Diamond like Carbon

Scrumpy

Scrumpy

Hero member
Whilst reading at work I came across this statement:

DLC is harder than natural diamond and slicker than Teflon. That combination gets more horsepower from engines and longer lifetimes from mechanical parts that rotate and slide. Although it's purpose is a hard wear resistant coating it has un-expected lubrication properties, reudcing both friction and wear.

The coatings find their biggest application in enhancing properties of general wear parts.

"For example, it was hoped that the coating of cams and cam followers with DLC in Formula 1 motorbike engines would produce an increase in power of 0.5-1bhp. The resulting power increase was 8bhp."

Intrigued I googled it and found that this statement had been lifted from the net and produced verbatum in this report :D

I know that Red has used (experimented?) with some coatings but was this it? The claims look very encouraging.



 
Ferrari use a DLC coating on their paintwork to make it extra resistant to scuffs, scratches and damage.
Maybe they should be using it inside their engines.

An extra 8 BHP is not to be sniffed at, no matter how powerful the engine is. On our triple clunkers that would be like over 10% more power.
 
Comparing apples with apples, you'd have to take in context and accept 8 BHP as a fraction of the full power of the F1 bike + 8 BHP, so it's probably more like a 4 % increase and (yes I have no idea what output is on these bike but Ive assumed 200 )

How long it stays attached to your cams and follower is another matter as they aint F1 tolerances and bearing surfaces, however 4% is a big increase, if it's true and if it works as efficiently as that.
 
You'd be better spending your money on a 1200cc bore out- put the power where you'll use it- in the mid range.
 
8bhp gain on a 200hp motor is a 4% improvement, 4% of say 90bhp would yield 3.6hp but it dosn't quite work like that either.... A well put together Laverda triple should have very little in the way of internal friction as it mostly spins on roller bearings, a awful lot of them run around with tight cam bearings but coating them won't fix that, only fixing them does  :)
 Most of these fancy coatings seem to help the oil shear away from rotating components which is bloody ideal in a high performance high revving plain bearing engine but of little real value in a low reving roller bearing motor. Would for sure be interesting to see a back to back comparison but I would bet my hat any measurable hp gain would be a lot less than 4%,  dare say it is good for wear resistance tho.


  Keith
 
Grant said:
Ferrari use a DLC coating on their paintwork to make it extra resistant to scuffs, scratches and damage.
Maybe they should be using it inside their engines.

An extra 8 BHP is not to be sniffed at, no matter how powerful the engine is. On our triple clunkers that would be like over 10% more power.
Click to expand...

Would be quie impresive on a Honda 50!
 
It is not only the hardness which provides more horsepower. The advantages of the hardness, in combination with a different construction and tollerance of the wear parts gives the better performance. . What type of surfaces that move against each other are also important and what temperature formed during friction. But clearly an overlooked advantage.
 
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