muddblood

Hello all. I am planning an engine swap in my Mitsubishi and my goal is 400rwhp, so around 500hp at the crank. I plan on buying the Elate TVS1900 supercharger intercooled kit to get to this horsepower level. The 3UZ I picked up needs rebuild so bare minimum, I’ll be upgrading to forged H beam connecting rods and all ARP hardware. My biggest question at this point is will I need forged pistons as well? I understand why they are needed, but I’m worried about needing a long warmup time before driving the vehicle, although maybe not as necessary with 4032 pistons. I’ve seen some Chinese forged pistons that are somewhat affordable, but very leary of Chinese internal engine parts.

I’ve read that 500hp is the max the stock pistons can handle reliably and over time, so I’d definitely be pushing the limits. This will be an off-road vehicle and will be driven to trails, sometimes up to 3-4 hours away or more, a few times a year. It will also be a back up daily driver. No racing…or very limited racing 😉.

It’ll see mostly low to mid RPM’s, but when I get in trouble, I tend to “throttle out” so it will see higher RPM’s from time to time. I’m REALLY hoping that the 200% increase in power this swap will provide that this won’t be necessary, at least as often.

LeX2K

I think the block will fail before the pistons at that power level. If you do decide to go forged pistons I would be extremely careful to measure them as precisely as possible I'm betting the tolerances and variances are poor.

muddblood

Why would the block fail? People are pushing 1,000hp+ on 1UZ’s which is the same block. I’ve also read on forums that with a good tune, people are pushing as much as 17psi boost on stock internals. Granted, you can’t believe everything on the internet, which is why I want to over build the engine as much as possible. And I won’t be continuously beating on it.

LeX2K

Have doubts anyone is pushing 1000hp+ long term without blowing up the engine. I'll be very very impressed if that is the case.