The inner workings of an engine are extremely dynamic and apply heavy amounts of force along with searing heat to the parts that reside inside of it. While the crank is the backbone of the engine, the pistons inside the cylinders take a beating and need to be tough as nails, as well. To make sure the pistons are durable and to assist with heat expansion process they go through, JE Pistons has developed their Perfect Skirt coating that will benefit any high-performance engine.

The Perfect Skirt coating is designed to help 2618 alloy pistons that are commonly used in high-performance applications address their larger piston-to-wall clearances that can cause excess engine noise during cold startup. This type of noise can sometimes be mistaken for a much bigger issue like a rod trying to exit the engine.

Evan Perkins from JE Pistons provides some great insight as to why the 2618 alloy piston is great for performance but does have some drawbacks that needed to be addressed.

“The 2618 piston is prone to heat expansion that requires pistons be installed in the bore with significant clearance, up to .006-.008 inches in big-bore applications. As the piston heats up, it expands and takes up this slack, but there is still significant wear and noise (piston slap) that occurs when the engine is cold. That’s where Perfect Skirt comes in. The revolutionary, new skirt coating is very thick and, unlike other coatings on the market, compressible.

It takes up the slack between the piston and cylinder wall when the engine is cold, protecting against noise and wear, and compresses once the engine has reached operating temperature. Essentially, it allows a racing piston to act like a stock, cast piston in terms of cold-start manners, noise, and skirt wear.”

The unique properties of the Perfect Skirt coating go beyond engines that are just naturally-aspirated. If your powerplant is getting an extra boost from a power-adder while using a 2618 piston, the Perfect Skirt Coating can still assist with keeping piston-to-wall clearances where they need to be.

“Really, the Perfect Skirt coating has benefits to anyone running a 2618 piston whether the engine is naturally aspirated, supercharged, turbocharged, or nitrous-injected. However, very high output power-adder applications that require even larger piston-to-wall clearances than normal may see a greater benefit to Perfect Skirt due to its ‘cushioning’ qualities,” Perkins explains.

If you’re thinking about upgrading pistons take a look at all the options JE Pistons offers that have the Perfect Skirt coating as something you can add.