It's really not about whether they can "handle the boost," but about whether they can handle the power. Every turbocharger produces a different increase in horsepower per psi of boost, so boost cannot be used as a measurement of power, or in the rating of parts.

Anyway, without knowing what you're goals and resources are, it's really not feasible to say what compression ratio you should run or what pistons to use.

I've been seeing questions like this a lot, and I've been asking myself a lot of them too, so I'm going to offer some of my own thoughts on the subject.

What I'm finding while researching my own 2.4 build is that every major decision you make about your engine should be preceded by at least six questions:

1) How much Horse Power do I intend to make?
2) In what RPM range do I intend to make the majority of that power?
3) How much fuel will I need?
4) What are my tuning abilities?
5) How often do I want to be fixing this thing?
6) How deep are my pockets?

Answering these questions will help you pick a fuel system, turbocharger, compression ratio, and pretty much anything else.

You're ability to tune largely affects what compression ratio you will want to go with. If you are an experienced tuner or have the resources to pay one, you can go higher compression and go after more power. If not, you can "play it safe" with lower compression. High compression builds are becoming more popular and what is considered "safe" is being debated more and more as a result.

Fuel is self explanatory, if you don't know for sure that you have enough, it doesn't matter what piston/rod combination you go with, it will blow. There are lots of articles in the wiki to help with that, but it's not directly related to your questions, so I'm going to skip over it for now.

How much power you make and where you want to make it are the big two for your questions.

Where/when you want your power made is largely a factor of what you want to do with the car and can also affect what compression ratio you would like to run. If you intend to have a quick car to drive around town, I would say build a car for the low-mid range rpms. The reason I say this is because you would likely be more concerned with throttle response than with overall power. You want to hit the gas and immediately start to make power. If you were building a drag car, I would personally say build for higher rpm power. That would probably allow you to make more power overall, but in a range you wouldn't hit very often driving on everyday roads.

With a high rpm build, you might select a larger turbo charger, and run as much boost as possible. For that type of build, a lower compression build would let them go higher boost with less tuning ability and may be preferable. I should note that higher compression adds power at any rpm range, but the ability to add more boost for higher rpm builds offsets some of the performance cost of low compression. A few guys are beginning to challenge the notion that high boost necessitates low compression, but these are mostly experienced builders who know how to tune.

With a low-mid rpm build, you would either want to make more power before the turbo kicked in by building the engine itself (one way is with higher compression), or add a smaller turbo, which would kick in sooner. Ideally, you would do some variation of both. Of course, guys building top end drag cars try to build power outside of boost too, but higher boost has a larger effect for them.


Now lets take a look at where those questions line up with piston selection.

Let's say your goal is a 500hp monster... forget the srt pistons, they are only rated at 400 hp and definitely forget the stockers. Lets say your goal is just a 200 hp daily. Pretty much anything would work, just depends on how much money you want to spend, how reliable you want it to be in the long run, and of course how soon you want to make power. Now, lets say your goal is somewhere between the two, a 250-300 hp street build (what I'm personally shooting for in the long run). SRT pistons can take the abuse, but without knowing the rating of the stockers, I doubt they could (I'm assuming they are rated somewhere around where the stock 2.0 ones are). With the SRT pistons, you're at a pretty low compression ratio, so it might be a little sluggish on the low end. It's probably a better setup for a mild drag car, but with the higher torque of a 2.4, it should be a reasonably fun street car too.

Of course, forged pistons and rods could easily handle that level of power, and would give you the option of higher compression. The deciding factors between the two there would be your tuning ability, and how much you can afford to pay. If you have the cash for forged pistons and rods and can tune for higher compression, it's probably the better build.

Then of course, there's question five and six. No one likes to talk about cost, but builds aren't cheap. Likewise, no one likes to breakdown, but it does happen. Forged pistons and rods are the most expensive options. They are also rated for the highest amount of power, making them largely more reliable. SRT pistons/rods are better than stockers, but not as good as forged. I would imagine the stockers are close to worthless in a high horsepower build. The classic contractor's triangle plays in here. Fast, cheap, reliable. Pick two. If this is a daily driver car, you're probably better off saving up longer and going with the most reliable option. If not, you can take more risks, but it may cost more in the long run too. Be prepared to pay to play.

That was a long rant, but hopefully you found it helpful. Sorry if it wasn't very clear, it's at least the fourth time I've retyped it. My cat has managed to close the window on me at least 3 times.