Hmm, you are right. This cylinder have steel lining so the original piston may not work.
Maybe Wiseco have a piston that fits?

 

Can you post a picture ? The photos I saw on the ebay listing posted don't appear to show a steel lined bore and look like a plated cylinder.

 

Visual TNC. Had a stock 300 piston on hand. The chinese piston has larger diameter and deeper relief cast into the dome.
Chose the lower compression.

The cylinder liner is spray on. It may be iron, as many manufactures are going back that way, but it looked like it wasn't to me.

 

What do you mean by spray on? Is it plated or something else. Important to know in getting rings

 

"spray on" is likely a reference to plasma transfer wire arc process -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma...ermal_spraying

Somehow I don't see this being a more cost effective alternative to Nikasil plating for these chinese cylinders which are obviously being produced at low cost.

 

So would you use rings designed for Nikasil or for a standard steel sleeve?

 

Hi Geo,
you say smoke in your area, are you in BC? I'm in Alberta and thinking about buying the same jug & piston to upgrade my klx250 to 300.

 

Can anyone answer this question? What rings are being used with these Chinese cylinders?

 

Kawasaki used the same process with their cylinders some years back. They called it Electrofusion. For whatever reason Kawasaki went to plating with Nikasil.

Electrofusion was actually plasma vapor deposition (PVD) - the material is deposited on the surface in plasma vapor form as your link points out. PVD is a common method to plate cutting tools for longer life, like TiN coating of drill blades (the gold coat). It is also done for a wide variety of other material coatings. You also see it used on fork legs for wear resistance. It is not an inferior process to plating.

When it comes to cost, it is expensive in initial set up costs. Twenty years ago when I was on a team investigating setting up a PVD system for a cutting tool company the initial investment was $3,000,000 in equipment plus the time and money to adjust and fine tune the process after installation. Not very cheap in 1996 dollars. I would venture to say it probably is more accurate in thickness of plating. It is possibly overkill for a cylinder, maybe the reason why Kawasaki no longer does it. The Chinese may be able to justify it due to sheer volume in their market.

 

I am not versed in the science or technical application of either PTWA or Nikasil. However doing some poking around brought me to a nissan forum where some seemingly knowledgeable people were discussing the then new GTR which used a PTWA iron coated cylinder.

Long story short, there were concerns about the durability (especially when pushed beyond design, ie souping up the car) and that Nikasil was a much better solution for aluminum bores as it was both thicker and more durable. It's likely that Kawasaki came to the same conclusion.