[Return to LNE Home]

Our nikasil-plated, CNC billet, solid aluminum Nickies™ provide:

• Significantly reduced head and oil temperatures

• Increased horsepower (dyno proven!)

• Significantly reduced cylinder wear and increased ring life

• Superior oiling (Nikasil is oleophilic i.e. oil-liking)

• Tighter ring gaps and improved ring seal w/o need for gapless rings

• Improved head sealing

• Reduced friction and tighter skirt clearances

• Improves efficiency of stock pancake cooling system

• Cylinders can be re-honed or re-plated at a fraction of the original price

• Reduced engine weight

• Lifetime warranty on plating!

We bring “6-cylinder” performance to your “4-cylinder” without sacrificing reliability. 

Nickies™ ruled as legal in SCCA as replacement cylinders. Read the ruling here.

Our products have revolutionized the design of big displacement and racing engines.  Jake Raby, of Aircooled Technology, who has been the pioneer of the latest VW Type 4 / Porsche 914 engine performance developments, says that Nickies™ are a must for any application if you are serious about real power and reliability.  In fact, they have discontinued the use of cast iron cylinders larger than 96mm, and 94mm on bus engines.

Witness the newest Nickies cylinder for the Type 4 engine, Nickies 2.0: For bore sizes up to 100mm, using stock head registers (up to 96mm with stock case registers; larger bores require 105.00mm case register). These cylinders feature encapsulated cylinder head studs, are set up to take a knock sensor and cylinder temperature sensor, and benefit the engine by allowing the heads to retain as much material as possible. Cylinders also seal better against the case, all together making for a more rigid engine that will seal even better. Perfect for high-compression race engines as well as high boost engines. Cylinders now seal on the much wider top fin, which is fully supported underneath, like a Porsche 4-Cam cylinder and Porsche 911 hybrid. Heads can easily be machined for this setup. With cylinders this beefy, we can see street engines running 2 bar or more of boost, without any head leaks!

[Return to LNE Home]

The Secrets behind Nickies™

What’s Wrong with Cast Iron Cylinders?

A quick survey of performance aircooled engines will find that VWs are unreliable, but the Porsche 911 is so reliable that in both production and racing they last forever.  Why? Keep reading and find out!

All stock VWs, Porsche 914s, and early Porsche 911s and the vast majority of modified ones use cast iron cylinders.  One of the major problems with cast iron cylinders is that they are thermally overloaded!  Note that the aforementioned 911T has the only 911 engine ever to receive cast iron cylinders due to its detuned, low performance nature.  These engines, at their maximum 2.4L, had just an 84mm bore and produced about 22hp per cylinder, and that’s with a superior cooling air system.  It should now be apparent why the challenge of keeping your aircooled engine "cool" is a daunting task!

[Return to LNE Home]

Why Aluminum Cylinders?

Although biral cylinders are a significant upgrade over cast iron cylinders, extreme racing conditions (starting with Porsche’s 1971 917) or ultra-high performance street machines (starting with Porsche’s 1972 Carrera) require more.  Even more importantly, when longevity is a primary concern, whether or not the application is necessarily "high-performance" or not, Porsche found the way to have this performance with reliability back in 1971.  They turned to solid aluminum cylinders to fill that need!  Aluminum conducts heat FOUR TIMES as well as cast iron. With aluminum cylinders, Porsche's engines produced over 100hp per cylinder reliably. This is simply impossible with cast iron cylinders, even with a superior aftermarket cooling system.

[Return to LNE Home]

What makes Nickies the latest step in the evolution of the aircooled cylinder?

Cast aluminum vs. Billet Nickies™

In the development phase of LN Engineering's Nickies™ cylinders, we were considering casting our cylinders, but we were unhappy with the attention to detail that is left out of typical castings. Even with the best of castings, there are limitations. Stock Porsche cylinders were cast.  While advantageous for mass production, there are downsides to casting.  First, casting poses a big difficulty to a strong grain structure. Our billets are from a special extrusion, custom-made by Alcoa, allows for the strongest possible grain pattern, making for a much stronger and thermally conductive material while being much less brittle than casting alloys, so they are more forgiving to high cylinder pressures and detonation. Through advanced metallurgy, material science, and engineering, LN Engineering's Nickies™ cylinders provide:

1. Increased Cylinder Strength: The material used in stock cast aluminum Porsche cylinders has a tensile yield that varies from 36k to 42k psi. Through our close work with Alcoa and our platers, we have developed an alloy that both exceeds the strength of stock cylinders and has excellent adhesion for the nikasil process, which is essential for longevity. Each batch of our custom extrusion goes through intensive QC and is up to 50% stronger than cast aluminum alloys used by Mahle for factory cylinders. Our alloy is up to 35% stronger than cast iron alloys which are known for great thermal stability, making our cylinders the best available!
    

2. Increased Cooling: We achieve this through a 100% increase in thermal conductivity with our custom alloy over the casting alloy used in stock cast aluminum cylinders. Nickies™ have up to 400% increase in thermal conductivity over cast iron cylinders too. Paired with these improvements in material science, we then proceed to CNC machine 6.5 fins per inch versus the typical 4 fins per inch on cast cylinders. This provides a noticeable increase in surface area, up to an extra 65% more surface area. Draft, inaccuracy, and flash are inevitable, leading to less-than-ideal cooling fins.  When stepping down from the mass production scale, tooling is even more limited and only allows thick cooling fins.   This is why typical castings have such poor finnage, usually about 3-4 fins per inch. Since we CNC-machine our Nickies™ from our own proprietary extruded billet, we can control the exact shape and size of the cooling fins, resulting in over 6+ fins per inch with perfect, rounded leading edges.  Then, we media blast and acid etch them to remove the shiny surface, further increasing cooling ability by increasing air turbulence. 

[Return to LNE Home]

Our Nickies™ package is the culmination of every technological advance related to pistons and cylinders for your aircooled engine!

Click here to read more about Nickies!

[Return to LNE Home]

What pistons can you use with Nickies™?

LN Engineering’s custom forged pistons are the best of their kind. Every piston is custom made, so whatever the case, we work with your desired engine specifications to make the ideal pistons for your application, period. Choose between our standard JE Forged Pistons, or for the ultimate in custom forged pistons, we offer CP Forged Pistons, for Porsche and Volkswagen.

$739 for Custom JE Pistons (4 cylinder) including performance rings, wrist pins, and locks.

Special pricing only valid with purchase of Nickies cylinders or other qualifying product or service. Many upgrades are available. Please call for application specific recommendations.

Our custom forged pistons are the best of their kind.  They feature the low-friction slipper skirts, low weight, balancing within 1/2 a gram, and are manufactured from the superior 2618-aluminum forged alloy material when specified for use with our Nickies™ cylinders. Our pistons are designed to maintain optimal deck height for maximum quench.

Good quench allows for faster burn and better thermal efficiency, leading to better gas mileage, lower potential for detonation, and more power.

We can supply pistons to meet your needs. Whatever the case, here’s the bottom line: we work with you to provide ideal pistons and cylinders for your application, period.

[Return to LNE Home]

2008 Pricing Schedule

Contact us at 815-472-2939 or info@LNengineering.com to bring your “tried and true" Aircooled engine to the new standard of precision performance!

LN Engineering Nickies™ are Proudly 100% Made in the USA!

Warranty and Disclaimer

Technical Information

Machining Sizes for Big Bore Nickies™ Cylinders

Porsche 914 VW Type 4 98-105mm - Case diameter 108.50mm

For required modifications to fit v2 Nickies on your type 4, please contact us or Len Hoffman at Hoffman Automotive Machine.

Website last updated Feb 2, 2008. Contact webmaster at info@LNengineering.com Copyright LN Engineering LLC ©2008.