PRI 2014: Diamond Racing’s BBC Slugs And Trend’s Pins On Display

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The guys at Diamond Racing Products and Trend Performance have the luxury of working with some of the racing industry’s fiercest competitors; on any given weekend their products can be found in the winner’s circle all over the globe.

This year, Diamond was showcasing their brand-new big-block Chevrolet Competition Series pistons in their PRI booth, which were developed to work with the vast majority of 24/26 degree cylinder heads, according to Diamond’s Mike Panetta.

“We use an inboard forging design for maximum strength, and have incorporated vertical gas ports in these pistons to provide the best ring seal possible,” he explains. The pistons offer features like moly skirt coatings, a top ring that’s placed a minimum of .290-inch down from the piston’s crown, and can accommodate 2.350-inch intake and 1.900-inch exhaust valves.

The ring grooves are set up to accept .043 x .043 x 3/16-inch rings, with Total Seal’s AP ring package available in the box. They are also shipped with a set of Trend’s H13 .185-inch wall tool steel piston pins for maximum durability.

The pistons have been machined in the mill to remove any sharp edges and are designed to be taken out of the box, washed, and installed – no final prep work is required by the builder.

trendWhile in the booth, we also spoke with Trend’s Steve Rhodey, who was eager to show us the company’s bad-to-the-bone new TP1 piston wristpins.

“We’re keeping the material on these very private,” says Rhodey. “We originally formulated these pins for our Top Fuel customers. These guys were splitting our M2 pics, and we switched the material and now we have the ‘unbreakable’ wristpin. In over two years they haven’t broken one yet,” he says.

The pins have the bulk of the strength concentrated in the center of the pin where it sees its greatest stress levels. “We take some of the properties of M2 tool steel, maraging C300 steel, and H-13 tool steel, put them all together, then add a whole bunch of toughness and compression strength. They are REM-finished and then DLC coated to arrive at their final dimensions and performance capabilities,” says Rhodey.

If the nitro-burning beasts can’t break ’em, it seems that Trend is onto something.

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About the author

Jason Reiss

Jason draws on over 15 years of experience in the automotive publishing industry, and collaborates with many of the industry's movers and shakers to create compelling technical articles and high-quality race coverage.
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