Customer Reviews

Making Pistons for Experimental and Restoration Engines

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
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A great little guide book for making medium-size pistons.
It does not get too far into equipment, but that is GOOD, because
the foundry and machining arts are really separate subjects
that are already well-covered by common textbooks.
This book covers only the basics in the art of piston making.
A slim book, but it provides to-the-point invaluable
1st-hand knowledge into piston designing & piston fabrication,
which are specialties not covered in most engineering books.
The author's web site referenced in the book is cool, too....

I own a VW, Audi, BMW, and Porshe repair shop and I also work in a machine shop at night. So when I started looking into a custom motor conversion I found myself needing to make pistons and not wanting to $600 into trying to have custom pistons made for something that might not even work. This book isn't a fluffy this is kind of how you do it deal, it shows technical information I've never seen about piston acceleration, temperatures, and ring placement on the piston. It's an easy to understand cross between engineering, mechanics, machining, and sand casting. The information contained about piston acceleration, tolerances, temperatures, and ring placement is nearly impossible to find anywhere on the internet. I stumbled upon this searching the net looking for information on designing pistons and I found almost nothing except this book, which contains everything I'm looking for. For the price it's a steal and I plan to buy his sand casting books now as well.

Steve Chastain writes good books. Clear, understandable and practical info. I will buy more of his books.

Absolutley a fountain of information on pistons, casting, metal working, lathe work, jigs and fixtures. I will probably never need to cast a piston, but I found this very informative. If you're a gearhead you need to read this and impress your buddies with a ton of data on pistons, their application and manufacture.