Okay I am ready to buy an engine rebuild kit because I found a machinest but he wants me to have the pistons so he can make sure he bores the cylinders correctly.

Now, I am looking at summit. There are forged pistons, and then there are the OEM replacement type.

I am reusing stock crank having it turned, and cheap 299.95 eagle replacement rods. Should I even bother with forged pistons?

- Z28WannaB

 

no. forged are for blower or nitrous type applications. i wouldnt suggest having your stock crank turned though. a new one is only about 100 more than that and you know it's in good condition.

 

What are your goals for the motor?

 

The stock crank is a lot stronger than it gets credit for and so are the stock rods. The rods that came in your stock LT1 are stronger than the old "Pink" rods that everyone lusted after 20 years ago.

You might consider the following strategy:

Keep your stock crank & rods. Take the $300 you would have spent on the eagle rods and apply it to a Mahle piston kit. The kits seem more expensive than some others, but the kit comes with rings and pins, plus the pistons are coated from the factory, so they're an excellent value.

More importantly, Mahle pistons make power. Or rather, they save power. The way it has been explained to me is that the particular attention that they pay to the ring land area helps to seal the combustion chamber better, thereby preventing the loss of power that's already being made.

With those pistons on your stock rods and crank you'll not only save weight, which is always a good thing; you'll also be able to safely run a nice hit of nitrous on it if you wanted to. There are already people running 200 shots on stock LT1's. Now, I'm not suggesting you do that, but it goes a long way to demonstrating that if you're shooting 150-175 on top of forged pistons, you'll be safe.

Regardless of whether or not you want to run nitrous someday, the weight savings of forged pistons are justification enough.

So unless there is some reason you can't reuse your rods, you would probably be better served keeoing them and using the cost savings on better pistons.

 

Yeah, I am not rebuilding the motor thats in my current car. I am building a motor, and then Im going to drop out my old one and swap this one in. So I am buying everything, fuel rail, TB, ect. Only thing im not getting are some misc sensors.

I don't really intend on running nitrous I have this baby cam, I was going to drop in the but the more I think about it the more I think I want to go with a CC306 so I don't have to upgrade it later.

- Z28WannaB

 

After its all said and done I want mid low 12s without the bottle.

- Z28WannaB

 

A good hyper piston (OEM style) would be more than fine for what you want to do.