Gear Technology Magazine
www.geartechnology.com/articles/23388

Morgan Advanced Ceramics Introduces New Coatings from the Racing Industry

August 14, 2007

The Diamonex Products division of Morgan Advanced Ceramics (MAC) introduced its Diamonex® Diamond-like Coatings (DLC) for the performance racing industry. 

The DLC coating is a thin-surface coating that provides high hardness,improved chemical resistance and low friction. Best suited for applications in the high performance racing industry, the DLC coatings increase wear life and reduce surface friction of internal engine components, including intake valves, wrist pins, spring retainers and cylinder sleeves.

The DLC coatings also offer the same attributes when camshafts are coated. According to the company's press release, the DLC coating provides 40% less friction than chrome coating and 10% greater surface hardness than tin, leading to less friction-oriented power loss and more wear protection.

In addition to the aforementioned improvements, the coatings also reduce engine sludge build-up, allowing the engine to maintain balance for more horsepower.   

Other Diamonex DLC racing industry applications include coating shock shafts and fork tubes for motocross and motorcycle racing. This helps reduce friction which minimizes scoring on critical surfaces of these components.  

Using patented plasma chemical vapor deposition (CVD) technologies, Diamonex Products creates a coating with chemical and physical properties comparable to diamond, but without long-range crystalline order. 

Diamonex DLC coatings are applied to the product at near ambient temperature and can maintain tight dimensional tolerances.  A high degree of vapor ionization is used in Diamonex Products’ DLC processes.