con-rod reconditioning vs new
 

i;m trying to determine wether to re-condition my existing rods, or go with new Pauters. Anyone have any idea of the ballpark cost to re-condition, i know i have to add in the cost of new rod bolts, and new rods generally come with new bolts. Yes i get lighter weight with Pauters, and if the cost of new is within 2-3 hundred bucks of reconditioning, i'd go with the new and be done with the whole mess.

I don't think you'll even get close to the price of new Pauters with the cost associated with reconditioning stock rods. The bolts are about $400 and I think you'll spend about $75 each to size, balance and re-bush stock rods. I'm guessing Pauters are in the $1800 range?

Prices will vary according to location and quality, but we get $850/set (parts & labor) to recondition, rebush, and install ARP bolts in these things.

Pauter rods are $1800/set. Much lighter, much stronger and the best choice when RPM's will exceed 7K.

For reference I just had Pauter recondition & inspect a set of their std. 3.0L rods for just under $400. Brian's a very nice guy to work with. The reconditioning was only new wrist pin bushings and to measure/hone for proper end-end length. The big ends didn't need any work, which I guess is a sign of their durability. New bolts from Pauter direct (ARP 2000) were $9 each for their rods. The Pauters use a threaded big end rod cap and alignment sleeves. So the bolts are shorter (no need to be long enough to go thru the cap to receive a nut) and the bolt shank is not serving duty to aligning the cap.

So if in the future you decide to replace the bolts in the Pauters, you'll save some $ there over the factory replacement ARP bolts for stock rods. I do realize that the ARP bolts are re-usable. I simply replaced my bolts because they were of unknown age and figured $9 each is cheap piece of mind for a "race" engine like mine.

Thanks Steve. I kind of figured that pauters would be at least 2x of reconditioning the stock rods. I don't plan on taking this motor to 7K, I'd like to build it for 7K but keep max at about 6600 for a margin of safety.