I posted on the Orlando DSM board and I have been told that I might not have to replace the pistons after all. read this thread and especially the lancerman guys post. What do you think of this?

http://www.greenliquid.com:9000/dsm_forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1533

I kind of agree with him. Yes he is right and I don't believe there to be enough damage to not reuse them. On the other hand whenever you get metal composites hot enough to melt/weld the you have changed some of their characteristics--such as strength. Could you reuse them, sure. Would I go 15 Psi on them again untuned, nope.

if I saw ANY visible damage to my pistons and was running a high stress setup like yours.. i'd would DEFINATLY get them replaced, they will be weakend from the first damage and won't hold up to it anymore, atleast not likely at all.
Lets put it this way.. if you accidently fractured your leg.. would you jump around on it all day? I don't think so.

I agree. Metal weakens when it gets that hot as it did on your car. If you went through all that work to tear off the head, ect, i would replace them no doubt. Better safe than sorry...

try to ask a friend or a machine shop person near you if so to check it out for you..
thats what i would do...

Michael 99gs
HRC Stage 2
Stage 3 process begins anyone got a 420a block thats not spun/head for sale?

http://www.dreamwater.net/purplebeast

Aha! Downpipe mounted probe!! I noted that before.


Lesson to all, I've read over and over before that mounting your probe anywhere but the manifold is basically nullifyin gthe benefits of the probe.

BTW, Dave, it doens't look to bad. Get it checked out by the machine shop. To me, it doesn't look that horrible.

http://www.greenliquid.com:9000/cgi-bin/dirwrap.cgi?template=dsm&path=dsmpics/dsmpics/DaveT-GS/Pistons091402&sort=by_date

When I saw the pics of the pistons I was like where's the damage. I'd definately have a shop of two inspect the pistons before tossing em.

I agree. I could hardly find the damage on my first look. Lancerman REALLY knows his stuff. He's over here in Tampa. He has a FWD Mirage with the 4g63 running low 12's and also has a Mirage with an AWD drivetrain and the 4g63 and he pulled 11's on his first time running it at the track! BTW the FWD Mirage is for sale on www.tamparacing.com if anyone is interested.

________________________________________________________________________________________
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http://hometown.aol.com/ohshootuhh/
www.Fast420A.com

If you're not sure about re-using them, replace only the ones that are bad. If they are 8.8:1 JE's, Race Engineering has them on the shelf - you can buy 1 or 2 if that's all you need.

Im not too sure about you reusing those pistons......I guess a machine shop could tell you differently, but I work at a machine shop and when you heat up aluminum to a great extent they get dramatically weaker...Of course, that affects the rods more than the pistons but I would suggest getting new pistons....You wouldnt want those to break off or something like that and then throw a piston/rod through the oil pan or something like that which would cost big money to fix....If you need only 2 pistons, Id just get new ones.

I have 8:6 compression from howell automotive. Do you think I can just get 2 of them?

Have you pulled them out yet? You really need to pull them out to be sure. Pull them all and check out the ring lands and the skirts and the wristpin and everything about them. Just because you obviously melted 2 of them, doesn't mean that the other 2 didn't go through the same hell...they just appear(from the top) to have fared better.


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