Builders are doing big things with the little Daza 2.5-liter 5-cylinder in the Audi RS3 and TTRS. This turbocharged little wonder makes 400 horsepower from the factory, but with the right upgrades, it doubles and triples those numbers. Pistons are among those key upgrades, and JE has the recipe for big turbo power.
JE’s DAZA Extreme pistons are a 2618 forging with all the bells and whistles. “Hard anodizing all throughout the part, skirt coating, dual velocity gas ports … it’s a product of us following along with the market,” stated Kevin Bailey at JE Pistons. “Thirty pounds of boost is basically stock, so these guys are going 60, 70, 80, up to three-digits in boost. As this application has become more popular in drag racing, it’s something that we wanted to make sure we built a part that was actually designed for that level of boost and horsepower.
“We hard anodize the entire part. It’s not like a thermal coating that could break down over time. It’s the most resilient coating that we do have to protect the part from the extreme combustion pressure,” continued Bailey. “It gets turned off at the skirts so we can apply a skirt coating, but it stays in all of the ring lands to prevent microwelding.”
The skirt coating is a dry-film, moly-based coating to reduce friction, and does not remain for the life of the piston like the hard anodizing.
The highlight, though, is the patented dual velocity gas ports that won JE an award for last year at the SEMA Show. This is the most high-end gas porting design that JE offers for high boost applications for maintaining optimum ring seal. If you didn’t know, gas porting channels the combustion pressure to the back of the ringland to keep the top ring forced out against the cylinder wall.
“Traditionally you have vertical and lateral gas ports. A vertical gas port is drilled through the crown of the piston and into the top ring land. And a lateral gas port is drilled above the top ring land, laterally. Vertical gas ports work the best for maintaining ring seal, but they can get clogged. We moved that out to the very edge of the piston and we combined it, so we go down along the side and then we go in laterally as well. It helps create a channel that can give you the benefits of the vertical gas port without the issue of it getting clogged.”
The DAZA Extreme pistons also use accumulator grooves on the piston crown, also called anti-detonation grooves. “It creates more volume above the top ringland for some of those combustion gases to accumulate. The more space you have for those to go, the less pressure it puts around the top ring to help prevent ring flutter [like gas ports] and increase ring seal.”
The pistons come standard with extra beefy, .250-inch wall wrist pins to conjoin to some heavy-duty connecting rods.
