sorry mised the point there, you wouldnt be able to make a thick enough ceramic coating, it may be possible to plasma spray silicon nitride particles with some sort of metalic binder (which would then be a cermet) but who knows what that would be like

 

i find this hard to believe, as silicon nitride is used in tooling, and while the the inserts tend to be slightly thicker than a carbide or cermet insert or segment, it isnt radically larger. this is usually solved with using a wisker re-enforced material. im not following you on the coatings being applied part, are you trying to say the ceramic needs to be bonded to softer material, because aluminium is quite soft, relitively of course.

also, on another note, does anyone know what kind of ceramic is used in apex seals?

 

You mentioned silicon nitride as an alternative to the ceremet coating, this would require the silicon nitride to be applied using PVD (physical vapour deposition)or similar method. These processes limit the maximum thickness of the coating to under 5 microns and compared to some of the other common coatings silicon nitride tends not to bond with the substrate as well. None of these coatings (TiN, CrN, DLC, SiN etc) would last if applied to aluminium, they need a relativly hard material to provide support. Im not familiar with silicon nitride tooling but the properties of bulk material (which the tooling appears to be) have significant differences to those of the coatings. If you had enough money it would be possible to make SiN engine components, and yes some of the ceramic apex seals are SiN.

 

enough money isnt the problem, i work for a Silni maufacturer. was going to make apex seals as a pet project sometime. also, i can make them at school as we have a microwave sintering funace supplied as a study tool from the same company.

as for the coating i kinda get it, i thought i wold be a physical layer applied like you would paint, but i guess not. just the impression i got from the pictures ive seen as it looks like it would be a couple mils at least.

 

I just found this thread and thought it was great, but noticed the last post was two monthes ago. Has anyone had any more experience with these housings? Any more cool info on cermet coatings? Tim, what are you doing for power now?

 

I just got my engine torn down and have damage in bothe housings, I will be sending them to these guys as soon as I have the money, I'll post my finding when it's all done, but it will probly be a while.

 

What kind of damage? Was this on a turbo engine? How much boost did it see? How many km. etc?

This does not sound good.

 

It sounds to me like he tore down a non-coated engine and will be sending his damaged housings to be coated for the first time as an alternative to replacing the housings.

 

Bingo, just in case you already understood that though. I am running a gt35r, I was pushing 12-13 psi on it at the time and it had about 10k miles on it. The damage is a bunch of little gouges around the exhaust ports, from it trying to puke out the side seal chunks, One of the rotors was actually damaged from a side seal breaking and coming out of the groove(never seen that before). anyway, as I said, it will be a little while because I am poor and cannot afford it right now. I have spoken with these guys though and was pretty impressed, they seem to know their stuff pretty well, that's really the only reason I'm giving them a shot, it's hard for me to trust other people with my stuff.

 

🧟‍♂️🧟‍♂️⚰☠

Last motor I built I used cermet b.

Anyone do coating anymore?