Titanium Valves

[ian.stewart]

Ive just been offerd a set of Titanium valves for my engine very cheap, infact free, untill I found out that I will need somewhat exotic valve seats of Beryllium bronze, now I know Beryllium is highly toxic, so obviously the seats need to be machined by an expert, ie somewhere that can machine toxic metal, or buy ready made inserts from the US, Is there any safe alternative material to this for my seats, what about some plated surface finish??
I have had a good look around Del Wests site and they offer these inserts so its probably the way to go,
Heres another question about Titanium, I know its a Man made metal and is unlikely to exist in natural form, when I was an apprentice, we had a Titanium foundry, Secure entry etc so I never got the oppotunity to have a nose around, But I seem to remember being told that as it was man made it was only available under licence?? was that true, its probably different now as the manufacturing process if fairly common knowlege these days

[AU N EGL]

Titanium inserts as well.

[Nero]

contact the manufacturer and ask about seat material. As I understand it you can use other materials.

[zefarelly]

I saw a set of titanium valves for sale at a show recently, ex F1 . . .looked usable size for me, but after a short think ( crowd staring at whirring and klunking noises) I decided it was possibly more hassle than it was worth, I didn't know one needed posh guides and seats as well, I suppose that makes sense

[JimW]

Titanium's not man-made in any sensible use of that description. It is a naturally occuring element, no irradiation needed. No more man-made than iron or copper etc.

Not all that common but that's not the same thing.

Try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanium for a brief introduction.

I'm surprised that any such use of Beryllium is permitted. It is a very, very toxic material indeed. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beryllium for the (American) perspective.

Regards

Jim

[ian.stewart]

Im fairly certain Titanium has to be extracted form ore in a cholrene gas atmosphere,

[JimW]

Originally Posted by ian.stewart

I'm fairly certain Titanium has to be extracted from ore in a chlorine gas atmosphere,

Yes, the Kroll process. That does not make it 'man-made' any more than the fact that iron is extracted from haematite with carbon .

Jim

[boyracer019]

How many people have said no to Beryllium, but have chrome plated something to get an extra 3 to 5 thou of build up in order to make things that little bit tighter!!

Trivalent Chromium is only just better than Hexavalent and both are just as bad as Beryllium - its all relative

[Nero]

couple of years ago I interviewed an engineer from del west.
You can run iron guides with Ti. The beryllium's effective due to wear and heat properties...it means you can have a very thin seat.
Contact the manufacturers and ask them, otherwise you are wasting your time.

[ian_w]

The Be content of the common valve seat materials (CuBe3 and CuBe25) is less than 2% so not really a major issue. However if you would prefer not to use it then you could try MoldStar90.

M90 is harder than the CuBe alloys and can wear out the Ti valves. Normally, you would Chromium Nitride the valves to combat the wear. But they will still have a much shorter life than a steel valve.

There are no performance benefits by simply swapping from steel to titanium valves and leaving the rest of the engine unchanged. Obviously, it will reduce the valvetrain mass and therefore give you some scope for a more agressive cam but I doubt you will be going through an extensive cam re-design project. Overall, for a 'hobby' car then I would leave Ti valves well alone - lots of hassle for no benefits.