I recently had some problems with my LQ9, the lands on four of the pistons broke with about 12lbs of boost. So I found aother LQ9 with very low miles on it and wanted to put in some good forged lower compresion pistons, is this possible to do. I would put in a complete forged stroker assy. but $ is very tight. Any thoughts on this? Thanks guys

 

Should be a direct swap...you'll have to have a machine shop press the wrist pins out of the stock pistons and into the forged pistons though.

 

LQ9s have floating wrist pins

 

I knew that....really

 

It would be nice iff all the Gen IIIs had them would make playing with them easier. Way I see just a good excuse to buy a bearing press

 

So from what your saying I can buy a set of pistons and use my ARP hardware from my old LQ9 and be good. No need for machine shop at all then. What do you guess a set of forged pistons will cost me? I may have some small time port work done on the exhaust side of the heads and call it good. I know the LQ9 rods and crank are good for some good HP numbers, I think the weak point after the rod bolts is the pistons. What do you think?

 

Probable be a good idea to get the rotating assembly rebalanced (about $150-175) with the new piston and since it will already be apart.

 

Yes I guess the balance is a must. What pistons do you guys recommend and how much will i be spending on them?

 

I like Wiseco pistons myself, I have no experience with anything else though. Probably ~$500-$600 for a set.

 

It would be best to have it balanced but not a must and the block would need to be honed to fit the forged pistons. Cast pistons have .0005"-.0015" cyl clearence and forged pistons need at least .003" clearence due to they swell more when they heat up. This could be a good time to lower the compression if you plan on running 12+lbs of boost.