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in NSW at least, i believe that 9psi is the legal maximum permitted.
I have never actually ever heard or read anything like this. Is it only a recent thing?
How do they or how do they plan to govern something like this?
Lots of boost does create a lot of heat and if you dont have a half decent intercooler it will be hard to control the burn of the fuel in the engine
But if you do have a way of dropping the compressed inlet charges temp (ie; intercooler, water methanol injection) there is no reason why a high boost level will be detrimental to a pistons life if the air/fuel ratio is stoichiometric. Think about it, yes there is more power generated in the combustion event but if it is stoichiometric it is still a controled burn ( it cant be any hotter than a non boost combustion event as if it was detination would occur)
Think about a methanol engine, it has a more explosive combustion event creating more power but yet the engine still doesnt get hot like a petrol engine.
All this is the reason why I always say forged pistons are only security for a badly tuned engine. ( security as in they can handle the abuse for a bit longer, but still not forever)
I myself could only really justify the expense of forged pistons on a big dollar engine that if something went wrong with you would be down alot of money from the damage caused by a damaged piston.( everyone has their own price limit)
Think about this, have you ever seen a piston with a hole blown through it from too much boost? it's always a melted piston, cracked piston or broken ring lands all of which are caused by to much heat because the engine leaned out and detinated.
Thats just my views.
I remeber friends once ran a big decompression plate on a turbo a12 a few years ago now, it was like 3 or 4 mm's thick plus the 2 head gaskets, they calculated compression to be around 6:1.
The exhuast note it made at idle was awsome, it sounded hollow like a big GTR Skyline. This car handled high boost allday( high boost meaning 20psi + ) but when we compared it to a standard compression turbo a12, the power it made at high boost was equal to the stock compression engine at low boost. ( testing was only ever done on road, so there was never any actual documented evidence like a dyno test, it was just how it felt to drive)
In thought if more boost could have been made, more power could have been achievable but for a street engine to run compression like that, the amount of lag made the overall power output hardly worth it.
Just a few thoughts to consider when contemplating if its worth it to run low compression.