piston and cylinder sets - the big question

[advtracing]

you could say you get what you pay for in this area BUT as mahle is now made in china is this still true ? a friend is looking and was directed to a new set by a long term supplier and seem cheap

so we have these http://www.sierramadrecollection.com...-73-p8111.html at way cheap at least there je pistons but the cylinders ?

or you can je and nickies at bigger $$$$$ http://lnengineering.com/index.php/p...iston-set.html

or go mahle for 6k but are these nothing but china crap now ???

[gereed75]

My opinion (just from shopping, not based on experience as far as quality goes) - I suspect that the Sierra cylinders are the QSC (Chinese) variety.

The other option are the AA birals. These are generally considered to be of pretty good quality for about $600.00 US per set (cylinders only). The next upgrade in quality is to have them nickasil plated by Millenium or similar - add around $90.00 US each I think. Then you have a pretty decent cast iron lined, aluminum finned cylinder with state of the art sealing surface for an intermediate price.

Henry at supertech has worked with this for some years and that was his recent reccomendation to me. I ended up boring my existing set of 84mm Biral Mahles to 85mm and fitting JE's. That is a good way to go (IMHO) if you have or can find a set of used Biral Mahles.

I suspect that there is considerable difference in Chinese quality when supervised/specified by Mahle as opposed to just a Chinese vendor (QSC) left to their own devices and selling on price.

All IMHO of course. Good luck.

[gled49]

The piston skirts on the SM pistons in that set don't look like proper 911S design. They look like old cast pistons with the steel inserts in them, even though they might be hi compression???

[advtracing]

SM list the cylinders as AA