2L CIH pistons - Chevy V8 pistons

[Snowy]

Has anyone noticed how similar some of the Chevy V8 pistons are to the 2L CIH items?

Anyone actually tried them to see if they are suitable?

[GTEPETE]

Hi Snowy, I have a 5.7 Chevy V8 in my Viva. HB. The 5.7 pistons are 4 inch in diameter about 100mm...I know Manta blocks can be bored to 97mm for 2.7 conversions, not sure if you can go to 100mm...maybe a piston from a 5 or 5.3 V8 may be an option......the other consideration is the pin to piston head measurement...and of course the rods..

[paulmanta]

Nick Webb is in the middle of sourcing pistons and rings for cih, might be worth dropping him a line or pm. Calcol on here. 

[Snowy]

2 hours ago, paulmanta said:

Nick Webb is in the middle of sourcing pistons and rings for cih, might be worth dropping him a line or pm. Calcol on here. 

I think I've found some from a small block Chevy V8. Just waiting for a few details.

A set of forged high comp pistons isonly £540 for eight. So two CIH engines worth.

Thanks

[paulmanta]

Mind out for valve cutouts and crown profiles, if the dish and cut outs are not just right you could create an ultra high compression engine with no room for the valves to operate as designed. 

[GTEPETE]

\Found some info here...

 

There are many possible ways of machining the stock 1.9 liter Opel engine for more power. Many discussions mention upgrading the airflow capacity of the cylinder head with installation of non-Opel parts like Chevy Valves (big valve 1.72" or 1.84" intakes coupled with 1.50" exhausts from V8 engines). This is often combined with installing Chevy pistons (from the 265 or 305 engines), and others advocate stroking the engine by modifying the Opel crankshaft to achieve a 2.4 liter displacement. The lure is lower entry costs, but the obstacle is locating experienced professionals, who understand some of the more theoretical aspects of machining parts that were never intended for use together, to assure proper clearances and heatexpansion tolerances (that were never specified in any Opel service manual). Quality engine machinists who will work on an Opel are a rare breed (and their services are usually priced accordingly).

 

 

http://www.opelclub.com/EngineArticleSample.pdf

[Snowy]

2 minutes ago, GTEPETE said:

\Found some info here...

 

 

http://www.opelclub.com/EngineArticleSample.pdf

Can't see anything to do with Chevy pistons, thanks 

[GTEPETE]

And here

 

http://clubs.hemmings.com/oana/tech/24l.pdf

[Snowy]

8 hours ago, GTEPETE said:

Hi Snowy, I have a 5.7 Chevy V8 in my Viva. HB. The 5.7 pistons are 4 inch in diameter about 100mm...I know Manta blocks can be bored to 97mm for 2.7 conversions, not sure if you can go to 100mm...maybe a piston from a 5 or 5.3 V8 may be an option......the other consideration is the pin to piston head measurement...and of course the rods..

I've found a small block chevy with 95mm standard bore, they do oversize pistons up 96.5mm

 

I think I have a cheaper solution to the wossener pistons. 

 

Thanks 

[Nivlek2525]

I'd me interested to know what you've found, how much and from where thanks.

[Jessopia74]

Very well documented for 305 pistons. Great options and cheap from Summit. You can even get sone custom pistons from Summit. Forged are way over kill for a NA CIH with 8v head. Go with hypereutectic 

[Snowy]

19 minutes ago, Jessopia74 said:

Very well documented for 305 pistons. Great options and cheap from Summit. You can even get sone custom pistons from Summit. Forged are way over kill for a NA CIH with 8v head. Go with hypereutectic 

So since forged are way over kill you're going to share your sorce of standard oversized pistons for the 2L CIH  engine then?

I don't want forged there is just isn't anything else available off the shelf. Also raising the compression ratio isn't such a bad idea anyway.

[Jessopia74]

23 hours ago, Snowy said:

So since forged are way over kill you're going to share your sorce of standard oversized pistons for the 2L CIH  engine then?

I don't want forged there is just isn't anything else available off the shelf. Also raising the compression ratio isn't such a bad idea anyway.

I was talking for the same about 305 pistons. You don't need forged or slum it with cast - you can go middle ground and pick a hypereutectic 305 piston. Better than cast, cheaper than forged. I have some listen in one of my threads about the engine options, but tons more wrote down at home ( back away with work until end of month). Iirc there was a cracking option that mean slightly opening up little ends, and sadly you had to buy a set for the V8 so 4pcs too many.  But  Summit Racing can get custom ones made to give whatever CR you want tbh. Just rem std Dizi does not deal with high CR advance curve requirements

have a read of this http://clubs.hemmings.com/oana/tech/24l.pdf

Edited July 18, 2021 by Jessopia74

[rutts]

Lambchop77 can give you a bit of information on this. Think he has done it in his 2.3 cih🤔

[lamchop77]

Snowy, been through all this years ago. I was struggling to find 2.2 pistons for the class 3 grasser engine I was running. At the time 2.2 pistons were 127.50 each. Looked at all the modification stuff with the Chevy pistons, valves etc,  yeah some of the stuff looks and is cheap but then if you’re buying from summit basically take the price in dollars as if it was pounds and add a bit of shipping and you’ll not be far off the cost. Most of the pistons had circlip gudgeon pins and were different sizes so they needed opening out skimming to fit the piston and also needed a phosphor bronze ( I think ) bush manufacturing/inserting for each rod. Then the pistons will need modding for valve cutouts, maybe skimming to make sure the top of the piston doesn’t protrude too far from the top of the block. Basically it’s a minefield you’re walking into!!! On top of this you have to find someone to do the work as well……not many of those boys around, ann in d because everything is modded you’ll have no guarantees with it either.

The easy way out of this is just to buy a set of forged pistons and a set of rods. I’m sure that cop pistons do some as well as the wossner ones, and I’m sure wiseco had some listed as well. Sure it’s a bit pricey but it’s quality stuff you’re buying and the bottom end will be pretty bulletproof. All the weights are within a gram so it will be more balanced. Goin the  modded route you’ll need to redo all the pistons and rods weight matching them.

My setup was done because I couldn’t get the pistons anywhere and the cost of getting custom ones done was equivalent to buying six std ones……that was a no brainer!! I was using longer rods to change the rod ratio to help the engine rev harder as well so that was another reason for custom ones, but now you can get a long rod set of 2 litre pistons from wossner…..the 2.2 pistons are rare and and not really used so that added to my problems, everything was either 2.0 or 2.4. I’m going back 10/11 years now and the cost then was £785 for pistons/rings/pins and an MLS head gasket.

Just so you know why the yanks do the mods apart from the cost of bits, one thing they were doing was taking 1.9 cranks having them welded, straightened after welding, reground offset for 85mm stroke and re heat treated( I think) for about 400 dollars. That’s why they can do what they were doing. Where the hell would you find someone to do that over here!!!! They just have better shops and are more set up for doing that kind of stuff

Save the pennies, buy the pistons, avoid the hassle!!! 👍

Hth

Chris

[Snowy]

4 hours ago, lamchop77 said:

Snowy, been through all this years ago. I was struggling to find 2.2 pistons for the class 3 grasser engine I was running. At the time 2.2 pistons were 127.50 each. Looked at all the modification stuff with the Chevy pistons, valves etc,  yeah some of the stuff looks and is cheap but then if you’re buying from summit basically take the price in dollars as if it was pounds and add a bit of shipping and you’ll not be far off the cost. Most of the pistons had circlip gudgeon pins and were different sizes so they needed opening out skimming to fit the piston and also needed a phosphor bronze ( I think ) bush manufacturing/inserting for each rod. Then the pistons will need modding for valve cutouts, maybe skimming to make sure the top of the piston doesn’t protrude too far from the top of the block. Basically it’s a minefield you’re walking into!!! On top of this you have to find someone to do the work as well……not many of those boys around, ann in d because everything is modded you’ll have no guarantees with it either.

The easy way out of this is just to buy a set of forged pistons and a set of rods. I’m sure that cop pistons do some as well as the wossner ones, and I’m sure wiseco had some listed as well. Sure it’s a bit pricey but it’s quality stuff you’re buying and the bottom end will be pretty bulletproof. All the weights are within a gram so it will be more balanced. Goin the  modded route you’ll need to redo all the pistons and rods weight matching them.

My setup was done because I couldn’t get the pistons anywhere and the cost of getting custom ones done was equivalent to buying six std ones……that was a no brainer!! I was using longer rods to change the rod ratio to help the engine rev harder as well so that was another reason for custom ones, but now you can get a long rod set of 2 litre pistons from wossner…..the 2.2 pistons are rare and and not really used so that added to my problems, everything was either 2.0 or 2.4. I’m going back 10/11 years now and the cost then was £785 for pistons/rings/pins and an MLS head gasket.

Just so you know why the yanks do the mods apart from the cost of bits, one thing they were doing was taking 1.9 cranks having them welded, straightened after welding, reground offset for 85mm stroke and re heat treated( I think) for about 400 dollars. That’s why they can do what they were doing. Where the hell would you find someone to do that over here!!!! They just have better shops and are more set up for doing that kind of stuff

Save the pennies, buy the pistons, avoid the hassle!!! 👍

Hth

Chris

Thanks for the info. I'd pretty much come to the same conclusion so I'm having my block lined and using the standard pistons.

A bit of research has shown me that although the forged pistons available are of a good quality their design isn't so great.

But again thanks for the info.

[lamchop77]

No probs mate, anytime. The Wossner piston design seems to be ok apart from the fact that the compression dome is actually the 2.0 combustion profile on the 2.4 piston so a bit of modification is needed to the head. The custom ones I had done were done through a guy that does alot of work on high power yank motors. The CIH has the same wedge design as the the Chevys. I had a lot of pics/info off the web/contacts that had large domes to get the comp ratio up which he said wouldn’t work (one of them was produced by Omega!!), there’s only so far you can go before it starts affecting flame propagation across the piston crown. Some of the designs had a recess across the dome to help combat this but he said it wouldn’t work so I went with his advice. The final design looked pretty much like the wossner ones and have an odd comp ratio of 11.89/1.

One thing I would say is check the ring gap on the pistons, they tend to wear quite badly sometimes. If they have worn a bit you can get thicker rings from total seal rings. You can always fit a set if they are ok as well, use the split twin top ring type. That’s what I’ve got, guy told me he’d been involved with tuning some Hayabusa motors for a class 10 grasser. Everything had been done that was available to the motor so  they were looking for a bit more to get the edge on the competition, ended up with another 10 bhp per motor just with a ring change so it’s worth considering.

Hth

Chris

[Snowy]

31 minutes ago, lamchop77 said:

No probs mate, anytime. The Wossner piston design seems to be ok apart from the fact that the compression dome is actually the 2.0 combustion profile on the 2.4 piston so a bit of modification is needed to the head. The custom ones I had done were done through a guy that does alot of work on high power yank motors. The CIH has the same wedge design as the the Chevys. I had a lot of pics/info off the web/contacts that had large domes to get the comp ratio up which he said wouldn’t work (one of them was produced by Omega!!), there’s only so far you can go before it starts affecting flame propagation across the piston crown. Some of the designs had a recess across the dome to help combat this but he said it wouldn’t work so I went with his advice. The final design looked pretty much like the wossner ones and have an odd comp ratio of 11.89/1.

One thing I would say is check the ring gap on the pistons, they tend to wear quite badly sometimes. If they have worn a bit you can get thicker rings from total seal rings. You can always fit a set if they are ok as well, use the split twin top ring type. That’s what I’ve got, guy told me he’d been involved with tuning some Hayabusa motors for a class 10 grasser. Everything had been done that was available to the motor so  they were looking for a bit more to get the edge on the competition, ended up with another 10 bhp per motor just with a ring change so it’s worth considering.

Hth

Chris

Thanks for the info.

[Nivlek2525]

On 28/07/2021 at 09:16, lamchop77 said:

Snowy, been through all this years ago. I was struggling to find 2.2 pistons for the class 3 grasser engine I was running. At the time 2.2 pistons were 127.50 each. Looked at all the modification stuff with the Chevy pistons, valves etc,  yeah some of the stuff looks and is cheap but then if you’re buying from summit basically take the price in dollars as if it was pounds and add a bit of shipping and you’ll not be far off the cost. Most of the pistons had circlip gudgeon pins and were different sizes so they needed opening out skimming to fit the piston and also needed a phosphor bronze ( I think ) bush manufacturing/inserting for each rod. Then the pistons will need modding for valve cutouts, maybe skimming to make sure the top of the piston doesn’t protrude too far from the top of the block. Basically it’s a minefield you’re walking into!!! On top of this you have to find someone to do the work as well……not many of those boys around, ann in d because everything is modded you’ll have no guarantees with it either.

The easy way out of this is just to buy a set of forged pistons and a set of rods. I’m sure that cop pistons do some as well as the wossner ones, and I’m sure wiseco had some listed as well. Sure it’s a bit pricey but it’s quality stuff you’re buying and the bottom end will be pretty bulletproof. All the weights are within a gram so it will be more balanced. Goin the  modded route you’ll need to redo all the pistons and rods weight matching them.

My setup was done because I couldn’t get the pistons anywhere and the cost of getting custom ones done was equivalent to buying six std ones……that was a no brainer!! I was using longer rods to change the rod ratio to help the engine rev harder as well so that was another reason for custom ones, but now you can get a long rod set of 2 litre pistons from wossner…..the 2.2 pistons are rare and and not really used so that added to my problems, everything was either 2.0 or 2.4. I’m going back 10/11 years now and the cost then was £785 for pistons/rings/pins and an MLS head gasket.

Just so you know why the yanks do the mods apart from the cost of bits, one thing they were doing was taking 1.9 cranks having them welded, straightened after welding, reground offset for 85mm stroke and re heat treated( I think) for about 400 dollars. That’s why they can do what they were doing. Where the hell would you find someone to do that over here!!!! They just have better shops and are more set up for doing that kind of stuff

Save the pennies, buy the pistons, avoid the hassle!!! 👍

Hth

Chris

It looks like there are some  good value 2.2E pistons on ebay. They don't specifically  say CIH but the bore looks right. £30 each?

Just now, Nivlek2525 said:

It looks like there are some  good value 2.2E pistons on ebay. They don't specifically  say CIH but the bore looks right. £30 each?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PISTON-FOR-VAUXHALL-CARLTON-SENATOR-22E-ENGINE-2-2-1984-1986-OVERSIZE-/152090341206?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286&mkrid=710-127635-2958-0

 

[lamchop77]

Good spot that, they are a rare thing to come up. Pity there’s only 2 available.

[Nivlek2525]

1 hour ago, lamchop77 said:

Good spot that, they are a rare thing to come up. Pity there’s only 2 available.

They have 2x 20E pistons as well. 1x0.5 and 1x1.0 oversized. I emailed but they definitely  only have what's listed. Shame. Super cheap.

[Snowy]

For anyone else interested sleeving the block is a lot cheaper than people think. Here is mine back to standard size.

 

 

[Jonathan Pounsett]

3 minutes ago, Snowy said:

For anyone else interested sleeving the block is a lot cheaper than people think. Here is mine back to standard size.

 

 

How cheap?

[Snowy]

3 hours ago, Jonathan Pounsett said:

How cheap?

Sleeved, bored, honed, new piston rings installed and crank ground for £730.