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FROM A SATISFIED CUSTOMER
Our company is a commercial tower manufacturer
and machine shop (non-automotive). When I
found TLMB, I had taken down a Buick 455 with a
broken ring land, likely due to detonation from
the looks of the plugs. All the pistons showed
light scuffing on the thrust face. The bores
were found to be about .003-.004 oversize (these
were hypereutectic pistons). The cylinders were
honed out and rather than replace all of the
pistons, I applied the TLMB to the skirts,
topcoated with DFL-1 and applied CBC (CBC1, I
think) to the tops, and reinstalled hoping for
the best. 2 years later I pulled the engine down
to fix an oil problem a couple of years later,
and found the pistons to look great, no
scuffiing on the skirts, and for what it’s worth
the coating still looked good and there were no
signs of detonation. I believe that the TLMB
saved me replacing the pistons at the least, and
possible re-boring the block. I have also used
TLMB to coat worn carb throttle shafts, seemed
to work great.
Thanks again, Dennis
POWER GAIN
From:
Martelius-Exhaust
Finland
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For those who do not visit the
Discussion Forum, the following comment
on power gains from coated pistons may
be of interest.
“High pressure turbo applications seem
to respond very well to coatings. I've
got lots of experience with the Nissan
SR20DET (2.0 litre inline 4 turbo, full
aluminum engine) that is pretty
sensitive to detonation on pump fuel
when running proper boost and high
horsepower turbo setups. My personal
engine made 501 hp in 2008-2009
prior to coating the pistons. With CBX
coated pistons we raised the CR from
8.0:1 to 8.4:1 and made
569 hp
on 0.1 bar less boost than before. Also
very significant torque improvement. My
ECU mapper said it felt like a different
engine, he could tune in much more
aggressive ignition timing specially
around the peak efficiency rpm area.
I'm now building one of these
engines with almost every possible
component coated. I will use a pretty
common turbo setup with a GT3071R turbo
so I can make accurate comparisons with
similarly set up uncoated engines.”
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State of the Market
Many are watching the condition of the market.
The first quarter of this year we have been seen
a steady increase in sales. The increase for the
last 4 months is about 30% over 2010, for the
same period of time. Only one month in the last
seven months did we see a drop in sales and one
month was essentially flat. While we expect to
see ups and downs on a monthly basis, the
indications are that the market for coatings is
strengthening and quarterly sales should
continue to show improvement. This is
particularly so when we consider that the major
drop in our sales in the last two years has come
from our OEM accounts. This is really an
indication that the aftermarket sales have been
holding quite well and are now showing growth,
as the OEM market remains essentially flat,
though it is beginning to show growth in certain
areas. The primary growth seems to be in
restoration and similar markets with the hard
core racing market still being soft. Our
overseas markets also have shown good strength.
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