Thread: Piston Coatings 101

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Has anybody on this board used piston coatings? Im not talkin about the ones that you send off to NASA or some science fiction store to have applied, Im talkin about the ones one can apply at home as a do it yourself thing, just curious because my street motor is apart right now while I give it a freshening up and I can blast the piston tops clean quite easily

no i all ways polish the tops and the head chambers . it would not hurt but you have to get them clean clean and heat them up . honey what are you cooking in the oven??

LOL, about the sweet scent of chevy baked goods, Got so bad once when I was messing around that my lass went out and bought me a yard sale amana! Now I can play suzie home maker in my garage!, I had read about VHT header paint on piston tops and a heat barrier but have not tried it.

boy that stuff is not that hot on headers? you can rub it off with you hands .

LOL i hear ya, jus one of those old hot rod magazine articles that I read but did not dare to try, Pat check your pm box regarding a PAT KIT tm

yes i did . keep that under your hat . i can not all ready keep up with the demand of the kits

I wanna piston coatings that are colorfast, g,nite all gotta play lotto!

Currently, nearly all of the OEM pistons use moly coated skirts. It is an effective method of reducing cylinder wall wear. Other coatings, like crown coatings, have little benefit. I wonder when they'll fit anti-polishing rings like the big diesel guys do?

granted that there is power to be gained with proper bore finish and clearances but the moly coating of the skirts is part of the manufacturing process I suppose. Unless they are making a DIY product but I have never heard of it. Is there a spray on Moly coating for piston skirts?

No, there is no DIY moly coat. I was referring to pistons that come with moly coated skirts like those available from Speed Pro. Crown coatings have little benefit. The skirt coatings are not for power, they are for cylinder wall wear.

Originally Posted by 76GMC1500

No, there is no DIY moly coat. I was referring to pistons that come with moly coated skirts like those available from Speed Pro. Crown coatings have little benefit. The skirt coatings are not for power, they are for cylinder wall wear.

yes and it fall s off in the jet wash geat stuff

jeg,s use to sell all alot of coatings sometime ago to do at home i have my eye on a stove for the shop . just to do some jiffy pop coatings may be try some stuff out and maybe it could be a new way to make a buck?

Just think of what those pieces of hard ceramic will do to your cylinder when they start to flake off the crown.

When I want to know what is worth my money and what is not, I look to the guys that do the big diesels like Wartsila. With the amount of fuel those engines burn, a percent here or there can equal a million dollars a year or more. Also with the cost of the engine, tens of millions of dollars, a couple of grand here or there to coat a piston or something would add insignificantly to the cost. Even so, none of them coat their piston crowns (they are polished, though). They don't use skirt coatings, though, because the pistons on the really big engines have no skirts.

Is this coating on the crown or the skirt? In all reality, piston skirts do not wear significantly within the lifetime of an engine. A hard coating on the skirt would serve no benefit, it's just a gimmick.

There is another coating that is very beneficial, Nikasil. Normally, a cylinder wall and rings both last about the same amount of time. My motorcycle has Nikasil plated cylinders. The cylinder lasts through many sets of rings. Plus, it is very resistant to damage. If the engine seizes, which mine has, you just scrape the piston remains off the cylinder and everything is good as new.

A ceramic coating will significantly extend the life of a piston in case of detonation. Not a cure, but it will help, and might make the difference between a WHOOPS and an OH $HIT !