Piston Coating ?

[kidturbo]

My birthday arrived a day early.

Mahle Cast 16.5 CR +020

After much research and procrastination I finally settled on the Mahle cast pistons over the forged Aries for my marine LLY application. Cast were still more $$ than the forged option [go figure], but waiting paid off since they will now casting about any configuration you want. Also noticed some nice structural improvements in there over stocks, along with no machining required is a big +++. Only thing left to do is have them thermal barrier coated.

So I have a local coating shop who has done great ceramic work on turbo and other parts for me, but has never done pistons. He can get the thermal barrier coating and feels confident about doing it. But what I am not clear about is the coverage area. Saw where some shops coat down to the top ring while others just do the top surface.

What's the best application practices here?

Is this coating job pretty straight forward or should I ship them off to someone who does this every day? :thinking2:

Thanks

-K

 

[jmaz268]

sure looks sexy......no help on the other q's though.

 

[SgtKilroy]

If it was me, I'd send it off to someone that knows what they're doing. It's hard to justify being someone's guinea pig on something that expensive/critical. JMO. Good luck with it.

 

[blk smoke lb7]

I wanted mine coated and the motor builder sent them off to a place in Texas,said its the only please that does it that he trust to do the job rite 328 + the ride i thought was pretty cheap and that was teflon the sides and ceramic the tops and it was 7day turn agound :thumb:

 

[kidturbo]

Thanks guys. After looking at some other comments on how the coatings perform under high temps, not positive it's the best choice either. She sees 1400+ sustained sometimes for a few minutes, so its kinda which is going to last longer piston or the coating...

Plus the bowl design is greatly improved over the stock LLY, or even machined lip stocks IMO.

-K

 

[S Phinney]

Mine are coated everywhere except the ring area. They are even coated under the pistons.