Pistons

[Jim Hanig]

Originally Posted by Dwight Southerland

Depends on the piston. A lot of piston configurations so not lend themselves to equal balance around the centerline of the pin. For example, BBC 396 high compression piston is unbalanced no matter what you do that is reasonable. You can add a lot of weight to the flat side of the piston to balance it, but is the extra overall weight infringing on the advnatge of minimum reciprocating weight? You can offset the pin, but it will take .150" to .210" offset to acheive balance.


Note: The above numbers were calculated using minimum weight Stock Eliminator pistons. You numbers will vary according to your restrictions.


When I built the engine for the Corvette (SS) I worked to achieve a better balance relative to the pin centerline. Did it help? Who knows?!? A-B-A was not attempted, it just sounded good and trick to converse about in techno-savvy circles.


I have seen pistons out of a very fast 283 SS engine that had the pin offset by .090"

Dwight would the off set be to right or to the center?