high mileage issues, stroke questions.

[Piledriver]

I have a question that only Jake, T5 Joe and a few others may be able to answer.

It is basically--To the stock rods big ends get badly out of round, and is is much worse on strokers? I am also wondering if a little something in CrMo (I beam?) would hold up better, even in a "stock" application.

This question is prompted by an article by Boston Bob, having to do with low oil pressures at mid/high mileage (>100k) especially on 2.1 wassers. (76mm stroke)

OK, everyone is saying "it's at 100k miles, it needs a rebuild anyway.." but save for this issue, that may NOT be true on a wasser, as they typically go 200-300k miles. I still have full cylinder cross hatch at 200k+... and lower than spec oil pressure at hot idle.

Wassers seem to have 2 primary failure modes---
1)Heads leak due to corrosion, supposedly from Americans being mostly stupid and running std (green) antifreeze
(I had to flush nice green stuff out of the Vanagon when I replaced its heads last month...)

2)Rod thru block, (usually still #3, amazingly) especially on 2.1 motors.

Bob basically recommends rebuilding a 2.1 if it goes down for heads after 100k due to this, and indicates its far worse on 2.1s vs 1.9s (same rod is used). As these engines only make 90HP for the most part, it's interesting from a hipo motor perspective as well as to those looking at it from a "long term performance" prespective.

I hope this makes up for the bone headed post about the 9mm adjusters;-)

This was previously posted to the T4um to no effect.