Wow.. 89mm pistons and cylinders..
 

I am in the process of tearing down what should of been a 90mm 2.7 and I found 89mm pistons and Mahle cylinders. I bought this motor from a mechanic who had it in his race car but he said it had 90mm. It is an aluminum case and has the squirters installed also :) .
What is great is that I am rebuilding a short stroke 2.5L for my race car and can use these to stay "legal". My question is does J&E stamp the bottom of their pistons with the diameter? Or are these mahle pistons like my cylinders???? This could be a jackpot for me saving tons of cash in my rebuild.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1094855509.jpg

They don't look like Mahles to me. They look like a domestic forged like JE. I don't know on the stamping specifically.

Sorry, but those are probably 90mm. :-(

That's the forging number. Sometimes it lands close to the diameter, othertimes, far from. JE will make 89s, but you need cylinders that are 89mm to start. I'm the only guy making nikasil underbores. I don't consider sleeving a cylinder a viable option :-)

Charles Navarro
LN Engineering
http://www.LNengineering.com
Aircooled Precision Performance

did you caliper them, Plavan?

Sorry Charles you are wrong, I do not need to do any sleeving or need to order any of your $$$$ cylinders :) (there ;) . I used a digital caliper and they are in fact 89mm pistons. The cylinders are Mahle 89mm's. Then later I remembered I had some 85mm J&E's boxed up for my long stroke 2.5L motor I was going to do.... And guess what? They had an 85MM stamp on the inside as well. Once I got the 89mm's off the crank, I could see the J&E mark on the other side.
So what did we learn today? That J&E's do have the size on the underside of the piston, and that I saved a ton of money :)

Here is a picture of one of my 85mm set.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1094867539.jpg

If indeed they are 89s, they have to be since you measured them :-), what would they have originally been fitted on? I've never really seen any offered except for a few sets of sleeved down 90s. I guess you learn something new everyday! Can you post some pics of the cylinder itself out of curiousity?

Charles Navarro
LN Engineering
http://www.LNengineering.com
Aircooled Precision Performance

Plavan, I think Charles was trying to be helpful.

Yep, just trying to be helpful :-( What I was referring to is that the forging number doesn't equal the bore, since for example, I have a set of 87M forgings that are 88mm in diameter as well as a 89M forging that is a 90mm on my desk. The main reason I didn't think there was an 89mm cylinder was because I have been requested to do underbores, such as 89s for limited displacement guys, of what originally was only offered in 90mm. Were the 89s from a production car, or race prep? What years?Would be nice to know :-)

Charles Navarro
LN Engineering
http://www.LNengineering.com
Aircooled Precision Performance

Now that I read that it did sound harsh...I forgot one of my :) faces (will edit) :). Did not mean to sound harsh. I was just happy I saved some $$$$. I bagged the cylinders up but will take a picture in the AM.
It looks like the mechanic had an extra set of 89MM Mahles then had some J&E's made up. Being that he was a mechanic and this motor came out of one of his race cars (he upgraded to a 3.2l) I'm sure he just used what he had around the shop. There are still a few sets of cylinders/pistons floating around but they are extremely rare. Minkoff on this board has the last known set found.

BA's book lists 89mm mahle P&Cs for a 66x89 short stroke 2.5 racing application. I highly doubt 89mm mahles were ever used in production. They also may well be NLA. I don't see them on the Andial site.

That's what I figured. Nice find Plavan!

Charles Navarro
LN Engineering
http://www.LNengineering.com
Aircooled Precision Performance

Watch me take them to the builder (Aase) and have them say they are 90mm. Then I'll eat my own words :D

Kolbalt, I was at Andial 3-4 years ago buying some misc parts
I bought these Pistons and Cyl assuming I would eventually build a spare race engine some day, i did These things were
expensive $2,800.00 wholesale. i'm running them in the race car now.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1095000294.jpg

Thank you for that info, Mark.

I'll put in my datapoint, my 84mm JE's had an 85 stamped in them.