99-05 Pistons
 

I am rebuilding a 96 1.8 and am looking for used pistons that someone might have laying around from an upgrade to higher strenght pistons/rods.

I messed up one of the spring clips that hold in the #3 piston on my set of pistons. I figured if I am going to look for a usable, used set I might as well look for the slightly higher compression ratio 99-00 or 01-05 pistons.

Youre rebuilding an engine with used pistons...

:facepalm:

Yes rebuilding. If you are not asking 250+ HP from a block and everything looks good and is in spec as far as clearances you do not have to have new stuff. Replace the consumables like rings and bearings give it a fresh hone job and you are back in business.
You don't have to stick new pistons in unless you want bigger ones or the old ones are worn beyond spec.

Thats why I am trying to see if anyone has pistons that are still within spec that they took out when they upgraded to bigger/stronger pistons.

I find it very, very unlikely that your cylinders and pistons from a completely different motors will be within spec of each other. Reusing the pistons that came from that motor is one thing, but putting used pistons from a different motor is not something I would ever do.

Is your car n/a or f/i?

If its n/a I'd go with the newer year 10:1 compression pistons.
If its turbo I'd get replacement 9.1:1 pistons.

And I agree that as long as you're putting in good condition pistons there's no reason to buy BRAND new ones unless you're doing a full on build.

Why not?

Relax boss. A hone and some rings, and all is well.

If I can find a set that has the right measurements to be within spec to fit my cylinder bores with the right clearances there is no difference in fitment in installing a new (unworn) piston and a piston that is within spec as far as diameter, taper and out of roundness. I realize the pistons that have been zinging around in my block for the past 140k are probably the best fit. I'm not just looking for any old ass useless worn pistons to just throw in and hope they give me higher compression.

Do you have any experience as to why this cannot be done with a properly fitted used piston?
Unless you have some experiece or reason as to why this cannot be done or have a set of old pistons you want to sell me for cheap, please keep your comments to yourself. This is the WANTED TO BUY section. I am not asking for advice, just trying to get cheap parts.

I would not trust putting used pistons in my engine that were possibly beat on by someone else, If that's what you realy wish to do then more power to you and I hope all goes well but imho id cut corners on external things before I ever did so on parts that can cause a catastrophic failure. Better safe then sorry yah know?

I just don't like using pistons from different motors because no two motors will wear exactly the same way. The BP doesn't have the best rod ratio in the world and I would imagine that you would get some tapering pretty easily. Its not that its impossible or even unlikely, I just personally wouldn't want to risk it.

How much can a set of oem pistons cost.. even if the dealer is a thief im sure you can find a online oem parts store that will surly sell them at a decent price and they come with piece of mind.

If you look at the cost of getting new OEM pistons, I might as well go all the way and get forged pistons and if I do that I might as well get upgraded rods as well. That puts me way beyond just doing a rebuild on the 1.8 that I am swapping into my 91. For now I am building a dependible NA, with aspirations to one day to a sub 200hp turbo setup.

Honestly I dont know how sturdy the rods are on mazda's but ive seen stock motors with ONLY forged pistons make just over 400 whp and last.

Id put in some forged pistons and be done with it in your position if the rods are able to handle any power

The rods fail before the stock pistons do, I saw someone recently running some pretty serious boost with H-beams and stock pistons

new oem pistons and aftermarket rods ftw then! :D

Dude no offense, but you really need to stop giving advice like this out, its completely bullshit.
With these cars its exactly the opposite of what you said.

I know you made another post changing that, but c'mon: some noob will search threads and happen to come up on your post. Reads it out of context, fucks up, and its your fault.

Don't get mad. Just stop.
They cost over 450 at the local stealer. (around here)
They cost about 100 each online. Most places online (aside from dealerships) sell no-name brand shit. NOT OEM. Meaning it could be some POS replica chinese shit. I called around and asked around.

For that retarded price you might as well go forged. Then there's the issue of size: there are no forged pistons in stock size. So you have to bore. Blablabla and this shit adds up.


There is no legitimate reason to not be able to re-use used stock pistons.
Aside from the bullshit "I just wouldn't be comfortable with it" opinion.
If they are from a lower mileage unmolested car, look great and measure up to spec they're fine.

If you can prove me wrong I'll shut up.

I never told him his rods are not going to break.. i simply said that ive seen some motors that handled over 400 on stock ones.

I also CLEARLY stated multiple times that i dont know the power handling capabilities of stock rods in these engines, and once i did research them a bit i quickly reinforced the point that rods are needed in these engines, Im not here to give anyone any strict mazda related info.. im here to learn about them..

If it makes you feel better ill even put it in my goddamn sig ( I dont fully know mazda's yet )

Posting anecdotes about other motors in a thread like this is retarded, but I guess you already realized that.

Iv'e always wondered why people are such dicks on this forum. I am starting to see why.

If you just admitted that you do not know these engines, then please do us all a favour and shut the hell up. I did not ask for your opinion! I am looking for a set of good used pistons and thats why I posted in the WANTED TO BUY forum.

If I wanted your opinion I would have asked somewhere else in a forum that would actually discuss this crap.

Bottom line, if you don't know what your are talking about and do not have any applicable experience other than "you read somewhere" or "you think" or "you FEEL something", FEEL free to keep it to yourself.

Now if the moderators could please kill this thread so I can post a new one to request for some damn pistons without getting any opinions on the matter and waisting my time!!!!

:jerkit:

Im done wasting my time..We could sit here and go back n forth all night with you taking me out of context to make your point and get nowhere. If someone is lazy enough to half ass something so serious as the internals in there engine then do it up there playboy.

I guess I just believe the motto do it right the FIRST time a lil to strongly.

Just because a piston is used does not mean it is bad.
Too many people don't know jack about anything anymore and think you have to put new stuff in any time you change anything.
There is nothing lazy or half assed about it. If you don't need the powergoals justified by forged pistons/rods, why spend the money just so you can be a poser and run around with your forged engine only producing 200hp.
If you have a properly tuned engine with knock sensor you will be way better off than trying to over engineer an engine for potential shitty tuning that will kill it. 95% of engines that granade are not granading when running as intended, power loading very rarely destroys the engine, its detonation that can kill even the best damn engine you can throw money at.

I am a nuclear engineer by profession and have worked on helicopters for many years before that. I have access to all the equipment needed to measure and check pistons or any engine parts for that matter, including access to equipment to check for microcracking and other material damage.

I have done my homework and made an educated decision. So, dont tell me I am halfassing any thing or am lazy.

Oh by the way, I would love to know what your mechanical experience is. Not that it really matters because you will probably come back and tell me that your grand daddy was Henry Ford and you rebuil your first engine when you were five and you recieved the Nobel Prize for engine design. Seriously, think about what you say in the future. How old are you by the way? I think this should be shown with everyone's ID!

This is the kind of thing that is killing our country! Just because you have a damn opinion, doesn't mean we all have to hear about it, especially when it's none of your business.

Sounds like you know what you're doing; you've done it before; and have the tools/micrometers/etc to do it. So go for it. As you said, most people don't know what they're doing, which is why I would discourage them them from doing what you're doing.
I'm an engineering student, Ive built a few engines, and I know my way around a machine shop; but I don't have the experience you do, and because of this I personally would be uncomfortable doing what you're doing.
Tw34k is a good friend of mine, and I know he wasn't trying to be an asshole or anything. He's no idiot though, hes done some engine building himself, and does some work tuning. I learned a lot of what I know about tuning from him, and the whole reason he joined this forum is because I told him about all the great tech talk on here, which he wants to learn from and contribute to.

This whole things is just a bit of a misunderstanding, so lets just let it is slide on. No hard feelings.

Thats fine. Im sorry for getting IRATE!

My biggest point is simply that this is a WANT TO BUY section and all I wanted is to get some usable pistons. 23 posts later, I still want my pistons and have not goten any relavant posts or messages. Instead I have to deal with unneeded comments. And on top of that to be called lazy and accused of doing something half assed, those terms make it personal.

As you can tell by my low post count even though I have been a member for over three years, I read a ton of posts and only post if I have something usefull to add in order to help or educate someone. Too many people post just to say something or to run up an insane post count while not helping a single person.

Ok, I better stop.

Full_Tilt, are you a mechanical engineering student by any chance? Not that you have to be, but you might want to look into the SAE BAJA or Formula competitions. You can learn a buttload on those projects and it looks awesome on a resume. I was the Co-captain of our team during my senioir year (BAJA). I designed the suspension and did 90% of the construction work with the captain of the team. You learn alot from actually doing the stuff instead of just hearing about the concepts in class. The best part is you will get on the good side of the machine shop guys (if you have one on campus). I still get to go over to the shop and they let me use the machines. I just went over there a few weeks to turn down some used valves to make valve seat protectors for when I deshroud the valves on my head.

I am actually, Im still in my early years so I havent had a whole lot of classes specific to my major, but Im looking forward to doing so. Ill have to look into those programs, Ive heard of them and they sounds very, very interesting. I was actually supposed to be working crew for Scott Lagasea's Busch stock car, but he lost his ride.:facepalm:
Which sucks because that would have been some serious race car engineering experience for me.

Damn all you MechE kids, I should have never picked ChemE :(

OK so back to your original post. I have a set of three of four Supertech 9.5:1 pistons I pulled from my 1.8L motor due to detonation damage to the remaining piston. The other three appear to be undamaged. I probably could have reused them. The remaining three have wristpins too IIRC.

Let me know if you are interested. I'll sell them cheap since they are just taking up garage space. They have very low mileage on them. Presumably you could get just one piston and complete the set. You would also need rods and rings; I reused the rods since they were fine.

Sorry for going off topic and chatting in your wtb thread.

wow that's some off topic nutsacking.

I just sold some 01 pistons out of a spare motor that previously was turboed. they were in perfect condition. the rods.... not so much. all of them were slightly crooked.

Just curious Matt, and it is relevant to the thread, what does a set of used 01 pistons fetch these days?

from me? cheap as dirt. normally I'd say $100 shipped in the lower 48.

Dang it. I cannot find mine. They might have been tossed :vash: but I'll keep looking.

Roberts' Law of Clutter. The items that have been stored for months are not likely to be reused. Conversely, the items disposed of immediately will likely be needed soon after disposal.

y8s, you don't have access to any other 99-05 pistons by chance do you?

nope. try levnubhin

Not to bash or be off topic but make sure your new piston weighs the same as the old one or it will through the rotating assembly out of balance. I only mention this because I didnt see anyone else do so and I wish you the best on your rebuild!

Not to bash or be off topic but make sure your new piston weighs the same as the old one or it will through the rotating assembly out of balance. I only mention this because I didnt see anyone else do so and I wish you the best on your rebuild!

If I get a set of pistons I will be checking their weights and balancing them the best that I can. I have already balanced the set I have now and am considering just putting them in unless I find a used set soon.

I have a set here that I'd give you for $100+ship if that sounds reasonable. I just opened the engine up today. Had ~85K miles and made 130HP on the dyno. I'm in South Carolina.

joliveira at sc.rr.com

Edit: WTF. Scratch that. $100 delivered. Where in Lexington are you? I'm right across from Lexington 1 High School. :)

OK I found the pistons after all. All but one look fantastic. Supertech 9.5:1