OREANDA-NEWS. April 19, 2012. The model of Japanese car engine assembly adopting Japanese mainland material will be changed. Recently, it is known from the Baosteel Special Materials Co., Ltd. that after more than four years of efforts, the company's high-end valve steel passes Japan's Toyota Motor Headquarter and engine valve manufacturer's certification and will be used in two kinds of Toyota engine assembly. Baosteel has thus achieved a major breakthrough and Chinese valve steel is put into the core components of the Japanese cars, reported the press-centre of Baosteel. 

The engine is the heart of the car, while the valve is one of the most core components of the engine and plays the role of engine energy conversion and output. Therefore, whether the valve steel is good or bad determines whether the engine can run smoothly or not. Due to the special working environment of the engine, comprehensive performance requirements such as high surface accuracy, high pressure, high temperature resistance and corrosion resistance are raised for valve steel. Due to factors such as technology and performance, domestic valve steel is rarely used in joint venture brand high-end engines, especially Japanese car engines. In the traditional Japanese industrial chain mode operation, engine valve steel are wholly produced by Japanese companies.

In recent years, the rising cost pressure and complex economic situation bring great challenges to the Chinese joint venture brand vehicle development. The spare part localization has become the development trend of many car enterprises, which also gives the Chinese steel companies opportunities in product substitution and high-end development. Since 2005, based on previous valve steel exploration and study, Baosteel Special Material has continuously built valve steel wire rod production line and polishing production line and has taken a solid step in the development of high-end valve steel.

After years of efforts, in 2008 high-end valve steel series are developed, and through constant practice, valve steel products' domestic leading position in terms of precision tolerance, surface quality, volume stability and detection means are established. The products are not only adopted by global top ranking valve manufacturer and exported overseas, but are also widely used in domestic high-end engine models such as BMW, Audi, Volkswagen, General Motors and Ford.
Such performance has laid a solid foundation for domestic valve steel's entrance in Japanese cars and Japan's Toyota takes the lead in giving out olive branch.

As Japan steel valve products and production lines have very stringent certification requirements, in order to achieve the standards and requirements proposed by the Japanese side, in more than four years, Baosteel Special Material valve steel production, marketing and research team carries out repeated technological exchange with Toyota and related valve supporting enterprises, listens to the views of users and investigate the products' compliance to standards. Meanwhile, combined with the other party's needs, it constantly adjusts and improves the production process, every time it gives optimized product samples to the other party for validation, makes rectification in weak links in an orderly manner, promotes the valve steel overall production level enhancement and create conditions for passing the certification.

The certification results show that Baosteel product comprehensive performance indicators are close to the foreign counterparts, some indicators are excellent and can be put to alternative use.It is known that the user will assemble engine valves wholly with Baosteel products since the second half of this year. This is of positive significance for promoting the domestic application of the Baosteel products in the Japanese automobile core components.