By the raised center, I am guesing that it is, but all of the links to pics of the 94-95 8.8:1 and the 95-97 9.0:1 are broken. The engine that I took these from was 70 production units later than the 95 VIN cutoff for the later pistons, but I wanted to be sure before I put everything back together and cc'ed the block and head.

Thanks in advance,

Joe

 

Im pretty sure thats the later one, from what i remember from reading all that stuff, someone else confirm? Oh yeah, just finish a fudgesickle?

 

Yep, those are 9.0:1. Here's mine, ceramic coated though:

 

If the middle section doesn't stick out its the 9.0:1

 

I would think that the stock 8.8:1 piston would have a center section that doesn't stick out. I have some stock 99 9.5:1 pistons here, that I took out of a stock 99 motor myself, and the center of those sticks out much further than these. The piston in the first pic definately has less compression than the 9.5:1 next to it in the pics below. The only missing piece here now is finding a good pic of the 94-95 8.8:1 piston.
Piston that I pulled from the 95 engine is on the left, 99 piston on the right:

 

I can't find them now, but I believe there used to a side-by-side picture of an early 1.8L piston vs. the later showing the dish vs. dome on SoloMiata.

 

Here's a pic of my old 94 1.8 block. The pistons are slightly domed.

The 1.8 block I have now from a 93 Protege the pistons are dished.