BME Aluminum Rods Win Races and Set Records

The Bill Miller Engineering Forged Aluminum Connecting Rod is unquestionably the number one choice of professional drag racers.

The quickest drag racing car in the world, the U.S. Army/Don Schumacher Racing, Top Fuel Dragster, uses BME Aluminum Rods. The Army Car's driver, Tony Schumacher, won the 2009 NHRA Top Fuel title, his sixth in a row and seventh, total. While "The Sarge" didn't dominate like he did in '08 (15 wins in 25 events) he still won five events and he holds not one, but both Top Fuel National Records–elapsed time and top speed. "Army Strong"? How 'bout "BME strong!?"

Perennial NHRA Top Fuel Champ, Tony Schumacher, won the Championship (again!) in 2009, his sixth in a row and seventh total. Driving the U.S. Army Top Fuel Dragster, in '09, the "Sarge" won 5 events and in '08, won an astonishing 15 of 25 events. Tony, also, holds both ends of the T/F National Record: 3.771-sec. at 324.98- mph. BME Rods helped him do all that. Image: AutoImagery.

John Force Racing, BME user for 24 years, remains a power in Funny Car racing. In 2009, Robert Hight drove Force's Southern California Auto Club Ford Mustang to the NHRA Funny Car Championship. Turning a Championship into class domination, Hight's teammate Ashley Force- Hood finished second, team owner John Force finished ninth and another teammate, Mike Neff, finished tenth. All used BME Rods.   Image: AutoImagery.

In fact, not only did all '07, '08 and '09 NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing nitro class champions use BME Rods, but, for the third straight year, 70% of the top 10 in Top Fuel and 80% of the Funny Car top 10 used them. In Top Fuel, besides Tony Schumacher; Antron Brown, Cory McClenathan, Brandon Bernstein, Morgan Lucas, Shawn Langdon and Clay Millican all use BME Rods. In Funny Car,  Ron Capps (the e.t. National Record holder), Ashley Force-Hood (the top speed National Record holder and 2009 runner-up in points), "Fast" Jack Beckman, Jim Head, Bob Tasca III and Mike Neff all use them. Oh–and then, there's John Force. The 14-time Funny Car Champ, Drag Racing's most successful driver and winner of the 2010, 50th annual NHRA Winternationals, has always used Bill Miller Forged Aluminum Connecting Rods in his own cars and uses them in the other three Funny Cars his team fields in NHRA Drag Racing.

The BME Rod owns the International Hot Rod Association's nitro classes, too. The 2009 IHRA Top Fuel Champion, Del Cox had Bill Miller Engineering Rods in his engine. Both 2008 champions, Spencer Massey, Top Fuel, and Terry Haddock, Funny Car, chose BME.

The Bill Miller Engineering Rod's domination of drag racing's nitro classes has amazing longevity. BME's famed aluminum connecting rod has been a reliablilty/durability benchmark in the sport for a quarter-century. Since 1985, 42 NHRA and IHRA fuel dragster and funny car Champions have used them. John Force Racing has been a Bill Miller Engineering Rod customer for 24 years and has won 16 Funny Car Championships with them. Tony Schumacher has won most of his NHRA T/F titles with BME Rods. Clay Millican won all six of his IHRA Top Fuel titles with them. The '05 NHRA Funny Car Champion, Gary Scelzi, is one of only four drivers in 19 years to beat John Force for the championship and, in his long career, is the only racer to have won all four NHRA blown-fuel and blown-alcohol championships. BME Rods helped him do it.

The Bill Miller Engineering Rods available for nitro-burning, supercharged engines have inspired different configurations designed and priced for use in other drag race applications, such as: Top Alcohol Dragster and Funny Car, Pro Stock and Comp Eliminator. There are even BME Rods for very high performance street engines.

Cruz Pedregon, the 2008 NHRA Funny Car Champ, raced the BME - Equipped, Advance Auto Parts Toyota Solara to three wins and the title. Image: Autoimagery.com

At the '08 Winternationals, John Force returned to competition after a six month recovery from an accident at the '07 Fall Nationals that nearly killed him (see the BME Special Report). Force, still wearing a brace on his left leg, took his Auto Club Mustang to the semifinal round only to get beat by his teammate, Robert Hight, also a BME Rod user. Image: BME Ltd.

Five reasons drag racers choose BME Rods: 1) They outperform and outlast all other aluminum connecting rods. 2) In 35 years of manufacturing aluminum connecting rods, Bill Miller Engineering has earned for a reputation for innovative technology and continuous improvement. 3) BME puts overriding emphasis on quality through testing, inspection and manufacturing process controls. 4) Bill Miller has raced a Top Fuel car since the early 1980s. There is no better way to find out what it takes to make the best drag race connecting rod in the world than to regularly test it in your own Top Fueler. 5) BME Rods are made-in-America with the finest materials and the best workmanship of any racing connecting rod available today.

Bill Miller Engineering is the only manufacturer of aluminum connecting rods which develops and tests its products in its own Top Fuel Dragster. Here, the BME/Okuma/Red Line Oil fueler, with Troy Buff at the controls, leaves on a hard pass at Pomona, California in February, 2008. Image: Autoimagery.com

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Miracle Metal

From its introduction in 1975 until 1995, the BME Forged Aluminum Connecting Rods was made of 7075 aluminum, heat-treated to the T6 specification. In 1996, after a comprehensive research and development program, Bill Miller Engineering introduced connecting rods made of a new, advanced, aerospace-derived, aluminum alloy. Alcoa originally developed this revolutionary alloy for the Boeing Company to use for wing spars and other high-strength, lightweight structures in military and commercial aircraft.

For a given part, compared to 7075-T6, this newer type of aluminum provides an average, 15% increase in tensile and yield strength along with equal or better elongation and other mechanical qualities with, most importantly–no increase in weight. In short, with Bill Miller Engineering rods, racers get longer fatigue life for their money, but no extra weight.   The Truth about Billets The Aluminum Association, a trade organization which sets industry standards, defines a “billet” as a "hot-worked, semifinished product suitable for subsequent working." Other manufacturers sell “billet” aluminum connecting rods. Unfortunately, BME’s competitors don't disclose that the billets they use in making their rods are cut out of thick pieces of flat stock–ordinary aluminum plates.   In this era of lightweight engine components, exceptional fatigue life comes only from superior materials, outstanding design and high-tech manufacturing. Bill Miller Engineering has combined the outstanding metallurgy in its advanced aluminum alloy with the advantages of the die-forging process to produce a forged aluminum connecting rod which beats the "billets" under real world racing conditions. Proof of that is 75% of the top NHRA and IHRA Top Fuel and Funny Car racers using BME Rods and their 42 NHRA and IHRA championships. No other aluminum connecting rod even comes close to that record.

The first step in making a BME Forged Aluminum Rod, forging the Rod's basic structure from a chunk of aerospace-quality aluminum. A half-a-dozen raw BME forgings. They'll sit for a while then get moved to the machining facility. Don't touch! They're still hot.

The premium aluminum BME uses is not available in the lesser-quality, flat-stock used to manufacture other aluminum rods. BME's raw material is aluminum bar stock which is, first, subjected to a minimum, 6:1 extrusion ratio. In fact, this extruded raw material is, indeed, a billet, because it’s "a semifinished, hot-worked aluminum product" but, while a billet is the final form of the competition’s rods; it’s only the start of a Bill Miller Engineering Rod.

Forged for Ultimate Strength

 Following extrusion, BME’s die-forging process shapes the aluminum and compresses its grain structure by heating it to 700°F then applying pressure of 2200 tons. Compared to rods which are cut out of ordinary flat stock, Bill Miller Engineering's forging process: 1) enhances grain flow and increases grain density, 2) forces the grain of the extrusion into the connecting rod shape and, more importantly, aligns that part of the grain which makes up the rod's tapered beam with the direction of highest stress the rod will sustain in a running engine and, 3) forces the grain around the rod bearing bore, creating a "hoop stress" phenomenon that provides maximum strength for the limited cross-section available at the rod’s big end.

During Alcoa's early 1990s research into the strength of connecting rod materials which resulted in BME's switch to a different type of aluminum, fatigue life studies proved failures are caused chiefly by stress resulting from severed grains and improper gain direction. With a connecting rod machined from a plate, any machining severs grain ends. If this machining is done to critical sections of the rod, such as the beam or the big end, severed grain ends weaken the rod. If remaining uncut grains are not aligned in the proper direction, the rod's strength will be further compromised.

A BME Rod’s taper, because it comes from the forging process rather than machining, does not expose grain ends. In a conventional aluminum rod cut from flat-stock, grain length is cut by the rod bearing bore, again, exposing the grain ends. In contrast, the forging process used by Bill Miller Engineering forces the grain around that bore.

Better grain flow, higher density, grain aligned with the direction of most stress, tapering which does not cut the grain and big end grain formed around the rod bearing bore are just a few reasons for a BME Rod’s exceptionally long fatigue life.

BME Rods are available in a variety of styles to fit the following engines: Chrysler 426 Hemi, 440 Wedge and 340 A-Block, Small- and Big-Block Chevrolets and Big-Block Pontiac. Also, some Ford rods are available by special order. For more information, see our rod prices page or call BME.

"In a street application, using the aluminum rod is a no brainer," BME President, Bill Miller, recently said in an interview with an automotive magazine. "I don't know how the myth that aluminum rods can't be used on the street got started, but I'll guess that, back in the 60s and early-70s, weren't making them using the process we're using, today. With the material we've got and they way we manufacture the connecting rods, they'll live a couple hundred thousand miles on the street because a street application is, for the most part, low load. Our basic Aluminum Rod is made for 10,000 rpm and 800-hp. The design criteria for the connecting rod is way overkill for what it's going see on the street. We been running aluminum rods on the street for 20 years."

Why build a street engine with BME Rods? One reason is the "cool factor." Bill Miller Engineering Rods are unique, high-end racing parts and there always will be people who spend extra money to have the same rods in their engines as Tony Schumacher or John Force puts in theirs. More importantly, there are practical reasons for using BME Rods—the same reasons racers use them: less reciprocating and rotating mass due to their comparative lightness. That allows the engine to accelerate quicker and make more power as it does so. Lighter rods also improve throttle response and allow the engine to run reliably at a higher rpm than it could with steel rods.

Standard BME Forged Aluminum Connecting Rods for most production Chevrolet, Chrysler and Pontiac V8s are reliable replacements for steel rods in engines of up to 800 horsepower. Aluminum Rods for some Ford V8s of similar power output are available on special order. A Big-Block Chevrolet style, Pro Stock rod, good to 1200-hp, is, also, available. If the application is a Chrysler 426 Hemi or big-block "wedge", BME's blown-alcohol rods can be used at levels well over 2000-hp and have outstanding reliability/durability.

And What About Bolts?

In keeping with BME's relentless pursuit of quality, Bill Miller installs nothing but the finest cap screw type rod bolts in his Connecting Rods. These bolts are manufactured to BME's specifications by fastener manufacturer, Automotive Racing Products (ARP).

BME/ARP Rod Bolts come in two varieties. The bolts in most BME Rods are made of 8740 chromium-molybdenum (chrome-moly) steel, a quenched and tempered steel with a tensile strength of 180,000 to 210,000 psi. The bolts used in rods Bill Miller sells for supercharged drag race applications are made of a special hybrid alloy called "ARP2000" which has a tensile strength of 215,000-220,000 psi. BME's bolts made of this ARP-exclusive material receive a special, proprietary heat-treating process designed by BME specifically for rod bolts used in blown-fuel drag race engines.

ARP 2000 steel, rolled threads and a special, BME-designed heat-treating process makes the bolts in a BME Aluminum Rod the strongest in the industry.

Both types of BME/ARP Rod Bolts are CNC-machined. They are heat-treated in vertical racks which ensures complete, 360-deg. penetration. These bolts have rolled threads but the thread rolling is done after heat-treating which provides up to 10-times more fatigue life than bolts having threads rolled before heat-treating. Needless to say, when you buy a BME Aluminum Rod, the last thing you need to worry about are rod bolts.

BME Rods:  The finest money can buy.

Since 1975, Bill Miller Engineering has been dedicated to designing, developing, and manufacturing the finest aluminum connecting rods in the industry. Our commitment to the racer is total. We conduct continuous research and development to increase the performance of our Rods in racing applications. We strive to produce the lightest and strongest aluminum rods on the market. Rest assured, when you buy BME Forged Aluminum Connecting Rods; you get the best rods modern technology can produce. Bill Miller stands behind his company's rods, both literally and figuratively. The BME Forged Aluminum Connecting Rod was Bill Miller's first product and remains the core of his business.

One of the best things about BME products is the hands-on involvement of Company President, Bill Miller, shown here at left, talking with one of the BME Team members. In 1975, Bill began BME with the Forged Aluminum Rod as its first product and was the company's only employee. Today, 30 years later, Miller is still closely involved with the manufacturing and quality control processes and deals with many customers personally