cylinder lining in west midlands/staffordshire?

Does any one know anywhere decent that does cylinder lining?

Thanks

Personally I would not go anywhere other than Hartech for liners. I have no connection whatsoever but Baz Hart's posts on this forum are enough to convince me that he really knows the 911 range of engines and how to repair them correctly as opposed to someone who might just do a generic repair which will not last

There are always different solutions to a problem. Most will work for a period of time and others will last longer. Some will have features that make them superior to others while others will be inferior - but they will all work for a while at least.

Some will only work well if fitted and machined by the better suppliers but prove inferior to them when the job is undertaken by jobbing engine reconditioning shops. We do not risk our solution being undertaken by anyone else (except presently in Canada - under licence following strict technical approval by us).

It is no coincidence that major sports car manufacturers who use relatively large pistons utilise alloy cylinders (usually Alusil or Nikasil plated) among which Porsche have done for many decades. The diversion to Lokasil was merely another new way of using alloy cylinders that unfortunately did not deliver the promise they anticipated.

There is also a difference between "liners" (wet or dry) and new cylinders (which we supply and fit similarly to the GT3 and turbo designs).

There are very good technical reasons why alloy cylinders are better with the exception possibly being for out and out racing (where mileages are never high and piston clearances only have to be created for one flat out application) when in some circumstances and with the right quality machining and fitting, ferrous alternatives can work OK. The difficulty for road use being forming the right clearances for both fast road use, occasional track use and more often than not normal road traffic restrictions and reduce cylinder wear to cover huge mileages.

Fitted correctly, Alloy cylinders have no differential expansion problems, better heat dissipation and with Nikasil plated bores barely ever wear.

It is also no coincidence that the leading engine repairers in the UK (us) and the USA (LN and Jake Raby) also use Nikasil plated alloy liners. Inevitably there are some technical differences in how we do it and fit them (as we didn't co-operate over our designs) but we have all had to replace ferrous liners that were fitted elsewhere and have failed and hence stick to our solutions that have proven extremely reliable - long term.

However Nikasil plated alloy liners are more expensive than ferrous ones and so to be able to provide the best solution at an affordable cost we invested in brand new CNC capability, designed and manufactured extensive tooling and created an efficient production facility "IN HOUSE" with several employees doing nothing other than the whole process from beginning to end under our complete control.

So efficient have we become that we now find we can offer the acknowledged best solution for less than many are currently charging for fitting ferrous alternatives for (YES check that out before deciding).

It is always worth paying for a better solution if you can afford it but our rebuilds are now proving extremely competitive for cost as well as quality and there is nothing better on the market!

Not only do we also include re-coated pistons, alternative pistons, and soon various oversized engine alternatives, IMS options (including the larger bearing in a roller chain drive for the older crankshafts) and guarantees that are meaningful (although thankfully almost never needing to be tested).

So while it is entirely possible to find alternative liner solutions elsewhere it is not possible to find better solutions than we offer in the UK and for extremely competitive prices.

Porsche (and others) went to a lot of trouble to provide Alloy cylinders for very good reason and the failures that have occurred were because of a new surface solution for the cylinders and pistons that proved less than perfect (not the principle nor Nikasil plated versions) while trying to reduce the cost compared to the GT3 and Turbo variants (that are very similar to our own cylinders) that proved fantastically reliable but more expensive.

Baz

Thanks for the advice.