[Cliff R]

2359's served us well when nothing else was available. I still remember those days when all we could get (affordable) were the 2359's and you had to get a 2nd Mortgage on the house for Oliver rods to hang them on. Some folks lucked out and found 455 Super Duty rods, others pissed with early "soft" forged rods (rubber rods) with feeble attempts to effectively heat treat them.

Keith Black entered the market at one point with HT pistons but they required too much top ring gap for my liking. Even with a lot of gap up top I've seen enough of them with the tops yanked off to avoid them.

Today the worst forged rod is better than any Pontiac cast rod, even the 5140 pressed pin versions. Nothing at all wrong with pressed pins either, just make sure the rods you bought have the pins fitting in them TIGHT and you will be fine.

I use the modern allows and fit our forged pistons tight, but use a torque plate for final fitting.

Before I got out of the engine building business the last half dozen or so that we did used Icon pistons hanging on Eagle H beam rods. I prefer the Crower rods but they became difficult to obtain and pretty expensive. For most of these builds the "H" beams are fine, even the "no-name" variety like Butler and KRE used to sell...........Cliff