piston coatings on high rpm pulling build

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getblown5.9

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Are piston coatings worth it for a high rpm pulling motor? goal is to run down the track between 4-5k depending on conditions but I've heard in an application like this the coatings will just burn off.

Any input from someone who tried coatings and conditiin tore the motor down to see piston conditions?
 
I don't think your rpm's will have much to do with it. Heat obviously would. You'll definitely want to stay away from coatings done in a kiln in someones garage.

I have Swain coating with teflon skirts on mine. It was done over 5 years ago and last time I had the head off ( about a year ago ) the coating is still there and visible. Their coatings are in the millionths thick and are impregnated into the metal so it's not suppose to come off. If it does, theres probably some piston coming along with it.

MHO..... well worth it.
 
I don't run high rpm, the max I see out through the lights is 3600rpm, so I don't know if this applies...

I have Swain coated pistons, using their gold coat on top and the pc9 on the skirts. The current engine has about 20,000 miles and 300 1/4 mile passes in the low 11's, high 10's. It last dyno'd at 944hp. No sign of any problems at this point. When we do a tear down, we'll see how things held up.

The previous engine I also had the same coatings, and had about 100 1/4 passes on it, when I cracked a cylinder. The coatings held up find, and I'll be using the pistons in the next engine.

Without the skirt coatings I was getting piston scuffing if I went tighter then about .008 on the piston to cylinder wall clearance. In the engine that I cracked the cylinder I had set it to .007, and there wasn't any sign of scuffing. The engine that is in it now it's set to .0055. We'll see how that works out.

Not all coatings are created equal, so becareful.

I'm not sure how this applies to what you are doing, but I hope the info helps.

Paul
 
Duno still not sure on the crown coatings, the best total and complete meltdowns I've seen were coated. Maybe they give a edge, once you breech that then its a total cascade.

I can see the skirt coatings giving a edge at high rpm for sure.
 
I decided not to coat mine this past year and my pistons look fine.
My last two builds they were coated and it all just flaked off
 
Not to start a pissing match but swain is practicaly in my back yard and I dont use them because of the above reason. Had some snowmobile pistons coated and they flaked, so have a set of my truck pistons. Also know many tractor pullers around here that stay away from swain too.
 
not trying to defend Swain but, I would use them again without question from what I've seen on my pistons. You guys may have done a different coating ??... don't know. My truck sees very high egts and has many times. When I looked at how it's held up, like I said before the coating is embedded and not something that would flake. The gold was barely faded after 5 yrs. They cater to some very high end race teams that I bet see much worse than we do
 
Thermal barriers are just that - transmission is damped in both directions... piston bowl charge-cooling is related to valve timing, so there's no free lunch.
In-cylinder conditions which compromise the barrier make short work of the substrate.

Coating effectiveness is highly dependent on part preparation & application technique - the best ceramic can be rendered useless prior to the initial thermal cycle.
 
Not sure who Schied uses but they sent my Aries out to be coated and the set before them when the motor came apart the coating was in great shape.

BBD
 
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