Euro piston upgrade
 

I posted on Rennlist to ask what kind of horsepower putting Euro pistons into an otherwise stock '85 Carrera would do for horsepower.

A couple folks seemed extremely concerned that this would cause detonation problems if I encountered a "bad" tank of gas - meaning below the advertised octane. The further opined that this would basically destroy the egines top end.

Interestingly, this was done 40K ago in a rebuild of the engine in the car I am looking to buy.

Any knowlege on this?

Bmcallister,

Welcome to the board. Take a look at this thread it might answer some of your questions. Are you sure they used 10.3:1 pistons in the rebuild? Make sure you get a PPI before you buy.10.3:1 pistons

Thank you Michael! I learned quite a bit from that thread.

A PPI with leak down is being done Tuesday. The shop doing it is Motorsports in Lexington, KY. I even went over Peter Zimmerman's PPI list with them to make sure they will be doing what I want. I will also have them check the compression ratios.

The owner (2nd) has all receipts since the car was new, so I can find out exactly (I hope) about the rebuild.

I will also verify what octane fuels are available here in the US capital (my Volvo S80 would probably run on cheeseburgers if I ask it to).

Thanks again!

The estimated cause of my ring disintigration was bad gas caused detonations. I'm running a Euro SC w/ 9.8:1 single plugs. See the link in my sig. for the thread.

I think if you merely swap pistons you wont see much problems. If the car has run 40k on the swap then I would think that was evidence that the engine is solid with the euro's in.

I believe Chris Bennet did this swap to his engine... prior to the first implosion after going big bore... hehehee perhaps he can chime in.

-Michael