Originally Posted by BIG BAD BLACKSS

Males in the aftermarket LSX world seem to traditionally be a 4032, whereas the diamonds are 2618's. Two totally different meterials for two different applications. 4032 is a weaker material that tends to crack when pushed too far. 2618 is stronger and will tend to deform some rather then crack when they fail. The tradeoff is the 2618s last maybe half as long as a 4032. 2618 isnt for a motor your building to get many years of performance from. Its for a hardcore build thats gonna put down big power on a power adder. In that regard the diamonds far exceed the mahle pistons.

For a moderate n/a build the mahle is your piston. For a big HP nitrous or boost motor 2618 is the only way to go in my opinion.

Originally Posted by racer7088

Mahles like the powerpak designs are decent cheap pistons but are definitely weaker than the Diamond 2618 pistons on average. The pistons in an F1 engine have nothing in common with these Mahle "powerpack" deals you guys are talking about at all but they are semi decent pistons if you don't plan in using much NOS. The Mahles tend to on average have much thinner ringlands than the other players like Wiseco, Diamond etc.

The only problems we usually seem to see Mahle piston customers having is in the wire locks not fitting due to large burrs on them. If you take those burrs off you will have no problems but I've seen some Mahle destruction from pins coming out where people just tried to force those round wire locks in without deburring them and disaster struck. Again most were the home built variety which have those problems anyway but still we've had to deburr every set of Mahle wire locks we've gotten and I won't sell them to a home builder anymore.

Originally Posted by playtoy

Well you obviously did something right when you put my motor together. About 10,000 hard miles on her and the Mahle's are still holding strong.