Re: Badger pistons the pro's and cons....

[biljoh@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

  Dan,

       You are right that it seems some people had a bad experience with badger pistons in their motors, and before I did the research I was hesitant about putting them in my 343. At the same time however, I have emailed some AMC builders/collectors that I know personally, and have also received an explanation of WHY some have had problems.  Apparently at one time badger could not supply the demand for their pistons and silvolite manufactured the pistons FOR badger for a period of time-I don't know how long-but it is that batch of pistons that had the quality control problems.  When badger took the manufacturing of the pistons over again, they used "struts" to reinforce the piston skirts to control expansion and cracking. This is a common practice with many production car engine manufacturers as well. The struts are basically steel(I believe) plates. If you get a set of Badgers without the struts you "could" have a set manufactured by silvolite that "may" have a problem with!
  thermal expansion and cracking or seizing.  I also discovered that badger has re-released the 343 pistons and they are making them NOW-they were discontinued for awhile but not any more.

    The badger pistons I bought off ebay have the reinforcing struts incorporated into the design, I have also recieved emails from people using these pistons in their 390's - one drives their car with  "great enthusiasm" shall we say, and also had a 6500 RPM dyno run and has had no problems.  Another AMC collector who has built MANY motors has used badger pistons in a 70' 390 that has seen 7000RPM and had no problems. Finally my machine shop builder who has a LOT of experience building AMC motors and does a LOT of high performance work, mopars, ford, and GM included said he would use the badgers I brought in in his own AMC's without a worry.

  Forged pistons would probably cost triple what I paid for the cast pistons and the money saved there is going into machine work to improve other areas  of the block and rotating assembley, and I don't plan to use nitrous or forced induction with my 343 as it isnt going to need that stuff to go fast.

  The badger pistons I have are at least as good as the stock pistons and they may be even stronger because of the struts, wich could in the long run reduce piston skirt wear. A few of my stock pistons with 71,000 origianl miles on them had some noticeable pitting on the tops from pinging with low octane gas, wich I eliminated years ago by using champion N11's or autolite #64 spark plugs(colder than stock), richening the fuel mixture a "bit", not getting too crazy with the ignition timming settings and using a good fan shroud to insure that the motor never overheats. The 343 and 390 were designed to run on 100+ LEADED octane gas.
  A few of the stock pistons also had some significant sideskirt wear and the piston struts are desinged to control this type of wear to a certain degree by controling expansion. Also I am going to be using aluminum heads so the piston tops may not see as much heat as they have before these heads were available. I think if the badgers I have didnt have the strut design,I would go through the trouble of finding something else, but they seem like they may be better than stock as they are.  I also know that 2 of the largest vendors recommend the badgers, I did call one of them. Also I am not going to fire this newly built up 343 and then take it to the track the next day, I don't think I'll even race it until it has well over 1,000 very easy break in miles on it.

  If your 390 is not in the car yet you should remove the oil pan and look inside at the underside of those pistons and see if they have the skirt struts on them.


On September 21, 2004 dan whitehead wrote:

> John,
> 
> If you question the reliability of the Badger pistons so much then don't use
> them.  I know it would be a greater expense, but not as much as rebuilding
> the engine again (if not scrap) because one or more of the pistons let go,
> contact Nick Alfono about the pistons he is supporting.  Or any of the AMC
> vendors that supplies parts.
> 
> The 390 that I got in the deal with my AMX was rebuilt using Badger pistons
> but hasn't been run yet.  After reading all of the posts I'm more that a
> little leary about running the engine hard for very long.  I haven't decided
> if I want to replace the pistons before or just drive it with good common
> sense.  The thing is, you are the one that has to make the decision about
> your engine.  There has been enough written on them here to support not
> using them, so now it's up to you to make the final call.
> 
> Dan Whitehead
> 
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