[taff2]

Who is doing a good deal on custom pistons? Last set I had came through Pdude, decent pistons at a fair price,but I hear he's shut shop.

[AG]

The Butler Ross pistons are about $850 with pins. Take a look at Race-Tec.

[tom s]

X2 on racetech,my last two engines have them.Tom

[mgarblik]

BME, (Bill Miller Engineering), makes very high quality race pistons in any custom configuration you could need. The cost for true custom pistons really doesn't vary much among the leaders, that would be BME, Venolia, CP, Diamond, JE, Ross and so forth. That is my personal decending order quality wise, but everyone has their favorite. It's almost like engine oil.

[steve25]

For me it's JE.
The tighter clearance there alloy allows for greatly aids to ring life!

[Lee]

Race-Tec is allegedly owned by the former owner of JE.

I've bought two sets from them. VERY nicely machined pistons, and prices better than I expected.

[ho428]

I think P-dude used BME for most of his.

[charlie66]

I just had a custom set made by Ross and im very surprised how different the sizes are from piston to piston. I thought they'd all be the same size. is this normal? One varied .0026

[tom s]

Yes,Racetech is owned by the past owner of JE.I have been at his shop.Great guy that makes a nice product.Tom

[mgarblik]

It's possible some of the variation could be due to a more aggressive "cam grind" on the skirts. I scribe a line on the skirts to help center the mic face. I have also found the more "custom or one-off" vs more mass produced, the greater variation in skirt diameters. The BME pistons we use now are within ..0005" through a set of 8. The reason I really like BME pistons is the extra material and support in the thrust area of the skirts. Yes, they are a little heavier than Ross and JE, but they hold their shape much better in the extreme use we put them through. With the long stroke/short cylinder of a Pontiac engine, the skirt integrity is important to our program. Ross Pistons are really pretty and beautifully finished. But delicate in really high HP applications from my experience. With a perfect tune-up and their light weight, Ross pistons may be worth a few HP over some of the others. It's all about risk/reward at that point.

[mgarblik]

Originally Posted by tom s

Yes,Racetech is owned by the past owner of JE.I have been at his shop.Great guy that makes a nice product.Tom

I have never used or evaluated RaceTech pistons at this point. It would be VERY interesting as a former owner of JE to get his candid take on JE and Wisco as well as the other brands under the JE umbrella and the advantage of his products. That would be an educational conversation. These types of insights are why we spend 3 full days at the PRI tradeshow every year. The company owners are there.

[tom s]

Randy is his name I believe.I think he is on Speedtalk from time to time.I learned about him from Joe Sherman.Joe used them in my 301 stroker build and I also used them in my 366 RA V NASCAR build.Tom

[charlie66]

Originally Posted by mgarblik

It's possible some of the variation could be due to a more aggressive "cam grind" on the skirts. I scribe a line on the skirts to help center the mic face. I have also found the more "custom or one-off" vs more mass produced, the greater variation in skirt diameters. The BME pistons we use now are within ..0005" through a set of 8. The reason I really like BME pistons is the extra material and support in the thrust area of the skirts. Yes, they are a little heavier than Ross and JE, but they hold their shape much better in the extreme use we put them through. With the long stroke/short cylinder of a Pontiac engine, the skirt integrity is important to our program. Ross Pistons are really pretty and beautifully finished. But delicate in really high HP applications from my experience. With a perfect tune-up and their light weight, Ross pistons may be worth a few HP over some of the others. It's all about risk/reward at that point.

Ross called it a piston lazer mike size report, an gave 3 measured points called position #1 #2 and #3. #1 is measured right under the oil ring, #2 is measured just up a little into the pin area and #3 is measured at the bottom of the skirt. Where the most variation is , is #1 position. The biggest piston is 4.0816 and the smallest is 4.0790. the rest of the positions are close with in .0005. What I would like to know is what measurement's are the most important. Because in my mind , it seems the stability of the piston in the bore will count on the 2 furthest points of measured numbers ? So in other words #1 and #3 would be more likely to keep the piston from rocking? Am I thinking about this the wrong way?

[Tom Vaught]

Originally Posted by mgarblik

BME, (Bill Miller Engineering), makes very high quality race pistons in any custom configuration you could need. The cost for true custom pistons really doesn't vary much among the leaders, that would be BME, Venolia, CP, Diamond, JE, Ross and so forth. That is my personal decending order quality wise, but everyone has their favorite. It's almost like engine oil.

Experience with BME, Venolia, CP, couple of sets of old Ross stuff, and one set of Wiseco Pistons. Agree with your ranking.

Tom V.

[Bob Eiler]

Reference to post no. 7.

Actually Pontiac Dude sold BRC pistons. I used 4 sets in customers budget builds.

[mgarblik]

Originally Posted by charlie66

Ross called it a piston lazer mike size report, an gave 3 measured points called position #1 #2 and #3. #1 is measured right under the oil ring, #2 is measured just up a little into the pin area and #3 is measured at the bottom of the skirt. Where the most variation is , is #1 position. The biggest piston is 4.0816 and the smallest is 4.0790. the rest of the positions are close with in .0005. What I would like to know is what measurement's are the most important. Because in my mind , it seems the stability of the piston in the bore will count on the 2 furthest points of measured numbers ? So in other words #1 and #3 would be more likely to keep the piston from rocking? Am I thinking about this the wrong way?

The measurement Ross calls #3 is the most important to me. That is the minimum piston to bore clearance. You can only hone to a single size per cylinder. So I verify what they call #3 measurement and select hone the cylinders to get the same piston to wall on all 8. For a race build, I never finish the cylinders for the reason you see right there. If you hone for a specific clearance for each piston and cylinder, all is good. In the days with the Grocery Getter, we may have had at any different time cylinders that varied in size by .015" in the same block. As long as the clearance was right, the engine never knew the difference. The problem we had with some of the really light pistons and thin skirts was after high HP racing on N20, the skirts could collapse by as much as .010" when we would inspect them. BME and other pistons with struts and thicker skirts would hold their shape much better in these extreme conditions. Really high RPM. NA, the lighter pistons would be an advantage. I don't know for sure if this is the case, but with the thin skirts Ross likes to use, it's possible some of the variation is from tool deflection when they are finishing them. They are so thin, the cutting tool may cause different finished results based on the amount of material on the inside of the forging. If the finished skirt was thicker, there would likely be less tool deflection.

[ho428]

Originally Posted by Bob Eiler

Reference to post no. 7.

Actually Pontiac Dude sold BRC pistons. I used 4 sets in customers budget builds.

I do believe you are correct. I remembered a B in his invoice to me from years back, saw BME here and forgot about BRC.

Too many acronyms.

[mgarblik]

Originally Posted by tom s

Randy is his name I believe.I think he is on Speedtalk from time to time.I learned about him from Joe Sherman.Joe used them in my 301 stroker build and I also used them in my 366 RA V NASCAR build.Tom

Joe Sherman builds some powerful engines and is an out of the box thinker. He is a tough competitor in the Engine Masters competition. If he likes the pistons that is a sound endorsement.

[Dragncar]

Scott Brown can get you a real nice set of Race-Tech for around 900$. A good ring pact "starts" around 400 though.

[tom s]

He always impresses me with his knowledge.He worked for Edelbrock years ago,he runs countless engines on his dyno,he builds the engines for his sons car and kicks ass with it.You can ask him questions like what does changing to 1.65s on the intake or the exhaust give you over 1.5s and he will give you a no BS answer.He builds tons of chevy and fords and has built a few pontiacs actually a few for me.Its nice being able to just stop by every once in awhile to just bump things off him.Tom