[screamingchief]

I hear you,,,they are flip sides of the same coin...

I've never seen a "true" cast piston failure tear up a head half as bad as a "popped" valve head will do,and that's especially true with a forged piston.

When you pop a head off one of those OE 2 pc. intake valves,it will typically imbed itself in the top of the "stronger" forged piston and just hammer the dog $#!t outta the head,and trust me it's not a pretty sight.

If that happens with a cast piston,then the piston typically shatters on impact and all the parts end up in the crankcase in short order and the head damage is far less severe.

So new valves are really not optional here no matter what heads get used.
And that's mandatory no matter what short block is under the chosen heads.

Typical "true" cast piston failures mostly involve cracking/breaking the skirts of the piston or breaking the ring lands,and rarely do those sorta cast piston failures ever result in any serious head damage or such,the only time that might damage a head is if the top ring land failed,and as such it broke loose into the chamber,but even then the head damage is minimal,as the piston material is aluminum,and thus it's much softer than the iron head is.

Most of the time when you see a fully scattered "cast" bottom end,99% of the time it was the cast rod that let loose first,and any cast piston failures were mostly collateral damage as the pistons were just an innocent bystander in all that resultant carnage.

Cast pistons usually dont cause those sorta failures,typically it's something else that's to blame.

Dont get me wrong,I prefer forged stuff too,but it's not always an item that's open for consideration,often it's use what you got or dont use it @ all,then what good is it doing?

FWIW

Bret P.