Neal Chance Racing Converters (NCRC) has wrapped initial testing on the sport’s first titanium torque converter that will soon go to market, delivering what is expected to be a huge boon to turbocharged entries at the sport’s highest levels.

The wording says prototype and that explains the unpolished look. When you get yours, it will be a nicely cleaned and polished converter.

The titanium converters, which are based on NCRC’s tried-and-true 10.5-inch billet aluminum PowerPump converter design, were tested by engine builder and drag-and-drive competitor Steve Morris in recent weeks and received a resounding seal of approval. Titanium, of course, is incredibly strong and resistant to heat, which is omnipresent in turbocharged applications — but its high cost, often more expensive than aluminum by several orders of magnitude, has long made it untenable for majority use in a torque converter. But Marty Chance is changing all that.

“We’ve been wanting to do an all-titanium torque converter for 15 years. Our engineering division sat down and looked at doing this, and the cost was going to be too high… it was going to be about $50,000 per converter. It just wasn’t feasible. We got that price down to $25,000 and thought it was time to pull the trigger. It’s still going to be a converter that the vast majority of racers wouldn’t be interested in, but that’s a number that’s not so far out in left field that it wouldn’t interest the guys that are at the very top of the turbocharged world that need that advantage of a lightweight converter than can take high temperature.”

Due to the high heat that turbo cars produce while spooling on the starting line, they are unable to utilize aluminum, instead, forcing them to rely exclusively on heavier billet steel units.

“You don’t use aluminum in turbo cars because they produce tremendous temperatures in the converter. It’s nothing to see 500-600 degrees Fahrenheit inside the converter of a turbocharged car, and aluminum begins to turn soft at 430 degrees,” Chance says.

Chance chose Morris to test the converter because his “Boostmaster” drag-and-drive station wagon is both heavy (the car is nearly all factory steel) and extremely powerful (it’s powered by a 572 cubic-inch SMX with twin 98mm turbos). It also has a tall rearend gear, which puts an enormous load on the converter. “It’s the ultimate testbed,” Chance says. “This was the perfect way to prove if this product is viable, and can hold up to these rugged situations. If it can live in this car, it can live in anything.”

“Steve was gracious enough to do a test for us; first, he tested it on his dyno, and the results were tremendous. He said it made a lot more horsepower because the converter allowed it to transfer more power. He then took it to the track, and it was again transferring a lot of power and he couldn’t keep the front end on the ground. It’s showing incredible potential. He made three passes, and on the second run, he took a bunch of power out and it was still carrying the front end and he was having to let off the throttle.

In the end, even with all the power taken out, the data was showing more potential than the combination before with all the power thrown at it. It eventually went out and ran quicker than it ever had before. So we’re really anxious for Steve to take it back out next season with some other changes to help plant the power and keep the nose down,” Chance says.

“Steve was having some temperature issues before and it would turn that billet steel converter blue and purple in one pass. Anyone who knows anything about heat and steel, it takes 50o to 600 degrees to turn steel the lightest shade of blue. He was turning it dark blue and purple, which is getting into the 800- and 900-degree range. A heavy, powerful car with a tall gear is brutal on the fluid in a converter. But that titanium converter didn’t show any signs of heat problems — it just transferred the power,” Chance adds.

Chance says Morris’ gains were a combination of taking mass off the crankshaft, and the PowerPump design — a top-secret bit of engineering put into the pump impeller which has verifiably produced a more efficient power transfer.

Chance says titanium is often referred to as the “wonder material.”

“You can get that stuff smoldering hot, and it doesn’t hurt it. We used to make half-titanium, half-steel converters 20 years ago; Steve Petty and Tim Lynch ran one in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and they couldn’t hurt it, even with all that heat buildup year after year. It could be nuclear hot and you didn’t even have to worry about it,” Chance explains.

The pump impeller side of the converter is machined from titanium, while the stator and the turbine side remain steel.

Chance says it’s commonly misunderstood that the stator is the only part in a converter that is not rotating mass. The crankshaft doesn’t turn the stator, so weight doesn’t have any impact, and there’s nothing to gain in terms of performance by making it lightweight. The only potential advantage, he adds, is that if you run a sprag, on the shift the stator is spinning, and when you shift, it stops. If the stator is heavy, it puts a hard load on the stator support on the front pump of the transmission. This is an issue for anyone using a stock-style GM stator support. The mass of the stator could contribute to spinning that stator support out of the front pump.

Likewise, Chance says NCRC can machine the turbine entirely from titanium, but they currently feel the expense-to-gain ratio is not conducive to doing so. “Right now, it would be a lot of money for not as much gain as we’re looking for. That doesn’t mean it’s not coming or that we’re not working on it, but there’s just some engineering that needs to occur for us to make the gains that need to be made to make it worthwhile to do it with titanium.”

The titanium PowerPump converter comes in at an equivalent final weight to a comparable billet aluminum unit. While aluminum is lighter overall, because titanium is so strong, a part can be made from a thinner wall material, bringing its weight back in line. A cutaway of a CAD/CAM engineering drawing will show critical places where the aluminum has to be very thick so that it can have the strength to handle Pro Modified-like power.

“We’re trying to give turbocharged Pro Mod entries an even playing field, with lightweight technology that can take the heat. Blower and nitrous teams will continue to run the aluminum converter because the benefit isn’t there for them. They’ve been calling us and asking about it, but this is a turbo-specific product. Right now, steel is the only option for a turbo application, so this is the option they’ve long needed.

NCRC is actively fielding calls from prospective customers for the titanium converter, of which only one- the prototype — presently exists. Chance says the machine time for titanium will mean longer lead times to procure a part versus the quicker run of aluminum.