piston choices

Unknown

Looking into purchasing an engine rebuild kit for the 37T motor.Anybody know the differences between the pistons manufactured by Egge machine and the ones Dale Cooper sells in his kits?

Uncle Josh

Just don't use Egge's square cross section wrist pin keepers. They've been coming out and ruining blocks.

Browniepetersen

I am kinda a "custom" guy when it comes to rebuilding an engine. I have never understood why you would machine a block .020 over when .010 or .012 will clean and true up the surfaces. I am not sure that I have ever built an engine where I did not cut the piston to the size of the port. Also, with the Hudson pistons, I have never built a Hudson engine where I drilled a hole in the piston/rings and pinned it the way it came from the factory. My choice is slotted rings. In short, when I am buying a "kit" it has to be so I can cut to fit kit. I have always used the EGGE products. They work well for me..... By the way, can you buy six pistons from Dale Cooper and have them be within +.005 -.000 weight of each other?

russmaas

You mean you hone the bore to the size of the piston right? Not cut the pistion to the size of the bore

Browniepetersen

As you might know Russ, I am not normal? My objective is to take out as little material in the block as I can so if the engine needs a second rebuild years later then there is plenty of material left to do it. I like to machine my pistons to achieve as close to perfect balance between the pistons and to get a perfect fit with the block as I can. My goal is to balance all the engine parts before the engine is assembled--then there is very little correction on balance needed before I button up the engine work. I contend that close tolerence machining is the most critical part of building an engine. The better you do this process the better the engine is. If you have ever read The Decon's Masterpiece--The Wonderful One Horse Shey. then you get an idea of where I am trying to with this.

Unknown

I think it is a basic matter of time and economics, why you would bore an engine .020 over in leiu of only .012. When pistons are made, the end thought is to make common steps in the manufacture process. While there might be a few people that think that boring a cylinder only what is necessary, that's great for preservation, but really wrong for balance and equalization of a motor, unless you are boring all cylinders the same .012. I got to imagine that you want to bore all to the same, to achieve balance, same displacement across the cylinders. And I would further think that with the time involved, that boring each cylinder different, or custom fitting pistons to cylinders, really is far more involved than the process of a rebuild should be. I hope I am not misunderstanding, but I can't believe that you wouldn't want to take advantage of utilizing a standard oversize piston, and likewise, bore all the cylinders in an engine to match.

Browniepetersen

You are right Kid, I did not choose my words well. I make sure all the six bores are the exact same size. I try to do it in .005 steps so that all six are the same. The decision on how far to go (ie .005, .010 or whatever is based on the port needing the most work to clean it up. Sorry that it sounds like I am talking with crackers in my type....

Geoff

Getting back Simon's original request, I have worked on engines with Egge pistons, and I don't recommend them. They are heavier, and the grooves are deeper. Go with Dale Cooper's pistons. Or better still, if you can get a set of original Hudson-built. I have a set of .040's, but these maybe more than you want to go.

brumac

Simon,
Take the good advice to stay away from Egge pistons. I installed a set and in less than 200 miles 3 wrist pin locks had come out and destroyed 2 cylinder walls! The block is now being sleeved and I will end up much more oversize than I wanted to be. To my knowledge, no one has mentioned any trouble with Dale's pistons.

Bruce

Unknown

Thanks to Uncle josh,Bruce, and Geoff for answering my question.Will go with Dales kit.Are non pinned rings the way to go?

Browniepetersen

Each time that I get into this discussion I loose. One would think that I would have learned by now? So, I will stay out of this subject from now on. By the way, the last 308 that I built was for my Salt Flats Racer. I built it as a driver and in 5 years put close to 3,000 miles on her. Not a single problem or break-down. Twice I put her on the Bonneville Salt Flats and turned as my average of two runs (as required by SFRA) an average speed was 122.683 with a top run speed of 128.661..

I currently have three collectable cars that are running EGGE parts... I am a happy camper.....

Lee ODell

Brownie, it doesn't sound like you lost anything to me. Those are impressive speeds.

Lee O'Dell

Unknown

Thanks Brownie and Lee for allowing me in on your discussion,very interesting,maybe a seperate post would enlighten me further;)

Unknown

Hudsondad used egge in the 80's on the 52 wasp, and it runs great. At the time, that was about the only place to go... I think dale is who I would go with. Besides, if you got the equipment to measure weight of pistons, you can definitely take weight out of each, to make them the same weight. I'll give brownie props, if he's running bonneville, that's good enough for me. Fwiw, dale Cooper is awesome to deal with, if we support him, keeps the parts flowing!

Browniepetersen

Browniepetersen wrote:

Each time that I get into this discussion I loose. One would think that I would have learned by now? So, I will stay out of this subject from now on. By the way, the last 308 that I built was for my Salt Flats Racer. I built it as a driver and in 5 years put close to 3,000 miles on her. Not a single problem or break-down. Twice I put her on the Bonneville Salt Flats and turned as my average of two runs (as required by SFRA) an average speed was 122.683 with a top run speed of 128.661..

I currently have three collectable cars that are running EGGE parts... I am a happy camper.....

Sorry, got an edit-- the 3,000 should have been 30,000 in 5 years. I traded in the Salt Flats Racer (my avitar) last year on the English Hudson. Life moves on.....

brumac

Brownie,
I used Egge pistons in 1980 for my 50 Commodore, drove it to the 82 national in CA and back to western NY. It is still running great today. I used Egge this time for my 308 and it was a disaster. Egge has generously sent me new pistons at their expense so I am not faulting their policies and they are nice people to deal with. I believe the wrist pin lock grooves should be either round or square to match the cross section of the lock ring, not triangular, as these are. Oh yes, deeper too.
A lot of times my foot somehow winds up in my mouth!!!! Someday I will figure out what causes that. he he he

Bruce