Nickies Billet Aluminum Aircooled Cylinders for Porsche Engines

Since 2002, LN Engineering has been manufacturing its trademark billet aluminum Nickies cylinders in the USA for aircooled Porsche and Volkswagen engines. Unlike OEM Mahle cylinders that are cast, we start with our custom aluminum extrusions that are then fully CNC-machined, at which point they receive a hard nickel silicon carbide electro-plating similar to Nikasil that provides a long lasting wear surface for the pistons and rings.

As you’ll see in the videos below, each cylinder starts out as a chunk of aluminum and is then turned then milled in separate operations, resulting in a completed aircooled cylinder for an aircooled Porsche engine that will be ready to accept the NSC plating which is applied about .004-.005″ thick to the cylinder bore.

Nickies Quality Control Process

After each aircooled Porsche cylinder has been plated and plateau honed to our specification, they return to us and go through our extensive quality control process. After climatizing in our dedicated control lab for 24 hours, each cylinder is measured for ovality, taper, concentricity, and surface finish as well as visually inspected for defects or blemishes. We exclusively use Sunnen bore gauges along with a Sunnen pre-setter to calibrate our equipment every time a set of cylinders is measured. Additionally, a careful inspection of each honed cylinder bore using our Mitutoyo SJ-210 to verify that each cylinder has the the correct RpK, RvK, and Rk surface finish ensures long piston ring life and low oil consumption.

Billet aluminum construction allows for increased strength and durability of our Porsche cylinders while delivering increased performance and cooling, exceeding original equipment manufacturer specifications, for any Porsche engine rebuild. Nickies cylinder and piston sets are the culmination of decades of experience coupled with the latest in material, manufacturing, and finishing technologies. LN Engineering’s Nickies cylinders are offered with matching JE Pistons, CP Pistons, or Mahle Motorsports pistons for all aircooled Porsche engines and sold in complete kits with pistons, rings, pins, and clips.

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