LS2 Turbo Pistons
You are very perceptive!

Wiseco has had a lot of success the last few years in the all out racing arena and along with Mahle are the only two companies even doing their own forgings. These two powerhouses can remake an entire piston all the way down to the forging to minimize weight and maximize strength. I know Wiseco has some interesting stuff coming our way soon to the american piston market!
But yes, I'm from Wiseco. email me at bnutter@wiseco.com when you need pistons
You'd like me.60 hours averaging 800 hp at .5 bsfc= 4000 gallons of expensive fuel. That's of interest, I'd love to see the data.
My real purpose here is to keep a guy out of trouble though...I'm a C4 Vette owner. I beat the daylights out of it. On top of that, some ***hole is driving around in my stolen '67 RS street/drag/roadracer as we banter. I'm a normal guy that can't afford to make mistakes.
Yep..I sell a lot of 4032 alloy pistons. I'll even give a guy a .235 top land 4032 LS1 Turbo piston if he really wants it, but it wasn't my idea and I'll tell him as much before I let him order it. I'd regard 4032 to be the same "quality" as 2618 for specific applications (Nhra Pro stocker's like it, 2 of the 4 fastest guys this last weekend we're running our 4032 pistons), but I'd never recommend it for what is going on here. There's no reason to.
Not to bash one specific manufacturer here, but what works for a MG or Porsche Scca racer doesn't apply to a drag racer or circle track guy. Believe me, the reason for that particular piston to be made from 4032 is not for any scientific reason I can think of.
As for my personal experience, I've seen so many examples of 4032 (every manufacturer) breaking and shattering into tiny pieces (total engine rebuild) that I will say again that I'd never recommend 4032 for a boosted application. There just isn't a good reason to. 2618 will ALWAYS put up a better fight and it lasts a long time if designed right.
As dyno experience, We've got 2 dyno's that do nothing but piston testing all day. (I won't get into my own personal experience).. There isn't an engine made that makes as much power after 24 hours as it does in the first few minutes. Pistons loose 25% of the heat-treat relatively quickly. The only way to recover power is to re-cut the ring grooves and install new rings...then make BETTER power than originally....a little known secret.
The one big issue here is most people(with their own budgets) don't often get a 2nd chance to make the right decision.
Last edited by briannutter; Mar 3, 2006 at 09:10 PM.
All engines do lose power as they get older, but we have found with the right components they can lose less. Pistons are a key point to keeping the power up, and its ring land related in our testing.
My engine testing was done closer to a .6 bsfc on the WOT sections. I have piles of data, some of it on your pistons.
You did not mention what causes the failures in Wiseco 4032 when you tested it?
Kurt
Data's good...I love looking at it...especially on our parts. Better yet, if you could send me run Wiseco pistons back when your through, we'll analyze them and see where improvements can be made. Just email me at bnutter@wiseco.com for a RMA number.
As for 4032 failures, we don't make LS1 pistons, Big block pistons, or our sport compact pistons from it, but we do use it in our XLS series (extra light) circle track parts. That 3% weight reduction is important there. Those parts are .150 deck to begin with and we raise the top groove as much as possible (.175 land). We rate them at sub 500hp and 1 season, but you always get the guys making 550 for 3 seasons, so we'd get to see points of failure there. Usually at any milled intersection (right between vp's usually) is where a crack would start. They guys always knew when to replace them because it would pressurize the crankcase and they'd just drop in the next oversize. We made a .180 deck version for sub 650hp as well and even some custom ones out of 2618 for the guys that wanted to run a long time..
We get the 2 stage (600hp) nitrous guys lifting lands on 2618. (Damn good market to sell pistons for
. Some of our older stocking small block pistons are made of 4032. If a guy runs 300+ nitrous and detonates, a 1" wide section of the top land (by the intake pocket) can snap off. It's pretty rare for us to break the 2nd land off (It luckly just continues to ride there without damaging the bore) because we make the 2nd lands pretty thick...Sometimes even at the expense of hitting the normal .300 top land target.Talk to you soon!--Brian
The comment on running the piston to stress relieve it, then re-cutting the grooves certainly makes a lot of sense. We always prefer a used (naturally stress relieved) aluminum blocks to a new "Green" block. The movement can be considerable, but once it's ran and re-machined it becomes far more stable. How long of a period do you recommend running the pistons? Do you "break them in" using 1mm top and second, 2.8mm oil and then widen them? Is this a service that you offer ? Do you also consider re-grinding the skirts ?
Both Wiseco and W2W are very reputable and this is my .02 cents. I don't mean to hijack the thread, but I am interested in "stress relieving the pistons" for the NA guys pushing the records.
It's actually the recutting of the top ring groove that gets the power back. You won't even find to many NHRA prostockers that are willing to do it because it's a pain in the butt. We initially use a cutter that's built for one of the "ground" rings that's available (the ones that are REALLY flat and have a nice finish). When the pistons come back, we use a "slightly" thicker cutter and ring. This ensures that there is "fresh" material when we re-machine. -Brian
I guess you are missing the point of this post. The original post was asking if the Mahle piston made of 4032 could run in a boosted gen3 engine safely. My reply was that it could, and has in many of our engines. My truck has less miles than your Subaru but they are all on 4032 Mahle pistons with boost, except for the first 27 miles getting it here for the engine/boost change.
I have not tested your 4032 Wiseco pistons in a gen3 with or without a power adder, I will accept your testing and conclusion that they will only hold 500hp.
Kurt
Data's good...I love looking at it...especially on our parts. Better yet, if you could send me run Wiseco pistons back when your through, we'll analyze them and see where improvements can be made. Just email me at bnutter@wiseco.com for a RMA number.
As for 4032 failures, we don't make LS1 pistons, Big block pistons, or our sport compact pistons from it, but we do use it in our XLS series (extra light) circle track parts. That 3% weight reduction is important there. Those parts are .150 deck to begin with and we raise the top groove as much as possible (.175 land). We rate them at sub 500hp and 1 season, but you always get the guys making 550 for 3 seasons, so we'd get to see points of failure there. Usually at any milled intersection (right between vp's usually) is where a crack would start. They guys always knew when to replace them because it would pressurize the crankcase and they'd just drop in the next oversize. We made a .180 deck version for sub 650hp as well and even some custom ones out of 2618 for the guys that wanted to run a long time..
We get the 2 stage (600hp) nitrous guys lifting lands on 2618. (Damn good market to sell pistons for
. Some of our older stocking small block pistons are made of 4032. If a guy runs 300+ nitrous and detonates, a 1" wide section of the top land (by the intake pocket) can snap off. It's pretty rare for us to break the 2nd land off (It luckly just continues to ride there without damaging the bore) because we make the 2nd lands pretty thick...Sometimes even at the expense of hitting the normal .300 top land target.Talk to you soon!--Brian
The Best V8 Stories One Small Block at Time
I guess you are missing the point of this post. The original post was asking if the Mahle piston made of 4032 could run in a boosted gen3 engine safely. My reply was that it could, and has in many of our engines. My truck has less miles than your Subaru but they are all on 4032 Mahle pistons with boost, except for the first 27 miles getting it here for the engine/boost change.
I have not tested your 4032 Wiseco pistons in a gen3 with or without a power adder, I will accept your testing and conclusion that they will only hold 500hp.
Kurt
I don't think you are being fair as those pistons will hold even 550 hp! HAHAHAHAHAHA!
I will take your word that your pistons are working for you Kurt but you have to admit you are a good tuner!
Now you have to say you're a crazy tuner to prove me wrong!
It's common knowledge that i'm a crazy driver, but I don't tune enough for anybody to figure out if I am a crazy tuner.
I do like testing things, and rarely accept things that are not obvious without some testing.
Kurt
I don't think you are being fair as those pistons will hold even 550 hp! HAHAHAHAHAHA!
I will take your word that your pistons are working for you Kurt but you have to admit you are a good tuner!
Now you have to say you're a crazy tuner to prove me wrong!


Sorry to confuse you on the 500hp recommendation, that only applies to the XLS circle track series. If I build a LS1 piston out of 4032, it will last as long as anyone elses 4032 if not longer. I'm still interested in looking at any data you've got on our parts though.
Wet 1: By all means, just email me at bnutter@wiseco.com and I'll be happy to help. My phone number is 800 321 1364 ext 3177, but honestly, I'll be able to get back to you quicker via email. -Brian
Just a little background on myself so you know where there info is coming from. I work at Livernois Motorsports, I deal for the most part with the development/engine build of Modular 4.6 based engines but I also dabble in the LSx stuff as well.
I have quite a bit of experience in dealing with Mahle pistons as we use there stuff in a lot of the engines we do. I did a decent amount testing there stuff before we decided to use it. From my experience with the 4032 alloy stuff it will basically work real well up to about 20 lbs of boost(after this point of boost the combinations are usually pretty serious and I prefer a custom piston anyways 4032 or 2618 depending on the application). Granted this info is based on Modular engines but I think some of it carries over into this discussion. I usually tell customers or people that we build engines for that these pistons will work great for the majority of the applications out there. If they want to run more than 20 lbs of boost I always suggest a custom piston as I think something on that level is more of a custom application anyways and the parts should be tailored to it. I have used both Wiseco and Mahle and find they both make really trick nice stuff.
In terms on the differences in material strength I have found from doing dyno testing, as well as some teardown stuff that was run on the street the 4032 seems to hold its shape dimensional better over long periods of run time compared to 2618. There are positives and negatives to this though. Some of this testing I am basing opinion on was on was a test of two almost exact engines with 9-1 compression 4 valve motors that ran Kenne Belle superchargers. The test were run at 15 lbs of boost with a pretty conservative tune up. After over 150 pulls on both engines they were dissasembled and checked. As briannutter said before no matter how flat you make the ringland it always changes after being heat cycled. This was true in this case as well. Both setups were checked for ring tolerances before they were run and then checked after. The 4032 setup changed about half of what the 2618 setup did. Granted there are other factors to play here but I felt the test was pretty exact from engine to engine. Also the dimensional ring changes were not enough to really effect anything other than a slightly worse leakdown and blow by on the 2618 setup but nothing to really be concerned over. The actual original intent of the test was to see how well the 4032 alloy held up. This data was just what was left over.
I have worked pretty close with Mahle in terms of development on some of this modular stuff and we have definitly pushed stuff to the limit. We have put 25 lbs of boost as well as made over 800RWHP on this same 4032 material so I am confident it will work. Granted these are with us tuning the stuff and playing it safe but I know of quite a few customers and others that have put big numbers up with the same piston.
Don't get me wrong though I really like both Wiseco and Mahle we use both a lot here, I do not believe I have ever talked to you Brian but I have worked with Sue on a couple of projects. I also have met and spoke to Kurt a couple of times and I know as everybody else here probably does is that he knows his stuff.
Mike
Modular/LSx Engine Development
Livernois Motorsports
Kurt
Are your Mahle pistons .146" thick in the center?
My guess is if you had them made, you might have beefed up this area a bit.
thanks
Jeff
Very interesting read, with tons of FACTUAL info. I learned quite a bit by reading all this.

Rob


