Ceramic coating pistons and combustion chambers
 

Does it really work? Who has experience with it?

Hell yes it does...started doing all my 2 strokes 15 years ago, dirtbikes, quads, and sleds...more power, better mileage, and very enhanced longevity...highly recommend it on anything going to be used hard.

Fixx
 

OK Where the h e l l do you find snow in florida? :drink:

We have done a bit of specialized coatings on pistons and combustion chambers on our heads, pistons and valve faces. It can be beneficial in some ways and in testing we did not see enough value added benefits (power or durability) versus cost in the normal high performance marine engines we were building and testing. These coating systems tend to be fairly expensive for V-8 engines and must be done by well specialized companies for reliability and durability.
One must also be careful in what particular coating is used where and when as sometimes depending on the cylinder head material (aluminum versus iron), piston shape, ring type , fuel used and compression ,the coating of all combustion surfaces can retain to much heat of combustion in the chamber and lead to other potential detonation, heat transfer issues and exhaust gas temperatures that are to high.
This is not something I would recommend for the novice builder. Without testing and exact application confirmation is not something that should be done in just straight across the board use.
A good quantity of racing engine builders in Nascar, Formula One, Professional Drag Racing and such have used many metal coating systems with extra benefits. The power adders are small and even though small amounts make a difference in big dollar competitive racing venues. They also have to do a lot of expensive development and testing to apply these coatings in the right type and right place.
I also think that the cost versus benefit rule should always be applied to this type of specialized work. If as a builder you are trying to wring every last ounce of power from an engine and you have a deep pocket budget, then these types of specialized work can add some extra amounts of power.

The old addage seems applies here - "A little might be good, a lot more might not be"

Best Regards,
Ray @ Raylar

I went the full coating route on my blown 540 when I built it to 950 hp, I had the piston skirts coated, tops ceramic coated, chambers, exhaust valves and exhaust runners coated. When I tore it down the chamber, valve and exhaust runner coating was pretty much gone but the pistons looked very good. Were I always used to see the burn't brown oil on the bottom of piston (under the crown) there was NOTHING. When I tore my NON-coated 750 hp 540 down previously at around 120 hours the pistons didn't look all that great and I replaced them. When I tore the 950 hp motor down the coating was wore some on the skirts but there was no real scuffing or skirt collapse at all. I sent them back to Swain tech and had the tops/skirts Re-coated , I skipped the chambers, valves and runners as I think that stuff burn't off quickly and was gone so IMHO that part was a waste. I will always have pistons done from now on in any blown motor I build. Something else I have really come to like is zero-gap rings, blow by is virtually non-existent and get great leakdown results, Smitty

Which zero gap do you run? How is the wear verses standard gap?

Smitty,
You may want to look at Dart's coatings. They have a heat barrier coating that is good to 2000 deg. From what I have heard from numerous people smarter than me is that Dart's coating program is one of the best. I have had them coat quite a few sets of pistons for me but I haven't been back into any of them yet to see what they look like. They can also to a build up coating on the skirts of the anti-friction coating. This is good if you need to hone the cylinders a little more than usual or if the clearances are getting loose. They can build up the coating up to .002 per side, which makes the piston .004 larger overall. I have used a .004 coating on one pair of engines instead of boring them. They would have had at least .009 of piston clearance, so I was able to tighten them up to .005 if I wanted to. They have been running about a year now and so far so good.
Just thought I would throw that out. You may want to check them out. They have around a dozen different coatings for just about anything that can be coated.
Eddie

I think it was the Total seal max seal rings I used last time, I pull my motor every 120 hours or so and go thru it. I have had great leakdown results using zero gap rings without the blowby that blower motors often have, Smitty

Here `are a few pics from when I had it done, like I said the chamber, exhaust runner and valve coating was pretty much completely gone when I rebuilt the motor so I think that stuff was a waste of money but I believe in the piston stuff, Smitty

What does that cost?