I’m in the process of building a 900 engine (for a Cagiva Elefant) I’ve been looking which 92 mm high compression pistons are available, I’ve found the JE, Woosner, Fast by Ferracci and Pistal, the Pistal seen a bit pricey. Does anyone have experience with any of these and suggest the best to go for? If anyone happens to have a nice set they’d be prepared to sell please give me a shout. Thanks.
Cosworth do or did high comp pistons for the 900 . Now owned by Mahle . I have a set I keep thinking about putting in my Superlight.
JE are good, but their quoted compression was a fair bit lower than what I ended up with. When I went from 92mm to 94mm pistons, I got the Pistal ones designed by Bruce Meyers, which are awesome. I'd recommend either of these brands, JE were a fair bit cheaper, but I got a deal on the Pistals by going straight to Bruce himself.
Thanks for the info Ian, I had thought the quoted CR on all these HC pistons was a bit ambitious from what I’ve read about them. My last HC pistons (of unknown make to me) had similar crown to JE and Pistal, measuring CR was about 10.5 to 1 (great performance tho) Can you pass me the contact for Bruce please?
Bloo has Pistals in him. Used them several times over the years. When I did my own 853 big bore kits, JE supplied the pistons to my spec. I’d previously used Pistal off the shelf items prior to that. Still a few of those motors going strong. Wossener are pretty good. Had a customer running hi comp Pistal in a 1098 race motor but they repeatedly cracked. Replaced with a Wossener set he’d picked up and never suffered the issue again. When big boring, take account of the weights. You may need to balance the crank if there’s a significant difference. Pistal are good, but imo, the JE take some beating £ for £.
Paul, like Nelly Said, you can't beat JE pistons £ for £. Pistal are lighter, and FBF are just pistal rebranded as FBF. Wosnner/mahle are an OEM supplier, so their pistons I've found in the past a bit hit and miss when it comes to performance pistons, great for standard pattern however, but they're no Omega pistons. My old SS had cosworth pistons and they worked out to around 10.5:1 or 11:1 depending on how close to the wind you want to sail. Arias did some beautiful pistons back in the day, many a Baines machine was blessed with those. Also, be wary of stated compression figures. Pistal won't give out a compression ratio for a reason. The compression will be dictated by your engine build or builder, and if you commit to a number and it doesn't get realised then who's fault is it? the piston mfr who promised 13.5:1 or the engine builder who didn't want to spend the dry build time doing three or four builds to achieve the perfect number because your budget was 2k and every dry build came in at a day's work at 10hrs at 100 quid a pop. You're better off deciding what compression ratio you need to achieve and work back from there if you're not working with known quantities. If I could ask, what would you like to see from your engine, what are you trying to achieve precisely?
