piston question

[tkkruzer]

is there any other pistons I could use for my 360 other than KB's? i'd like to stay away from forged if possible and get about 10.0 to 1 if possible..any info would be appreciated,, thanx Tom

[Plumcrazy]

Why not use the KB107's.   They're hypereutectic and will get you about 10 to 1 depending on what heads you use

[chargerbr549]

A possibilty that might work is a 327 Chevy piston, a while back we were trying to find a cheap way to lighten the bottom end of a 360 and get the compression ratio up and keep the engine with legal rules of a race class we were looking to run. I don't remember the specifics but the compression height was about right and of course it has the same bore and another advantage was the lighter wrist pin, and then you have bush the small end of a pressed pin factory rod down to the smaller pin to make it work, this looked good on paper but I don't know if this would work in the real world. Another possibility might be a 340 piston but I don't know the specifics on compression height off the top of my head. Just some ideas that might work,

Kevin

[tkkruzer]

I am concidering the KB107's , but I was wondering if there were any other options out there. I keep finding a set on ebay from some place called Falcon. the pistons they show have 4 valve reliefs and of course are much cheeper in price, but will they come as close to the deck as KB's will? who knows? well anyway I was just getting other opinions, by the way, the idea of using chevy pistons is cool, has anybody done this, and will it make the 360 able to be internally ballanced?   thanx TK

[Challenger340]

A possibilty that might work is a 327 Chevy piston, a while back we were trying to find a cheap way to lighten the bottom end of a 360 and get the compression ratio up and keep the engine with legal rules of a race class we were looking to run. I don't remember the specifics but the compression height was about right and of course it has the same bore and another advantage was the lighter wrist pin, and then you have bush the small end of a pressed pin factory rod down to the smaller pin to make it work, this looked good on paper but I don't know if this would work in the real world. Another possibility might be a 340 piston but I don't know the specifics on compression height off the top of my head. Just some ideas that might work,

Kevin

Been there, done that, about 25 yrs ago.
And had to re-cut the valve reliefs to accomodate. Then it blew up !
Never did bother trying to figure out why ? We musta done something wrong ?
If we'd have known then, what we know now, it might have worked out better, but WHY ?

We also, used to re-do 340 Pistons to "dangerously" thin in areas, to get a "forged" Piston in 360's. And recontour the skirts to clear the 360 cranks.

But again, NOWADAYS,

WHY ?

I just don't understand all the fearmongering that goes around the KB's ?

Every Piston Material has It's DO's & DON'T's !

Including Forged !

Nothing wrong with KB's, or the Federal Mogul equivalent speed pro part # H116CP, as Hyper, or Hypo-eutectics, as long as they are "fit" correctly, the ring endgaps are correct,  and they don't see excessive DETONATION.
Thats the "killer" for those material Pistons.
But otherwise they are a great, cost effective type, Hot-Rod street engine Piston.

Nitrous-NO, Blower-NO, Turbo-NO, because those applications invariably ALWAYS see detonation at some point.

But, for Naturally Aspirated, Pump Gas/Non-detonation applications, properly tuned Hot-Rod engines run virtually forever with No Problems.

If you're still worried, go buy a Forged Piston for a 360.

Just my opinion,
Bob out.

[chargerbr549]

Hey Challenger 340 I see that it does somehow work what we were dreaming up but with the 327 pistons but as you said the KB's should fit the bill alright. I does seem kind of interesting on the dislike of the  Hypereutectics KB's though, in the machine shop I work in 3 out of the 4 oldtimers that have worked there between 20 to over 35 years don't really like the KB's mainly because of the funky accumulater groove and of course the upper ring end gapping depending on what the application is, but they also said that if you follow what KB tells you do with their pistons they really haven't had any problems with them, I guess they have probably seem alot of applications where the piston got pushed beyond its limitations. I really don't have any problems with them as long as they are used like they're suppose to be, we just pulled apart a 440 of friend of mine had that he always run pretty hard with with stepped KB pistons and they still looked good.

Kevin

[471_Magnum]

Check out the KB forged pistons. THe KB741 or KB742 should give you what you're looking for at a reasonable price.