I've seen personally, Spun rod bearings, Seals go bad, excessive piston slap etc.

 

Make sure u have a repable show do all the work

 

I can't believe people are even considering doing this to their Evo's. First of all, the piston rings cannot wear in properly if the block is not rehoned with a new cross hatch in the bores. Yes I think its possible to do, however your compression, and overall performance will suffer. Do it the right way the first time, remove the block from the car, and have it rebored at the machine shop. For god's sake.

On the flip side of things, YES the engine can be made to be stronger than if they it still had OEM components, but the reliability of a drop-in setup is probably not going to be good. There are simply too many clearances that could be off, you can't leave things like this to chance.

 

I've talked to a few reputable shops in my area that have done drop in pistons and rods in evo's with great success...i.e. 650+whp. I will be venturing this route most likely as well. I normally don't take "short cuts", but this will be my own experiment that I will keep everyone updated on how well a drop-in setup works out. I haven't decided on exactly which pistons and rods I'm going to go with, but a Manley rod/Weisco combo might work or Manley/JE..

 

Many people have done drop ins with no problems... If you are looking for a safe 500+ awhp, drop in is a good alternative especially if the motor has low mileage.

Now if someone is looking for the 700 awhp and the 800 awhp monsters with huge turbos then a proper full build is the only way.

At a 500 awhp level, even 550 awhp level that we see lately since with the new turbos out which is very doable, a drop in is definitely better than the stock parts. That's undeniable...

Personaly i am doing a drop in next month on my less than 19,000 miles motor. I will be using Wiseco 1400HD pistons, Carrillo rods with carr rod bolts, Ferrea behive valvetrain, Fluidampr damper, L19 studs and generally top of the line products... I will definitely keep you updated on how the build will progress, since i want to congratulate all the shops and vendors that gave me amazing deals and help like The Shop, Extremepsi, Awdmotorsports, Maxum Technologies, and of course Buschur Racing!

At some point if i decide to go completely crazy i will get a fully built longblock from one of the top builders...

 

my motor has just over 10k miles on it and has arp headstuds and arp conrod bolts since 7K miles or so. I'm leaning towards the same HD Weisco pistons in a 9.0:1 compression..just gotta decide which rods to go with them

 

The real question is, how many people have done drop in pistons and actually had good compression on a compression test afterwords? I can't imagine anyone doing drop in pistons getting decent compression since the cross hatch is pretty much smooth at that point.

 

we will see how my cylinder walls look in the next week or two. I'm also going to be doing a compression and leak down test before/after as well

 

Please post your results! Good luck!

 

will do...I plan on starting/contributing to the thread from start to finish and hopefully I'll be one of those "lucky" ones when doing a drop-in setup

 

Its not rocket science to install drop in pistons and rods. Way too many people who should step away from the car and toolbox are the ones who cause the hype and misinformation.
Its been documented over and over, the success of drop ins. Seems like few can make their own decisions. They have to only do what they "read on the net". If drop ins were not reliable, they why would BR sell and install them?

 

bought Manley H beams and Wiseco 1400HD pistons over the weekend and today was the install day only to find out that one of the Wiseco's machining was off and the wrist pin did not fit. I have to go back and get a new set of pistons as the one's I bought are defective...wtf?

 

on a side note, my combustion chambers looked fantastic w/almost all of the factory "cross hatching" still visible and the bores are spot on!

 

Some of you guys should go dsmtalk.com and see some of the crazy stuff they have been doing for years. You wanna see some crazy SOBs talk to some old school dsm guys.