Prototype Piston Award Signatures?

[WARP TEN]

Originally Posted by grahambehan

Bob, Yes on cast pistons.

Graham

Thanks Graham! --Bob

[spork2367]

Originally Posted by WARP TEN

A great bit of ZR-1 trivia. But I am curious: do other aluminum pistons commonly have such steel strips to adress thermal expansion or is it just the LT5s? --Bob

At Lycoming, for our air cooled aircraft engines, the pistons aren't machined round, they are ovals and they taper from top to bottom. That way when they expand at operating temperature they are round. The bigger problem isn't that they expand, it's that they don't expand uniformly due to the increased material around the piston pin towers. Our pistons are machined from forgings.