Hi everybody. This is my first 8 cylinder build so please bear with me... I have an LM7 junkyard engine which I want to do just as a hobby. I figured since I have it open, I'd like to change it to flat top pistons, do the cam (Probably high torque truck cam) and hand port the heads. I'd like to get compression up to at least 10.5 with the 607 heads. I see there is a huge choice on flat top pistons but I'd like to keep the costs low. can anyone recommend a good set of pistons with floating pins and that will come with rings? I will use my old rods.

 

Lots of choices out there. Pay attention to weight. If your on a tight budget and balancing the assembly isn’t in the cards, your gonna want to try and find a piston set that’s as close to your current Oem pistons as possible, meaning piston, pin and rings.
What are you budgeting for pistons if you don’t mind me asking? What are your goals with the engine ultimately?

 

I was thinking around $250.00. Do you think that is unrealistic? I thought it would be easy to find a set of old 4.8 pistons but it doesnt seem to be the case. My ultimate goal is to have the engine built for a bit more torque than HP as it will be going into a truck. My initial thought was to just freshen it up with a nioce hone, new rings and bearings but then I thought I'd do the cam too since it's fairly affordable. Then, I looked a bit and saw that people fit 4.8 pistons all the time and thought it would be a cheap and easy mod. I see there are some ebay stoff for like $200.00. it does however not come with any rings or anything and I was afraid that it would be difficult to get rings for it. Have you seen these? any issue with them?

 

You may want to check with WS6 Store. I saw that they have stock rebuild type pistons, but not sure if they have them for the 5.3L bore size. Their customer service is pretty awesome, so just call or email them and see what they can do for you.

 

oh they have, and I'm sure they can get if they don't. It seems a bit pricey though. I was hoping to just get stock 4.8 pistons and was more hoping to get an answer on where to buy this from. I guess I didn't clarify this properly so please accept my apologies for the confusion. I'm basically just looking for a supplier that can sell me stock 4.8 pistons.

 

check classifieds