Mahle Then and Now

Just thought you guys might be interested.

I recently bought a new piston and cylinder kit for my 084, and was a bit surprised and disappointed with the quality of the new piston.










The old piston is 116 grams, the new one is 124.

Overall the new piston seems to be a bit beefier but the quality is horrible.

I plan on doing some modifications to this piston so it’s not a huge deal for me, it just means I have some extra work to do.

If I had bought this as a straight drop in I would have been pis:censored:sed, as it is I’m not real happy about having to do someone else’s job for them. Seems like quality is slipping everywhere now-a-days.











I can’t help but wonder if this piston would have looked like this if it were made in Virginia Beach by some lazy American.

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Erick said:

Just thought you guys might be interested.

I recently bought a new piston and cylinder kit for my 084, and was a bit surprised and disappointed with the quality of the new piston.



The old piston is 116 grams, the new one is 124.

Overall the new piston seems to be a bit beefier but the quality is horrible.

I plan on doing some modifications to this piston so it’s not a huge deal for me, it just means I have some extra work to do.

I can’t help but wonder if this piston would have looked like this if it were made in Virginia Beach by some lazy American.

.

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its OEM eric????

Yep, Factory OEM Stihl, has MAHLE molded right into the piston skirt complete with the S stamp on top.

This piston is part of a factory Stihl cylinder kit. The cylinder looks fine... not quite as refined as the old one but nowhere near as bad as the piston.

I would be sending it back or contacting the proper people. Thats worse than any aftermarket piston I have ever seen.

Erick said:

I recently bought a new piston and cylinder kit for my 084, and was a bit surprised and disappointed with the quality of the new piston.

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What you're seeing is the difference after many changes were made to increase the integrity of the piston. Guys here running 084s with longer bars were breaking skirts after the piston in the early saws got a bit of wear on it, so Stihl issued a technical bulletin stating that the pistons would be beefed up. Yes, it's also a different alloy to withstand lower octane and quality gas in lesser developed countries that also have a market for big saws. Jonsered did the same thing for the 2094/2095.
Machining the sides of the skirts is redundant. The accuracy of machining that matters most is the tolerance between the skirt and bore, the trueness of the wrist pin boss, and the consistency of the crown height. That's still a far, far better piston than anything aftermarket. You guys are kind of fooling yourselves.

I'm not fooled,,,, send it to me!!!!!!!!!!

But why close up the windows? That's horrible casting in the windows of the piston. I wonder whay mine looks like? I can guarantee you this. When it comes out, it won't go back in looking like that.

What I dont like is the poor quality of the side line of the skirt machining in the last pic. I understand the rest of the changes. It looks like Bubba took his ole die grinder to it.

Jacob J. said:

What you're seeing is the difference after many changes were made to increase the integrity of the piston. Guys here running 084s with longer bars were breaking skirts after the piston in the early saws got a bit of wear on it, so Stihl issued a technical bulletin stating that the pistons would be beefed up. Yes, it's also a different alloy to withstand lower octane and quality gas in lesser developed countries that also have a market for big saws. Jonsered did the same thing for the 2094/2095.
Machining the sides of the skirts is redundant. The accuracy of machining that matters most is the tolerance between the skirt and bore, the trueness of the wrist pin boss, and the consistency of the crown height. That's still a far, far better piston than anything aftermarket. You guys are kind of fooling yourselves.

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No doubt it is better quality than the aftermarkets, but look at pic's 1 and 4 again and tell me thats quality.

Bowtie said:

What I dont like is the poor quality of the side line of the skirt machining in the last pic. I understand the rest of the changes. It looks like Bubba took his ole die grinder to it.

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It's like that on both sides.

blsnelling said:

But why close up the windows? That's horrible casting in the windows of the piston. I wonder whay mine looks like? I can guarantee you this. When it comes out, it won't go back in looking like that.

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This one won't go in like that either.

The sides of the skirt don't mean squat, as long as the piston isn't 'freeporting'. I agree the flashing in the windows is the result of sloppy casting, but again that's minor and that piston will outlast an AIP, Golf, or Meteor piston by a long mile.

Jacob J. said:

The sides of the skirt don't mean squat, as long as the piston isn't 'freeporting'. I agree the flashing in the windows is the result of sloppy casting, but again that's minor and that piston will outlast an AIP, Golf, or Meteor piston by a long mile.

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That makes sense, but we all spend a lot of money for small parts for our saws. That just looks like crap, whether its minor or not, when I spend my money on a high quality product, I want HIGH QUALITY. That is slop. Even if its better than AIP or whoever. People arent doing their job right.

Bowtie said:

That makes sense, but we all spend a lot of money for small parts for our saws. That just looks like crap, whether its minor or not, when I spend my money on a high quality product, I want HIGH QUALITY. That is slop. Even if its better than AIP or whoever. People arent doing their job right.

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And that my friend is the point

You got rep for that

I guess I have bigger things to worry about.

Jacob J. said:

I guess I have bigger things to worry about.

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So a poorly finished OEM piston like that would bother you at all after spend X amount of dollars on it? Guess I value my money.

It's poorly finished...to the untrained eye.

Mahle is still producing the best quality available. There are aftermarket pistons that look good when you take them out of the box, but then you find out that: they don't fit the cylinder as well, the wrist pin boss is just *slightly* off, or the ring grooves aren't consistent and you have to file them out a bit just to get the rings in there.

I'm not a big fan of Mahle either, I've seen Mahle top ends that would make a polecat turn up its' nose, but again they're still producing the best quality product available.

thats sad cause i only use mahle in my race motors. i love them

Jacob J. said:

I guess I have bigger things to worry about.

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So your telling me that you would want to run this piston in your personal saw???

Like I said I've got plans for this piston that don't include a lot of the material in question, but this is far from what I would expect from Mahle.

If the casting you can see is that sloppy, kinda makes me wonder what the casting I can't see is like? Is there a pocket in the casting somewhere?? Maybe a casting flaw or some other inclusion that may lead to a piston failure?? I don't know if you've priced a cylinder kit for a 084 lately but I personally don't want to buy another one anytime soon.

Point is if you spent your hard earned money on a shiny red Ferrari and when you went to pick it up it had one green fender you'd be pis:censored:sed wouldn't you....... why it just looks bad it doesn't effect the performance any??

This is not the kind of quality you expect when you spend your money to get the best.

Jacob J. said:

That's still a far, far better piston than anything aftermarket. You guys are kind of fooling yourselves.

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Jacob J. said:

that piston will outlast an AIP, Golf, or Meteor piston by a long mile.

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Jacob, with all due respect, your posts are usually spot on, but call a spade a spade. I'm with the rest of these guys...putting a Cadillac badge on a GEO doesn't mean it's a Cadillac. That piston looks $hittier than this $30 AIP...and probably cost at least 5 times as much! For the money, Meteor can't be touched.