Mahle Motorsports is making it easy on 6.1L Hemi owners by offering a forged “drop-in” piston that can support boost or nitrous.
“There’s no need to rebalance, it’s the same weight. There’s no compression change,” explains Mahle’s Trey McFarland, noting the factory Hemi pistons are cast aluminum. “These pistons can also be used when swapping heads from the 6.4L Hemi to the 6.1.”
The piston is forged from 4032 aluminum and comes complete with pins, rings and circlips. The valves reliefs are also slightly deeper to accommodate more aggressive camshafts. The piston skirts feature Mahle’s proprietary Grafal anti-friction coating, and the top ring grooves are hard anodized. Finally, the pistons are phosphate coated.
“The annodizing helps eliminate micro welding, and phosphate helps prevent galling in the pin bore,” adds McFarland.
In other new applications, Mahle has a NHRA Super Stock-legal replacement piston for the 5.4L Super Cobra Jet. It’s designed for maximum compression, reduced drag and improved ring seal.
“It’s a true 12.5:1 piston,” says McFarland, noting the piston was recently used in a class-record run.
Mahle also has a drop-in piston for the 502ci Mercury Marine engine, including a model that is .004 larger than stock.
“Sometimes the rings freeze to the cylinders when the boat is stored over winter,” explains. “This piston is slightly larger to fit a honed cylinder but there’s no need to rebalance or retune.”
The Mercury pistons feature the same coatings and design elements as the other Mahle Motorsports products.
Finally, Mahle has pistons for the Boss and P-38 engines designed by Jon Kaase.