched to the 19mm rod on the lower power engines, so we know that the 19mm rod, according to Audis calculations, was unable to withstand the output of the 225hp motor indefinately. We will however never know the safety margin, unless you happen to be privvy to Audis design materials, however the 20mm rod isnt all that much beefier than the 19mm item, so it really cant be that much stronger. We can be sure however that once that safety margin is exceeded, the life of the rod is no longer "infinite" and the rod will, eventually, fail.

 

[Don's A3 TTu]

i wouldnt worry anything original VAG Just use my motto

DRIVE IT

BREAK IT

UPRATE IT

at least youll get your moneys worth out of it ! ! !

 

[metricspaces]

No offense, but that is simply a few paragraphs of your opinion, with no facts, and no references to anything to back up your statement.

We can be absolutely sure these rods ARE running near their limits with remapped engines, otherwise there would be no failures

The bottom line is, you can't back it up, so you can't be absolutely sure, and it is simply scaremongering.

You have no idea whether (a) the rods were running near their limits (b) something else caused the problem (c) the owners were simply unlucky to buy an S3 with a dodgy set of rods.

I, personally, am absolutely sure. Why? Because i've seen failures on here

You've read about 3 failures on here, and you are absolutely sure that because of this the rods are running near their limits. Do you not realise how illogical that sounds?

 

[metricspaces]

claiming faulty statistics can prove its a small risk

No one claimed that this thread would statistically prove anything, or that it would be statistically sound. I refer you to the very first post

There seems to be a lot of talk\fear about rods getting bent even on stage-1 maps. So I've set up a poll to give us an idea of where people are seeing failures

To expand, this thread is simply to:

A) Give people an idea of the number of S3's that are getting bent rods.
B) Give people some information about individual S3's that are getting bent rods.

As for the statistics side of it. I've already said, I'm not debating with you the merit of analysing a set of data because you simply don't see the merit in it. You will still think "but I could be the unlucky one", which is fair enough.

But overall, I'm not sure what your goal is here? I saw a benefit in setting up this thread, as did others who have contributed, so we feel we will get some benefit from it. What is your goal?

 

[aragorn]

Ah sorry, i was mistaken.

All rod failures to date have actually been caused by other unrelated issues, such as oil pressure, grass pollen or magnetic flux from a nearby pulsar.

The rods are actually perfectly safe to 350lbft+

 

[Welly]

You want proof rods bend at Stage 1 level.

OK - easy.

Spot the odd one out in the picture below:

In fact you will also see that number 2 (in the picture - was number 3) and number 4 are *slightly* bent.

 

[Welly]

Ah sorry, i was mistaken.

All rod failures to date have actually been caused by other unrelated issues, such as oil pressure, grass pollen or magnetic flux from a nearby pulsar.

The rods are actually perfectly safe to 350lbft+

That one post made my day far brighter. :thumbsup:

 

[Dane]

Useful thread, my thoughts are;

Yes I would like my s3 to be faster and I quite like the idea of going hybrid, but, catasrophic rod failures can happen as a result of this process, therefore, I chose to upgrade my rods after my stage 1 map to vastly reduce the risk of this happening.

A sensible stage 1 that doesnt boost to mega high psi, creating nasty torque spikes, and doesn't induce loads of timing advance I think is a good place to be i.e. my stage one map was all but makes no difference 255 bhp and 255 ftlbs with a very oem delivery. If I was content with that level of tune and I didn't want to take it further I would not have changed the rods. But thats my choice, there was a risk that the rods could of bent the next day, but I would have been satisfied that the risk was small enough.

But as I did/do want to take it further so, before I asked any more from my engine, I decided the next mod was going to be uprated rods, as the more I mod the car the greater the risk of rod bending becomes.

I would rather know that my car has been engineered to be able to take the extra omph I want from it than guess and hope that it can.

Plus some of the most knowledgable people on this forum Bill, Tuffty and Welly all reccomend changing the rods, all of whom know quite alot about these engines (they certainly know a damn sight more than me). All of the other advise I have taken from them has been spot on why should there advise on changing rods be any different?

All of this is just my view on the matter.

EDIT - I would of contributed to the poll but non of the options apply to me

 

[Welly]

Plus some of the most knowledgable people on this forum Bill, Tuffty and Welly all recommend changing the rods, all of whom know quite alot about these engines (they certainly know a damn sight more than me). All of the other advise I have taken from them has been spot on why should there advise on changing rods be any different?

Whilst I agree with everything you put dude, I had to add this - I'm not running standard rods, nor is Tuffty, and certainly not Bill in the Ibiza. I changed mine due to the disaster pictured on the page before.

It happens. How often is irrelevant in my opinion. The question to ask yourself is - do you want it to happen to you?

I am posting this link for about the millionth time. You want the facts, have a good read of it.

Integrated Enginering... Connecting Rod Failures Explained

 

[metricspaces]

You want proof rods bend at Stage 1 level.

Nice pics. But who said they wanted proof that rods bend at stage 1?

 

[Essflee]

Eh ???

 

[Dane]

It happens. How often is irrelevant in my opinion. The question to ask yourself is - do you want it to happen to you?

I agree - I did try and write something like that, but I just sounded like a knob and I couldn't think how to re-write it lol.

 

[Welly]

Nice pics. But who said they wanted proof that rods bend at stage 1?

Anyone who questions the value of a rod upgrade in my opinion!

We could sit here and discuss this all day, and it does get discussed often. Bottom line is that it happens. Not to everyone, but to some. The more you push the engine past design tolerances, the greater the chance of it happening. The higher the boost and cylinder pressure, the greater the chance of it happening. The older the engine, and the more miles it has done, the greater the chance of it happening.

As Dane said above, changing rods gives piece of mind and that is why I would recommend it. If you want to KNOW your engine will be OK without any fingers crossed and guesswork, then changing rods is for you.

If I were you I would look at the link I posted to the Integrated Engineering page. Ask yourself this: If there wasn't a market for people uprating OE Rods in the 1.8T engine - why would there be such a vast amount available from different manufacturers?

These people don't engineer these things for fun, they engineer uprated rods to replace the flawed, weak, and frankly underspec'd rods that go into these engines. They have always been a weak point when compared to forged pistons and a forged crank. They are the bottom end component that is most likely to fail.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I have a suspicion that you have never seen a 1.8T rod in person, and seen how feeble the thing really is. They honestly are pants. Same rods that went into the early 150 AGU and AEB lumps, which they were originally designed for.

As these engines get older and older, and are pushed harder and harder, more and more rods are going to have issues. When they do, I am going to stand there laughing with a big sign saying 'I told you so'. (not that I do hope it happens to anyone really - it's a royal pain)

Anyway, this thread has now got to the point where it is completely academic. You can't prove that your rods are going to survive and still work in 50K time. I can't prove that they won't.

I can appreciate what you are trying to do with this thread - and the results will obviously a small amount of failures vs a large amount of non failures. However, that's not to say that there won't be more. Which there will be. This is going to be a reoccurring theme as time passes.

Why not pack in the arguing about something that can't be proved and let the thread get back to what it actually began as. A poll?

 

[metricspaces]

How often is irrelevant in my opinion. The question to ask yourself is - do you want it to happen to you?

I think you are straying off the point of this thread. The point being as per the first post...

There seems to be a lot of talk\fear about rods getting bent even on stage-1 maps. So I've set up a poll to give us an idea of where people are seeing failures

To expand, this thread is simply to:

A) Give people an idea of the number of S3's that are getting bent rods.
B) Give people some information about individual S3's that are getting bent rods.

I saw a benefit in setting up this thread, as did others who have contributed, so we feel we will get some benefit from it.

If you or Aragorn see no benefit in this thread, then that is fine too. But repeatedly stating this, without adding anything else or anything to back up statements, really isn't anything to the thread.

 

[metricspaces]

I am posting this link for about the millionth time. You want the facts, have a good read of it.

Integrated Enginering... Connecting Rod Failures Explained

Thanks, this might be useful for others, I've already read this a good while ago myself.

It is an interesting read from a company that sells rods - I don't see any facts there about how near the edge OEM rods, i.e. any facts to back up:

We can be absolutely sure these rods ARE running near their limits with remapped engines, otherwise there would be no failures

But I think everyone understands the general principle of something breaking - which is all that page describes. That isn't the main point of this thread, the main point was described in my previous thread.

 

[s3dave]

Aragon, how can you put oil pressure and unrelated issue in the same sentence when catastrophic damage is caused, surely there could be something in it ...even if it was not a known problem, oil starvation for a second or two could cause damage like this, the heat build up would be immense....

 

[Broken Byzan]

Aragon, how can you put oil pressure and unrelated issue in the same sentence when catastrophic damage is caused, surely there could be something in it ...even if it was not a known problem, oil starvation for a second or two could cause damage like this, the heat build up would be immense....

Dave, i think it was a touch of sarcasm mate..

 

[Welly]

If you or Aragorn see no benefit in this thread, then that is fine too. But repeatedly stating this, without adding anything else or anything to back up statements, really isn't anything to the thread.

Yawn.

I think my picture is of a large amount of benefit, and certainly enough to backup my statements personally.

A picture says a thousand words. I have first hand experience with this - which most of you don't.

 

[metricspaces]

Some useful points there Welly! Some things I think you also misinterpreted.

Anyone who questions the value of a rod upgrade in my opinion!

I'm not questioning the value of a rod upgrade. We know there is a risk of rods failing when you remap, so of course if we all had spare $$$ we could replace the rods and eliminate the risk (leaving aside how small the risk is on stage-1). Simple enough logic.

What I am questioning is the level of risk (in particular on a stage-1 map) and statements like "we know the rods are running near breaking point once you remap". On the face of it, it appears nothing more than scaremongering.

Anyway, this thread has now got to the point where it is completely academic. You can't prove that your rods are going to survive and still work in 50K time. I can't prove that they won't.

I would disagree here. I have never made any statements - simply because I have no information to back them up. So therefore I have nothing to prove

Others have made various statements on the forum over the last while that basically amount to telling people they should get their rods done even if on stage one because they're running near the edge and could snap at any minute. I'm not specifically referring to Aragorn here - but he has made some statements on this particular thread that he cannot back up, in particular

We can be absolutely sure these rods ARE running near their limits with remapped engines, otherwise there would be no failures

I'm sorry - but that is simply scaremongering, unless there's facts to back it up, which there aren't.

 

[Broken Byzan]

So you want the main purpose of this thread to be the poll, not facts, opinions etc yes?

That can probably be arranged.
It would seem that if your opionion differs from the OP in anyway shape or form, you are wasting your time posting here guys .
So why do we change to upgraded parts elsewhere on our cars? To ensure longevity/better performence on known failing parts, wouldn't that be a good enough reason to change rods?

 

[metricspaces]

Yawn.

I think my picture is of a large amount of benefit, and certainly enough to backup my statements personally.

A picture says a thousand words. I have first hand experience with this - which most of you don't.

Yes, your picture and your first hand experience relate to one particular incident. One or two others who have seen bent rods have contributed some information about their particular scenarios, so this may be useful to others. But these lend nothing to back up statements from others that these rods are running near the edge in general on a stage-1 map.

As I've already said, this thread is simply to:

A) Give people an idea of the number of S3's that are getting bent rods.
B) Give people some information about individual S3's that are getting bent rods.

So overall, I'm not sure what goal is here? I saw a benefit in setting up this thread, as did others who have contributed, so we feel we will get some benefit from it. What is your goal?

 

[Welly]

So you want the main purpose of this thread to be the poll, not facts, opinions etc yes?

That can probably be arranged.
It would seem that if your opionion differs from the OP in anyway shape or form, you are wasting your time posting here guys

I completely agree with you Mark.

 

[Welly]

Yes, your picture and your first hand experience relate to one particular incident. One or two others who have seen bent rods have contributed some information about their particular scenarios, so this may be useful to others. But these lend nothing to back up statements from others that these rods are running near the edge in general on a stage-1 map.

As I've already said, this thread is simply to:

A) Give people an idea of the number of S3's that are getting bent rods.
B) Give people some information about individual S3's that are getting bent rods.

So overall, I'm not sure what goal is here? I saw a benefit in setting up this thread, as did others who have contributed, so we feel we will get some benefit from it. What is your goal?

Let me ask you a question. Do you have anti virus software on your machine?

EDIT: Having read your slightly odd statement 'What is your goal?' I feel I must reply.

My goal is to make people realise that your 'I'll worry about it when it happens to me' is a complete joke.

People won't thank you for making them feel better about con rods on the 1.8T now, only to have something happen to them in 6 months time as they weren't given due concern because of your 'It'll be OK' philosophy.

Just because 4000 people from your town don't get knocked down today on the road, doesn't mean you won't get knocked down, are you going to stay in the house forever?

 

[aragorn]

Aragon, how can you put oil pressure and unrelated issue in the same sentence when catastrophic damage is caused, surely there could be something in it ...even if it was not a known problem, oil starvation for a second or two could cause damage like this, the heat build up would be immense....

Becuase a rod failure due to oil pressure problems is completely unrelated to a rod failure due to running more torque than the rods are designed for, which is surely whats being asked about here.

I have a 1.8T i'm currently rebuilding, which nicely welded its crank to the bigend bearings and spun the shells due to a lack of oil. If its rods had broken at the same time (which they didnt), it would be completely unrelated to rods failing due to increased power output, because its a standard 180hp engine.

 

[aragorn]

Let me ask you a question. Do you have anti virus software on your machine?

Lol, i think he's just discovered Cut and Paste and its showing off his new found skills.

 

[Welly]

Lol, i think he's just discovered Cut and Paste and its showing off his new found skills.

I'm waiting for the OP to answer as I think it's a valid question...

 

[s3dave]

Becuase a rod failure due to oil pressure problems is completely unrelated to a rod failure due to running more torque than the rods are designed for, which is surely whats being asked about here.

I have a 1.8T i'm currently rebuilding, which nicely welded its crank to the bigend bearings and spun the shells due to a lack of oil. If its rods had broken at the same time (which they didnt), it would be completely unrelated to rods failing due to increased power output, because its a standard 180hp engine.

Sorry did not know you had actually proved it was torque that killed the rods ...my bad....

 

[metricspaces]

So you want the main purpose of this thread to be the poll, not facts, opinions etc yes?

Hi Byzan, no that would be incorrect. As I have stated a few times already, I set this thread up to:

A) Give people an idea of the number of S3's that are getting bent rods.
B) Give people some information about individual S3's that are getting bent rods i.e. contribute facts.

It would seem that if your opionion differs from the OP in anyway shape or form, you are wasting your time posting here guys.

This comes across as quite an aggressive and one-sided tone you are adopting here. Relax for a moment and take stand back. You will see it was quite clear why I set this thread up from the initial post:

There seems to be a lot of talk\fear about rods getting bent even on stage-1 maps. So I've set up a poll to give us an idea of where people are seeing failures

Now, aragorn felt the need to, in summary, tell us that there was no point to the thread. Which is fair enough. I don't see what that adds to the thread. But continuously trying to make the same argument is pointless.

Like I've said, I saw a benefit in setting up this thread, as did others who have contributed, so we feel we will get some benefit from it.

As for opinions and facts in general. Yes I think they are very useful in general. But comments such as below that are proclaiming to state something in absolute sureness, that are based on no facts, amount to nothing more than scaremongering and I don't think contribute anything to be honest:

We can be absolutely sure these rods ARE running near their limits with remapped engines, otherwise there would be no failures

And when such broad sweeping statements of fact are made, then of course it is acceptable to question them.

 

[Welly]

Sorry did not know you had actually proved it was torque that killed the rods ...my bad....

Saracasm king! lol

 

[jojo]

Well, according to the stats at the time of posting this, you are 75% more like to bend your rods with a stage1 map over a stage 2 map.

4 cars with bent rods, 3 stage1, 1 is stage2.

No cars have bent rods in standard form.

Just keep your cars standard chaps, and we will all be happy. Leave the tuning to the Jap guys in their Evo's and Scoobydoos.

In my personal opinion.

 

[aragorn]

I've already said, its not torque, its magnetic flux from a nearby pulsar, or sometimes if your really unlucky, some grass pollen that sneaks past the air filter.

Out of interest, what "forged internals" are you running, and why?

 

[aragorn]

Well, according to the stats at the time of posting this, you are 75% more like to bend your rods with a stage1 map over a stage 2 map.

4 cars with bent rods, 3 stage1, 1 is stage2.

No cars have bent rods in standard form.

Just keep your cars standard chaps, and we will all be happy. Leave the tuning to the Jap guys in their Evo's and Scoobydoos.

In my personal opinion.

Thats actually wrong, because wellys was stage1, he just clicked the wrong option.

 

[metricspaces]

My goal is to make people realise that your 'I'll worry about it when it happens to me' is a complete joke.

People won't thank you for making them feel better about con rods on the 1.8T now, only to have something happen to them in 6 months time as they weren't given due concern because of your 'It'll be OK' philosophy.

Ok, I understand where you are coming from. But everyone can make up their own mind. They don't need to be told what to do.

Don't get me wrong, I think your information and experiences of rod failure is useful to others on here, and will help us to decide if we want to replace our rods.

But it is also useful to look at how many S3's we have seen rods fail in and the characteristics of those cars.

Taking all this information together, people can then make up their own minds. Simple

I'm not advocating an "It'll be OK" policy, and I'm not knocking down a "change the rods now and be safe" policy. I've set this thread up to simply gather information in one place so that people can make up there own minds.

So on that front, I see no disagreement

 

[s3dave]

Out of interest, what "forged internals" are you running, and why?

I have got uprated pistons and rods,
"why"...because im hoping to go over the danger zone of 320bhp and it is widely excepted that the rods
are on the limit at that power 320 +

 

[s3dave]

Thats actually wrong, because wellys was stage1, he just clicked the wrong option.

And it looks like somebody else has bent the rods without commenting????

 

[JS1500]

I don't see what all the fuss is with this thread.
Surely having some facts in an easy-to-read format is no bad thing? It doesn't have to be 100% definitive, but better than nothing.
It could show up a pattern that either helps put people's minds at rest so they can enjoy their cars, or alerts them that they really need to uprate the rods. Where's the harm in this poll?
People (in general) aren't totally thick as mince. They aren't likely to look at the poll and think "ah, only a 5% chance of my engine smashing itself to bits, i'll crank the boost up a little more..."
More info on the matter can only be a good thing.
Also, there are a number of other factors. People who've spent £1000 on having uprated rods fitted aren't likely to jump on this thread and say "actually, what a total waste of money". They need to convince themselves (and they could well be right) that it was money well spent. And people who can do the work themselves, maybe it's a no-brainer for you if it's 'only' going to cost £300 and some time - not the same for most of us.
Personally, i'd love to uprate my rods for peace-o-mind... but £1000 is A LOT of money.