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No offense taken.

Here to learn. And like all of us to occasionally be flabbergasted....

Owen_Dyneto wrote:

Quote:
Not the first time you've brought that point up, so I'll remind again that owners aren't gonna buy pistons for an engine until an overhaul is necessary and that it's impossible to say which, if any, oversize, they would need until such time.

When I first got into the dealership parts biz some 30+ years ago, we never stocked pistons on the shelf, but only special-ordered them from the factory warehouse when needed (which was not very often). I'm not aware of any parts stores that actually stock pistons, locally, for passenger car motors, but they also only order them from their warehouse system, when needed.

When the factory and retail aftermarket fall short, a vendor in the hobby segment needs to shoulder the burden of providing quality replacement parts. Otherwise, interest in restoring the cars will only suffers, and the level of butchering will grow.

Yet, Kanter's offer seems to have become a moot point when it was later announced, in this post, that Egge came out with "steel strutted" pistons for the 352 and 374 engines. Further discussion revealed that they were available in standard, .020, .030, .040 and .060 oversize. However, I'm still waiting to hear of anyone's experience with these pistons.

Meanwhile, there's a reason why Packard engineers went with autothermic pistons rather than cast in the V8s. So why should anyone settle for less than OE design/quality in restoration?

BH, Kanter wasn't asking for a firm commitment or even a deposit, just expressions of future interest. Moot point if Egge has them now.

Packard didn't decide on autothermic strut pistons at the time of the V8, they'd been using them for decades.

Owen_Dyneto wrote:

Quote:
I never said that Packard's first use of autothermic pistons was with the V8s. My point was that they chose NOT to use cast pistons in the V8s. It doesn't make sense to me to go backwards, in terms of design, for a rebuild, either.

I have not had any complaint with Egge who I think is a reputible company and I will probably replace the
egge pistong with egge pistons. I paid the cost of sending the pistons to them as part of my trying to gather as much information as could be found while doing the rebuilding. When the engine was gone through in 2003 it had a crack in the structure that holds the pin on the existing #7 piston. I don't know if that was a factory pistion or had been installed in the 1983 rebuilding. I do not want this to turn into an attack on Egge who strives to be a top quality part builder. The shop that is working on the engine tells me Egge problems are few and far between. Now you have it from the hourses mouth although some have refered to me as the other end. Bill Mitchell

I would like to clear up one thing: nothing in my posts was intended to cast aspersions on Egge. I have no problems with them; if I needed pistons I would not hesitate to call them.