Wiseco J-Series Forged 2618 Pistons. Click “Shop”

HLP 2618 Hyper Piston going into a customers 600whp J35a7 Build

HLP’s 800hp Hyper Pistons, 1300hp H-Beam Rods + Thick Horned Wrist Pins and Ultra Ductile Piston Rings

 Exploring the Benefits of 2618 vs. 4032 Piston Forging for Your Honda J-Series Engine

Introduction:

When it comes to enhancing the performance of your Honda J-Series engine, selecting the right piston forging material is crucial. At HalferLand Performance, we have a strong preference for 2618 aluminum alloy pistons, and we offer these as part of our HLP Hypereutectic pistons and the newly released Wiseco 2618 Forged pistons, available on our online store. In this article, we’ll delve deeper into the differences between 2618 and 4032 piston forging, highlighting why 2618 is our top choice.

Understanding Piston Forging Alloys:

Pistons are integral components in your engine’s combustion process, and their casting or forging material plays a pivotal role in their performance and durability. Two common alloys used for piston forging are 2618 and 4032 aluminum.

Benefits of 2618 Aluminum Alloys:

1. **Conformality **: 2618 aluminum is known for its exceptional strength and durability, making it an ideal choice for high-performance engines. Its ability to withstand the rigors of increased horsepower, torque and compression loads is one of the reasons we prefer it. While the 4032 alloy is “technically” a stronger/more rigid piston, the rigidity also makes it’s more brittle. In the simplest form, you can think of 4032 like a piece of wood, which structurally is strong and rigid, but once flexed beyond a certain point it simply breaks. On the other hand, 2618 can be thought of like a rubber sheet or mat, and while it’s not as hard as the wood, and it being much easier to bend, it’s conformality and it’s ability to flex under load without breaking makes it the superior choice for our high horsepower J-Series customer and enthusiast. 2618’s conformability is also which lend it to be the superior alloy for any forced induction application which experiences much higher loads and cylinder pressure while in “boost”. The lower silicone content of 2618 is what gives it these characteristics over 4032, which 4032 contains a higher volume of silicone. Ultimately, a 2618 piston is more pliable and will pancake (in a sense) before breaking, where a 4032 piston will reach it’s limit and simply snap/crank or break.

2. **Thermal Stability**: 2618 alloy maintains its structural integrity under extreme heat and pressure, ensuring the piston’s longevity even in demanding conditions. As touched on in #1 (above) 2618’s lower silicone content also allows it to operate cooler than the more rigid 4032 and helps prevent piston heat soak, which can ultimately lead to knock/detonation and could mean the end of it’s life for your engine. This makes a 2618 piston much more malleable, which offers advantages under high-load, high-stress applications such as with power adders – ie. Turbos, Superchargers, and nitrous.

3. ** Expansion**: The lower silicon content of 2618 also means the piston has a greater linear expansion rate, which must be compensated with greater ambient piston-to-wall clearances. A 2618 piston will expand around 15 percent more than a 4032 version. This is the reason a 2618 piston requires more clearance and as a result will be slightly noisier when cold as opposed to a comparable 4032 forging. While the 4032 piston with it’s less silicone will retain more heat, it also expands more. While the 2618 piston with lower silicone content rejects more heat but also expands more, requiring larger initial startup piston to wall clearances. Despite the differences in piston-to-wall clearances when cold, once the pistons reach operating temperature, both the 2618 and 4032 alloys would will have similar running clearances.  On the flip side, the more ridged 4032 does have slightly better wear resistance, where the softer and more ductile/pliable 2618 has slightly less. However, this wear factor of the 2618 can be overcome with a simple anodizing.

4. **Resistance to Detonation**: 2618 pistons exhibit resistance to detonation, making them a perfect fit for engines that operate at high compression ratios or under forced induction.

Element Breakdown  

Piston Alloy Characteristics

2618 Alloy Pros and Cons

4032 Alloy Pros and Cons

Our Products:

At HalferLand Performance, we offer high-quality 2618 alloy pistons to enhance your Honda J-Series engine’s performance:

– [HLP Hypereutectic 2618 Alloy Pistons](https://halferlandperformance-com.3dcartstores.com/800HPPiston–HLP-Products-V2-800HP-Proven-and-Guaranteed-Honda-J-Series-J32J35-89mm-STD-Hyper-2618-Alloy-Semi-Forged-Ceramic-Coated-Dome-Pistons-C-clips-THICK-1200hp-Horned-Upgraded-Wrist-Pins-Included_p_44.html)

– [Wiseco 2618 Forged Pistons](https://halferlandperformance-com.3dcartstores.com/Wiseco-2618-Forged-Pistons-Ductile-Nitride-Piston-Rings-Lightweight-Honored-Wrist-Pins-C-Clips-FREE-SHIPPING_p_147.html)

Conclusion:

Choosing the right piston forging material is a critical decision for maximizing your Honda J-Series engine’s performance. At HalferLand Performance, we stand by the strength, durability, and exceptional performance of 2618 aluminum alloy pistons. Make sure to explore our HLP Hypereutectic and Wiseco 2618 Forged pistons available on our online store for a power-packed driving experience.

It’s well known that our J-Series engines come with tight piston ring end gaps from factory. Usually this will be one of the first limitation you reach once you start edging up towards 500-600whp territory (along with a couple others, depending what motor you go with). As the motor heats up so do the pistons and ultimately the piston rings. As that happens the piston rings goes under thermal expansion, which can ultimately lead to the two ends butting together (as some call “pinching”), which then the two ends have nowhere to go and get pushed up into the pistons ring land (where the piston rings sit or “grove”) and ultimately breaks the stock cast piston. There have been some (actually only one instance) we have “heard of”  someone running stock pistons and they “alleged” stock ring gap past 800whp…which they claim to 1400whp!! Sorry, but we have never heard or seen of anyone else on stock pistons past 700-800whp. The only way we could see this happening is if they ran some form of Meth based fuels, and which has a  cooling effect when injected, thus the pistons not heating up as much and the rings not pinching. It’s not to say it cannot be done, but personally I wouldn’t put my faith in stock cast pistons beyond the 550whp mark, let alone with stock piston ring end gaps. If you’re putting all this money into building the bottom end,  why cheap out or risk it with stock end gaps?.

With some research you will see there is case, after case, after case of the J-Series stock pistons breaking due to piston ring pinching/butting…..and our J32 experienced the same effects around 600-650whp with the ring gaps left at oem specs (Safe AFR, Safe timing etc). This even more holds true for forced induction applications, as when you compress air it heats up, only compounding the issue. In our situation to make things worse, we choose to run our engines with higher compression, with our Turbo J32a3 engine running 11.5:1 compression, which only adds to additional cylinder temps with the higher compression ratio and throwing forced induction air on top. There’s many ways to set up a engine and we prefer the higher side of compression and in doing so the optimal route would have been to gap those piston rings, but that would negate the ultimate reason why we were running a COMPLETELY STOCK J32a3, for us to personally find the limits of what these engines can do in 100% completely stock form. If you don’t already know, J32a3’s already running 11:1 comp. from the factory, so it wasn’t a stretch or oddity for someone to boost at our CR or even higher. However, that extra CR will always lead to higher cylinder temps (compressed air / Hot air) , thus heating the piston rings more then say a 10:1 engine, and yes, this may have played a larger role to the ultimate failure of our J32a3 a little faster than a lower CR engine would have….non the less all J’s in completely stock form will start finding limitation with their piston ring end gaps, pistons and rods around 600-700whp. However, we feel at a BARE MINIMUM if targeting 500whp or up, and you want to remain 100% stock with internals, you should at least pull the pistons and reset the rings end gap to our “General Rule of Thumb” specs, below.

You’ll see from the sample picture in this thread that the piston did not suffer from any type of detonation (unlike what some salty people will say, LOL) and the only damage was strictly located in the ring land area, exactly where you see the piston rings are bent (from butting) and pushed up into the ring land, thus cracking them and causing piston failure…which again is only caused by piston ring end gaps butting together (not the tune, not a bad motor, but stock piston ring gap at 600whp). This engine did end up being saved/salvaged, a new piston installed, left the block completely stock bottom end and all piston ring gaps were gaped appropriately. This J32a3 simply with a new piston and all the pistons rings gapped appropriately currently has 8k HARD MILES on it (Sept. 2019), with MANY MANY WOT pulls (easily 80+ multiple gear pulls and races), street tuning session, while also being a daily driven. This goes to show the J-Series resiliency and dependability, even around 550-650whp, which again we feel is the safe limit for stock internals on these engines AFTER the piston ring end gap is addressed. If you choose to run these engine under nitrous or forced induction and while still with the stock piston ring end gap, the 500whp is what we would run and consider to be the max “Safe” limit + conservative ignition timing + fat AFR mix.

For that reason, if  you’re swapping in a stock motor for nitrous or forced induction, it’s best to pull the pistons and gap the rings before install. This will insure a safe running FI/Nitrous J-series engine to around the 600whp territory.

The general rule of thumb is this….

– Stock to 350-400whp = Safe to leave them alone

– 450whp-700whp =
Top Ring = Bore Diameter (Inches) X .007″
Second Ring = Bore Dia. (Inches) X .008

750WHP-1000whp (General Rule, Seek guidance from engine builder)
Top Ring = Bore Diameter X .008-.009
Second Ring = Bore Diameter X .009-.010

 The best approach, in our opinion, to making POWER in any performance engine is to make sure it has the best chance to breath and take in all the air it can…. More air + More Fuel = MORE POWER…it’s that simple. 

With that strategy in mind, we look at the most affordable and “Best Bang for buck” options, while also understanding if this question is being asked, usually the customer is fresh or new to the car seen or modding (And we welcome you!! 😉 

So to get started, we practice what we preach, as all of our parts listed on our online store ( http://halferlandperformance-com.3dcartstores.com/  or click the “shop” tab here on our main website) focuses directly on this model. The first place to look will be Intake Manifold, and here is where Spacers come into play.  A lot of guys get fooled into thinking Spacers (Manifold and Throttle body) will make power…THAT’S WRONG! Spacer do effect the engines performance, but not in the way most think. Spacers, simply put, are just extensions of the intake plenums/runners…usually always, regardless of engine platform, the longer the runner the more Torque an engine makes lower in the rpm power band, the shorter the runner/plenum usually means the engine will have more top end. So really in the end spacers are only shifting or moving the power band around, with it usually gaining about 4-5 torque down low in the 2500-4500rpm range…but when power is added down low it takes that power from somewhere else, and that “somewhere else” is usually always your TOP END POWER. So essentially all it’s doing is moving the power from your top end,  down lower in the rpm power band, NOT gaining any true power and actually LOSING Power up top!! This also holds true with TB spacers, but that shift in power is EVEN LESS then IM spacers, making TB spacer completely worthless….ultimate Snake Oil!!! 

Further more, the Spacers you see some companies offer are cut in half (half the size), as the OEM full size spacer would require your hood to be spaced up or the hood wouldn’t close. To get past this, those companies cut the spacers in half, essentially make that part only half effective as it should be. So in the end, they get two parts to sell for the price of (1) (or they can make two parts for the price of one) and you get half the gains……which is next to nothing. Full size spacers will move the power band and you’ll see 4-5tq gains down low, while taking away roughly 2-3whp up top.  Now cut that in half and that nets you a whopping 2-2.5 wtq gains down low and loosing around 1-2whp up top!  For the cost, time and effort, it’s simply not worth the effort or your money. Again, all of our parts through our store focus on parts that have been proven to make a difference and GAIN power, not simply shift it around (PnP IM 8-15whp Gains, PnP Stage 3 Venturi TB 5-12whp gains, PnP Runners 5-15whp Gains, HLP Billet 81mm Throttle Body 8-15 whp).

In the end, it’s always our customers vehicles and their decisions as to what they spend their money on. If we had a say in there build you will NEVER find any spacers on our cars, whether TB or Manifold spacers. This may seem as a harsh or very direct way to address this topic, but in the end we have seen far too many of our customer fall for these advertising tricks and “Snake oil” products. Stick to what has been proven to make power, not what seems to be the easy way out…..and ultimately, many of our proven parts are not too much more in cost the those Snake oil Spacers. 😉

Hope is was a helpful write up and you gained so info from it…. Signing out.