i just recieved my mahle pistons for my next small block rebuild.its going to have 3.48 stroke and 6.0 rods.350 cid.ive used je pistons for my last couple of rebuilds,but i thought id give the mahles a try after reading such good things about them from this website.
after getting the pistons and inspecting them i can tell you this:the mahle piston is deff more of a lightweight piston than the je.the rings are super thin and placed higher up on the piston,closer to the heat of combustion.the machining and double coating is amasing looking, but the design of the piston does not impress me for drag racing.it looks like the piston would be better suited for light weight high h.p. circle track type engines,i.e. wiston cup ect., and not for any type of nitrous or exreme hp drag engines.for a non nitrous engine with light i beam rods and a flyweight crank, these pistons would be my first choice.they are tru works of art with ther phosporus coating and skirt coating, but they look to be a little thin for most drag racing aplications.
who (if any) is spraying there mahles with anthing more than 150-175 hp? i would trade my mahles for a set of je h.d. flat tops anyday.

 

Do you understand the stock LT1 pistons are Mahle hypereutectic and guys routinely spray 150-175 at them with stock ring gaps(same thin ring size)? Even heads and cam cars with amazing reliability.

I would not go throwing a 300 shot at them but at the same time feel you are selling them short.

 

the stock rings are .5 mm thicker.and, i blew my stock motor up with a 100 shot.thats why were having this converation.i know that some people get lucky and there stock hypers hold up to all types of abuse, but this dicusion is more for the comparison of the mahle flat top(power pack) and the heavy duty je flat top.

 

I will be building a motor shortly and I want to spray atleast 250 or more. So this may be interesting to subcribe to.

But I must agree with caprice I have sprayed 225 thru my cam only motor and it is still running. In fact I'm about to pull the motor out of my camaro and put it in the 91 3/4 ton. So if you lost some ring lands with a hundred shot I would say there is more to the story.

So who makes some good nitrous pistons?

 

I would not be using the Mahle Powerpack pistons in a heavy nitrous motor, you should be using a JE piston for that. The mahle's are great when used in the right motor.

 

Good observations, thanks for sharing them.

Rich

 

Sounds like you are in denial about a case of operator error.

 

you might very well be correct,or i might have learned a thing or two with the 5 cars i own with je pistons and the 15 or so motors ive built for them.with 125 k on my stock lt1, and a 100 dry shot i dont think anything i could have done differant would have saved that engine,except taking the bottle out and giving it to my girfriend to drive.

just to clarify! i have only broken/melted stock male cast hyper pistons and a few je pistons as well,and all of my observations are made by only looking at my new set of mahle power pack forged pistons and compairing them to the heavy duty flat tops by je that i put in everything else i own.

 

Mahle pistons are great to work with. The use snap rings instead of spiral locks, they are weight conscious, coated and 'perty'. They are designed for nominal N2O, extreme rpm and sustained rpm. JE pistons are thicker, including the ring lands, slightly heavier due to their strength. They are a better design for heavy N2O. If you are into sustained WOT, go Mahle. If you are into N2O drag racing, go JE or SRP, Diamond or Ross. We see a ton of Mahle Pistons due to we have a contract to rebuild ASA, IMCA and ARCA crate engines. All of the GM crate racing engines we do have Mahle. They don't come apart and are durable when introduced into a lean condition. Ford specs Probe or Mahle. Probes tend to be lesser quality.

P.S. We = Performance Concepts Inc. Marion, IA

Travis

 

awsome!, thanks alot travis.i did talk to a guy over in the n20 section that said he hits his mahles with a 200 shot quite often.i would concider that to be the max for these pistons, where my je's have survived an ocasional blast at 500hp, 350hp would be what i say the je's max is for normal use.at 350 and above, the block is the weekiest link,as you all know.ive cracked alot of decks between bores.

 

Well I can't say I've ever had a motor where the block was the weakest link, sounds like a goal to shoot for though. Though my next build should be with one of the new LSX blocks so that doesn't seem likely.

Just curious though, if your JE pistons were working out for you, why switch?

 

i read so many good thinks about them on here,so i decided to try them out.

 

I've been following this post as I'm building a new 355 with the Mahle powerpack pistons and I want to shoot no more than a 200 shot and I mentioned this post to my machineist and he indicated the pistons would be fine up to a 250 shot and that the problem is more with the rings being that they're so thin. But he suggested we swap out the top ring for a hellfire and the second for a total seal gapless, so that's the way I'm going to go.

 

I've got Mahle's in my 382, and I love em!

 

Do most guys realize that the ring gaps on the pistons have a lot to do with the ability to hold N2O or not? If you take a stock OEM ring gap and try and put more heat to it and it busts.... I wonder why? Gap the Mahles correcly and you shouldn't have a issue on normal street shots of N2O. 99% of failures are due to operator error not part error, but too many times EGO gets in the way so something else has to be at fault.

Bret