Seeing ecoli post about Wisecos vs. '95 pistons reminded me of something I've wanted to ask for a while. What is the exact difference between a OEM piston and your Wiseco, Ross, .....etc piston beside silicon content? I've seen people say that the aftermarket pistons are forged, but technically aren't all pistons forged? Is there any advantage to purchasing 2G pistons + rod machining costs for a 1G versus picking up a set of Wisecos, Ross', ect...??

With the 2g pistons, I'm assuming that you wouldn't get piston slap like you do with the aftermarket ones. But that's just my guess.

....but doesn't piston slap mostly relate to what type of piston you are running (since different piston manufacturers use different levels of silicon content) along with whether one properly warms up the engine before driving?

All pistons are not forged... The stock pistons are cast.

Winner!

You generally only get piston slap with JE's, and poorly installed ones at that. (Mine do not slap).

Forged pistons are just stronger. They wont melt, crack, or break nearly as easily.

.....so are there any advantages to using forged vs. OEM since the costs are so comparable?

As CVD stated

As CVD stated [/b][/quote]
I saw what CVD said and that answers half of my question, but what about OEM, any advantages?

2G pistons on 1G rods will only handle so much power. The rods are good for about 450-500whp, while the pistons are good for at least that. Im not sure if anyone has found the limits of the pistons or not.

Another good reason to get forged pistons is that you can get whatever compression ratio you want. With stock, what you see is what you get.

2G pistons on 1G rods generally isnt all that much cheaper than a cheap set of aftermarket pistons and rods. Its a good combo, and thats why so many people use it, but for a little more money you can have some stuff that you will never have to worry about.

Exactly ;)

The only advantages to OEM pistons are that they might have less piston slap, but if your trying to make 500hp you shouldn't be worried about a little piston slap on startup anyways. Buying everything new to do the 2G piston conversion is expensive. I recently did it on Mara's car, but I already had a bunch of used 2G pistons around and I got a set of new rings off Nabr for $60. I also just honed the block myself and dropped the suckers in. If you do forged pistons you HAVE to get everything bored and honed to spec by a machine shop.