heat treating doesn't change the end grain of the rods at all. so nomatter what you do to either one the forged is always stronger on the end. i broke thuosands of billet rod with just about every heat treat, vibatrory stress releaving and cryo treating and the billet never hold up to a good forged rod. this was a e-mail i got from carrillo after i tested there rods. i sent them a data sheet to see if i could some free
. Fatigue is the major cause of connecting rod failure. At Carrillo Industries, we use proprietary steel, manufactured and forged to our own custom specifications. After experimenting with virtually every other reasonable material, we have found this chromium / nickel / vanadium / molybdenum
FORGED alloy to be the best product to meet our stringent requirements for strength and durability. just a little f.y.i most of the pro race teams use forged rod not billet. all nascar all top fuel and funny car. most all prostock. f-1 use forged titanuim, indy use pankel forged rods not billet. so the only thing i see is big marketing has done it's job.