“If I had to spec an engine for myself,” Callies President Heath Norton begins, “I’d spend it all one rods and bearings.” In another episode of Engine Builders’ “Intellectual Horsepower” series, host Greg Jones sits down with Norton, Callies’ Sales Manager Brook Piper, and famed engine builder Billy Briggs of Billy Briggs Racing Engines.

Filmed at Callies Performance in Fostoria, OH; Jones and guests discuss “the ins, the outs and the latest on connecting rods, and what Callies has been doing to push that engine component forward.” More importantly, the necessity of choosing the right connecting rod for your build, because as Norton says, “You can typically save an engine if a crank fails, but when a rod let’s go, it’s like a bomb went off.”

Whether its material, design or connecting hardware (bolts); cheapening out in this crucial step is what leads to more failures than anything else. This video provides a wealth of insight from some top tier engine builders that’s certainly worth the 30-plus-minutes of viewing. Learn how H-beams tend to fail vs. I-beams, and how Callies works to curb that; also pick up on some key tricks that big horsepower builders use to extend engine life.