Since people like to talk about budget piston options.
Theres another brand of piston that can be bought off ebay.
iMd - Europeans probably know of em, love or hate em. But this American is glad he found em.
iMd claims to be hypereutectic (silicon alloy) race pistons. Stock bore 58.5mm with rings, pins, and clips - delivered for under $200.
They are a forged piston. No billet, but decent machining quality. The rings are a good set of coated and hardened 5 piece. I gapped them using total seals factor chart.
Weight wise, the pistons were close, but not quite the same weights as each other. The pins a little more so. I did a little trimming to get them matched up.
iMd claims a piston-wall clearance of .0015"
Which was great because these pistons had little chance of fitting without some aggressive honing. With a 4 bar indexable hone - I was able to get a decent shaped bore with around .003 clearance for my application.
Now the fun part - deck clearance.
Bolted the block down and ran the pistons up to tdc without a base gasket - and the pistons stand around .005" proud of my deck. Granted I had block sanded some high spots down - this would leave a deck clearance of .015" with a gasket underneath.
Personally, I was hoping for more clearance (see turbo).
But, for anyone refreshing a motor with a frugal budget - these iMd's are a good value.
