JE Pistons.
 

Who's got 'em and what are your thoughts. I am looking at doing some work to my ride in the near future, and want to put some higher compression pistons in, along with some cams. I know that cams are getting hard to find, but it looks like Moriwaki still sells them. I could probably source some Yosh cams, but not sure who else sold them.

Am quite happy with mine. They are 0.5mm OS (had the cylinders bored, wanted to make sure there was no taper in the cylinder, bike had over 85,000 miles on it before rebuild) and I had them set-up with the moly skirt coat and ceramic top coating. So far so good. While I have always been cautious with warming up a cold engine, I am even more so now with the forged pistons.

I love mine. Even alone they make quite a difference. I would lighten the flywheel while you're at it. I did just those two things first, before most of my other engine mods, and was pretty satisfied. I just took it a few steps further the following winter for the hell of it.


edit: I went OS as well. To freshen her up a bit. Also replaced all the bottom end bearings while I was in there. The bearings probably weren't necessary, but it made me feel good.

Hpower in australia has cams as far as i know.
PM me if you are looking for JE pistons

I have a set that I have not installed yet thinking of going to .5 mm oversized need to get it apart but I think I have $225 in them. might let them go for that if you are interested or go in on the os ones as you have to get 4 at a time.

just out of curiosity what do the over size pistons increase the engine displacement to?

since displacement is (I think) bore (3.14*(1/2)*diameter^2) x stroke, an increase in the bore (say +1/2mm or +0.0005m) would technically increase the overall displacement, very miniscule maybe something like 20-50cc. according to that equation too you'll see a larger increase in the displacement from an increase in bore compared to an increase in stroke btw.

According to my calculation you would gain about 10.2cc's. Or about 5%. Which I would call basically nothing. Any gains are gonna be from increased compression, not displacement.

0.5 mm gives you an extra 10cc, for a total of 1006 cc....

BTW, 10cc is about 1%, not 5.......

Yep, just realised that. You beat me to it.

JE totally hosed me over - I'll never use anything from th ever again. The piston mfg of choice for me is either Weisco or Arias.

what happened? I had a set of JE pistons in a 383 stroker in a drag S10 that lasted 8 years before i pulled the motor and put in a stronger 406 small block.

I bought a set of standard bore pistons for the VTR several years back. When I found that my cylinders needed bored I asked to exchange them for an oversize set. "You don't make any service sizes?" I said. What kind of piston company would do that? Of course, one that wants you to spend $600 on four custom pistons, that's who. Ok, so I want to return the parts then. "You won't take them back?" I said. Treating the customer with respect is apparently not on their to-do list either it would appear. So now I'm screwed and left to sell them on eBay for pennies on the dollar.

I guess it's just the way I am. You treat me well and I'll sing your praises. You hose me out of a couple of hundred bucks and I'll be sure everyone knows about it!

well i cant blame you there.

That is exactly how it should be ;)

instead of losing money on your pistons could you possibly sleeve your cylinders? Not sure if it would work well or be cost effective on a vtr but its a thought.

JE pistons
 

Hi guys,

I have both sets of JE pistons available. One used set of JE piston std. bore and one NEW set of JE pistons 0,5 overbore (including rings, pins and clips).
I used to ride with the JE std. bore and was very happy with the HP output. But my engine used oil from the beginning so i ordered 4 pistons from JE.
Willing to sell all for a good price.

Greetings

Hi i had the same problem!! I compared three solutions.
Nycasil coating my cylinders, have them resleeved or oversize pistons.

Nycasil coating was most expensive and difficult because the whole crankcase had to be placed on the nycasil bench. Only one company could do that. The other companies preffered separate single cylinder to machine on.

Second resleeving, also alot of work because VTR does not have separate sleeves. The cylinders must be machined out and sleeves must be custom made!! And then machine back again.

Third, most simple, order pistons and have the machine shop overbore the cylinders to the new pistons. Sell the second piston set to cover some costs!!

Greetings

Sven

I had JE forged pistons in SuperChicken II (before it was stolen...friggin' motorcycle thieves...), and I think that JE pistons are an excellent product at a very good price. When I have the engine of SuperChicken III built, it will also be sporting JE pistons, unless I decide to go with an over-size bore...lol, Jamie!

cheers, :cheers:
--Professor Chaos

Mikstr, you have to admit, it would be fun to tell people, "I have a Honda SuperHawk 1006." ;)

:cheers:
--Professor Chaos

I certainly hope you don't have any problems. While their products might be ok (no better or worse than anyone else, I would say) their customer service and general way they run the company sucks. As mentioned, they won't get another dime of my money!

JE makes custom pistons, so no you can't return them, but if you know what you want and order it you'll like them fine. I did when I matched them with ported heads, Moriwaki cams and oversized valves. As Mikstr can attest it's a totally different bike that screams all the way to redline!:headbang:

I guess my issue is those are catalog standard parts - not custom items. Plus they didn't have to be dicks about it, which they were.

On my other engine builds I've used Arias and Weisco. Both also make excellent pistons with the only difference being those two companies have great customer service. Maybe JE could learn a thing or two from them about how to treat their customers.