Special Treatment Part 1, All you wanted to know about WPC

This is some friction test data on piston coatings from one of WPC's OEM custumers that has to remain nameless but we will give you a hint, they are not Toyota or Nissan.  As you can see, the WPC process has less friction than than any of the more common piston skirt coatings.  The results were so good that this OEM uses WPC under licence

WPC treatment of pistons, cylinder walls and rings has shown to provide tremendous advantages in friction reduction, life between rebuilds and ring seal. Many race teams have documented double the amount of time between having to rebuild or freshen engines. This is alone a huge cost savings for today’s cash poor budget strapped race teams.

WPC treatment of plain bearings has also shown to be very beneficial. Even though bearings are made of soft metals such as aluminum, lead, tin and zinc, they can be WPC treated with no change in dimension. The treated bearings show a reduction in friction and an improvement in fatigue strength to where their load bearing capacity has improved up to 20 percent!

The wear difference between WPC treated and undtreated on these Clevite bearings taken from a Pro-Stock drag racer is striking

WPC treatment has proven to work well on solving problematic transmission issues as well. WPC can obviously be applied to the gears, syncros, splines and shafts. It can also be applied to cases and housings. WPC has found that some cases of transmission gear failure in some cars can be traced to flex in the transmission case which allows the gears lash to change under load. WPC treating the case reduces this and transmission life is improved. Take note of this for your transfer case, EVO owners. DSM owners and builders of the WRX and Sentra SE-R should pay attention here as well. Transmission and differentials treated with WPC run cooler and shift smoother with less friction and power loss.

Some images of a WPC treated surface taken with a scanning electron microscope showing the nano crystal structure on the surface of a part.  The surface is shown to be different from the normal base centered cubic structure of the metal

WPC works wonders on LSD differential clutch plates increasing there life by several times and in many cases totally eliminating the violent chatter that a tightly shimmed LSD can produce. The smoothing action of treated plates can help lay down the power and maintain speed while drifting better. A WPC treated diff also runs much cooler, something that can benefit Time Attack and road racers. WPC works so well on LSDs that Kaaz is offering WPC treatment as an option on their differentials.

An unusual property of WPC is that it is sometimes difficult to see horsepower gains directly as dyno test results. WPC, in addition to helping with power production also helps improve dynamic response, something that is difficult to measure on a dyno. This is why a WPC treated car may turn consistently faster lap times even though it is difficult to prove a power gain on a dyno.