Since I am in the process of rebuilding my motor after the oil pump gear failure, I thought I'd let you know what my K-B HT pistons looked like. HT pistons kind of have a reputation for top land failure.

I saved 5 out of the old motor. #4 had seized in the bore and scuffed the sides of the skirt badly enough that it could not be saved. The rest of them looked fine. No signs of any pitting or damage. Blaine and Mike inspected them and sent them back on a fresh set of 198 rods. Blaine has also devised a new system for polishing the sides of the beams and they look great!

I had my top gap set at .022-.025" and piston to wall was right at .004".

Before it's demise, my motor had in the neighborhood of 800 dragstrip passes, 40,000 street miles (most with 3.91 gears)and one top-end run, so it did not have an easy life.

The one thing that we did change was the wrist pin installation. On my old motor we had floated the pins steel-on-steel because we did not know for sure where the deck height would end up. The small ends of the rods were beaten out. Since we know where the deck height is now, we pressed them this time.

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Official Cookie and Mater Tormentor.

i've no experience with h-t pistons and just bought my first set for my 318. my machinist warned me that top ring gap was very important to keep the piston in one piece. he mentioned a bad rap the kb pistons were getting because of this. i guess the guys with troubles never read the sheet of paper that reads: SPECIAL NOTICE ON TOP RING END GAP!
very nice pistons, though. nicely finished and very light compared to the originals that came out of the motor. an extra bonus is they are all the same size, unlike the three .020 o/s that the factory threw in for good measure!

-james[/b]

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