001-je-pistons-ferrari-vintage

Restoring a Vintage Ferrari? Our new Piston Line Is Here to Help!

February 7, 2019 / by Bradley Iger

JE's new line of vintage Ferrari pistons are ready to help you pull your prancing horse out of the pasture and put it back on the road! 

Anyone who has taken on a restoration project can attest to the fact that sourcing parts is often one of the more arduous tasks in the quest to get an old-school machine back on the road. And for builders working with low-volume exotics like classic Ferraris, this element of the process is made significantly more challenging due to the scarcity of components.

See all of our Vintage Ferrari parts by Clicking HERE! 

Noticing a trend in vintage Ferrari piston demand, Director of Product Management for JE Pistons, Nick DiBlasi created a full line of shelf stock-parts covering several models.

“Manufacturers only need to maintain replacement parts for ten years, so when we’re talking about sports cars that are forty or fifty years old, most of this stuff is long gone,” explains Nickolaus DiBlasi, Director of Product Management for JE Pistons. “You can’t just ring up Modena and order a replacement piston for a Ferrari 330 GTS." 

Fortunately, this is JE Pistons’ area of expertise. “In general, most of our business is custom pistons,” DiBlasi says. “It’s work that the public often doesn’t hear about – we’re an OE supplier to many manufacturers, and we’ve been doing R&D and one-off stuff across the industry for more than 70 years.”

Since those efforts at the industry level fly below the radar of most folks, it can make connecting consumer demand with manufacturer supply more difficult. But DiBlasi says that custom order trends have shown a clear need for specific parts, and that has pointed the way for new shelf-stock products. “A few years ago, we kind of tested the waters with a piston for Lamborghini’s V10. We just put one part number in our catalog, and all of a sudden the orders just blew up – we ended up selling far more sets than we had ever anticipated. That really paved the way for last year’s revamp of our air-cooled Porsche line, which was also well received.”

JE's line of Ferrari pistons incorporate modern features such as 2618 aluminum, accumulator grooves, and modern forging designs. 

Clearly the JE team was on to something. “One of the other areas where we also do a lot of business is vintage Ferrari,” he says. “Part of our road map was to do a catalog part for vintage Ferraris that was similar to what we did with the air-cooled Porsche line, so we looked at the most popular custom orders and came up with five different engine types based on that. Some people might be a little hesitant to buy a custom piston – it can be pretty daunting – and not everyone knows that custom pistons are a major part of JE’s business, so this really helps to get the word out to people that we already make something for those engines. We also have a lot of customers that need to order the same exact specs over and over, and it’s just so much easier to call in with a catalog part number and order it through any of our dealers rather than going through the custom order process. And if we’re out of stock, having it in the catalog means we can get it to the customer within seven days, whereas if it’s a custom order it could be up to three weeks.”

Vintage Character Meets Modern Tech

 All Ferrari pistons will come standard with JE's Perfect Skirt coating which reduces friction, and piston slap for smooth, quiet operation. 

Along with the value of sheer availability, the pistons in JE’s vintage Ferrari line also benefit from decades of technological advancement while retaining all of the original charm that has made these classic Italians some of the most sought-after machines in the history of motoring.

“Most of these original pistons were developed somewhere around the 1960s, so they were subject to available machining and materials that were available at the time,” DiBlasi points out. “The OEM design is a cast piston, and what we do is put it on our modern 2618 forged aluminum, which is a much stronger material. We also apply our Perfect Skirt coating, which is a 30 micron solid-film lubricant that allows it to conform to the cylinder wall and reduce friction, allowing it to run at those really tight OEM clearances. So you get the motorsport-level strength of the forged aluminum with the install clearance of a factory-equipped part.”

Pistons are available for 2-valve or 4-valve configurations where multiple cylinder head styles were offered.

The enhanced durability coupled with the OE-like clearances provide clear benefits, but these pistons also boast other enhancements that might not be as obvious at first glance.

“Because we’re using modern aluminum, we’re able to make the part lighter than the original,” DiBlasi says. “When you have a cast piston, you have to have a certain amount of material to maintain the required amount of strength. But with a forging, you can use thinner material and produce a part that’s much, much stronger than cast. So by saving weight on these pistons the engine can spin up faster, and the bearings will take less abuse.”

DiBlasi adds that these slugs are ready to go right out of the box. “All of these pistons come with that Perfect Skirt coating, along with pins, wire locks, and rings, and they come weight balanced too, so all builders need to do is fit them to the cylinder.”

Applications 

See all of our Vintage Ferrari parts by Clicking HERE!

Ferrari 246 2.4L 2V DOHC V6– Used in the Ferrari Dino 246 GT and GTS between 1969 and 1974, the 246 was a response to a demand for more power from Ferrari’s customers, and that’s exactly what they got with the new, 2.4-liter mill. The Dino's 2.4-liter V6 was also used in a number of other Italian performance cars subsequent to its debut in the 246, including Lancia’s iconic Stratos rally car.

 


Part #

Bore

Oversize
(mm)

Stroke
(mm)

Rod
(mm)

C/D
(mm)

Head CC's

C/R With .053

Dish/Dome CC's

Ring Set#

 

362209

93.00

0.50

60.0

118

30.0

50.4

9.0:1

12.8

JG1006-3661

 

362210

93.50

1.00

60.0

118

30.0

50.4

9.0:1

12.4

JG1006-3681

 

362211

94.00

1.50

60.0

118

30.0

50.4

9.0:1

12.0

JG1006-3701

 

362212

93.00

0.50

60.0

118

30.0

50.4

10.0:1

18.5

JG1006-3661

 

362213

93.50

1.00

60.0

118

30.0

50.4

10.0:1

18.1

JG1006-3681

 

362214

94.00

1.50

60.0

118

30.0

50.4

10.0:1

17.7

JG1006-3701

 

Ferrari 250 3.0L 2V SOHC V12– The 250 series comprises a collection of sports and racing cars produced by Ferrari between 1953 and 1964, all of which share the common trait of a 3.0-liter, Gioacchino Colombo-designed V12 under the hood. Homologation cars like the 250 GTO have since become some of the most valuable sports cars in history, due not only to their timeless shape, but their distinctive V12 growl as well.

 Part #




Bore

Oversize
(mm)

Stroke
(mm)

Rod
(mm)

C/D
(mm)

Head CC's

C/R With .040

Dish/Dome CC's

Ring Set#

 

362215

73.50

0.50

58.8

112

28.9

44

9.5:1

10.0

XC7350

 

362216

74.00

1.00

58.8

112

28.9

44

9.5:1

9.8

XC7400

 

Ferrari 308 2.9L 2V DOHC V8– Debuting under the hood of the Dino 308 GT4 in 1973, Ferrari’s new eight cylinder power plant would supplant the Dino V6 and see use not only in the 308 GTB and GTS, but the fuel-injected GTBi and GTSi variants as well, along with the Mondial 8.

 


Part #

Bore

Oversize
(mm)

Stroke
(mm)

Rod
(mm)

C/D
(mm)

Head CC's

C/R With .045

Dish/Dome CC's

Ring Set#

 

362220

81.50

0.50

71.0

137

30.7

41

9.0:1

7.8

JG1001-3209

 

362221

82.00

1.00

71.0

137

30.7

41

9.0:1

7.5

JG1001-3228

 

362222

81.50

0.50

71.0

137

30.7

41

10.0:1

13.0

JG1001-3209

 

362223

82.00

1.00

71.0

137

30.7

41

10.0:1

12.6

JG1001-3228

 

Ferrari 308 Quattrovalvole 2.9L 4V DOHC V8– Debuting in 1982, the Quattrovalvole iteration of Ferrari’s V8 provided motivation for not only the 308 GTB QV, GTS QV, and Mondial QV, but Lancia’s Thema 8.32 and LC2 as well, with the latter utilizing a cross-plane crankshaft rather than the flat-plane unit that Ferrari used.

 


Part #

Bore

Oversize
(mm)

Stroke
(mm)

Rod
(mm)

C/D
(mm)

Head CC's

C/R With .045

Dish/Dome CC's

Ring Set#

 

362224

81.50

0.50

71.0

137

30.7

18.5

9.5:1

-12.0

JG1001-3209

 

362225

82.00

1.00

71.0

137

30.7

18.5

9.5:1

-12.3

JG1001-3228

 

362226

81.00

0.50

71.0

137

30.7

18.5

10.0:1

-9.5

JG1001-3209

 

362227

82.00

1.00

71.0

137

30.7

18.5

10.0:1

-9.8

JG1001-3228

 

Ferrari 330 Colombo 4.0L 2V SOHC V12– As the name suggests, this power plant was also the brainchild of Italian engineer Gioacchino Colombo. While Ferrari’s four-liter V12 originally debuted in the 1960 Superamerica, its use in the 330 series in 1963 and beyond brought a few notable changes, including a wider bore spacing to make room for displacement increases down the road.

 


Part #

Bore

Oversize
(mm)

Stroke
(mm)

Rod
(mm)

C/D
(mm)

Head CC's

C/R With .050

Dish/Dome CC's

Ring Set#

 

362228

77.50

0.50

71.0

137

29.9

48

9.0:1

15.4

JG1001-3051

 

362229

78.00

1.00

71.0

137

29.9

48

9.0:1

15.0

JG1001-3071

 

362230

77.50

0.50

71.0

137

29.9

48

10.0:1

20.1

JG1001-3051

 

362231

78.00

1.00

71.0

137

29.9

48

10.0:1

19.8

JG1001-3071

 

DiBlasi also notes that customers who might have unique requirements that deviate from the specifications listed here shouldn’t hesitate to reach out to JE, either. “If a customer, for instance, needs a compression ratio that differs from what’s in our catalog, they can call us and within three weeks we can get them any variation of these pistons that they might need.”

Topics: NEWS, NEW PRODUCTS, featured, Tech

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Written by Bradley Iger

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