BME Forged Aluminum Pistons

Kyle Busch, a driver who sometimes is as controversial and colorful as he is talented, was runner-up for most wins in 2008 of any NASCAR Sprint Cup competitor. He put the #18 M&M's/Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry in victory lane eight times in '08. Image: Joe Gibbs Racing

Ok...so Hendrick Motorsports won the Sprint Cup in 2008.

One goal the Hendrick teams couldn't achieve was winning the most races in the season. In the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, that honor went to Coach Joe Gibbs' Toyota Camrys, in the hands of Tony Stewart, Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin.

The three Gibbs cars, Stewart's #20 Home Depot Toyota, Busch's #18 M&M's Toyota and Hamlin's #11 FedEx Toyota saw the victory circle in ten events and were in the top-five 31 times--a dominating performance, indeed. Joe Gibbs Racing's engine shop is a BME Pistons customer.

Multiple Sprint Cup wins not enough for you? In 2008, Bill Miller Engineering Pistons won the Championship in the NASCAR Nationwide series. Clint Bowyer, driving the #2 BB&T Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS, had a remarkable 29, top-10 finishes in 35 Nationwide events. Power for Bowyer's Chevy came from ECR Engines and they use BME Forged Aluminum Pistons, exclusively. In 2007, BME Pistons won the Craftsman Truck Championship. Ron Hornaday, driving the #33 Camping World Chevrolet Silverado, fought a tough, season-long battle with runner-up Mike Skinner's Toyota. Hornaday, who used ECR Engines fitted with BME Pistons, won 4 races, placed in the top-5 thirteen times and win the title by 54 points. For both Bowyer and Hornaday, Bill Miller Engineering Forged Aluminum Racing Pistons were a winning edge.

BME Pistons winning NASCAR races is nothing new. They helped Tony Stewart win the Sprint Cup in 2005. Coming into the last race that year, Stewart led second-place, Jimmie Johnson, by 52 points and third place, Carl Edwards, by 87. Early-on, Stewart found the #20 didn't handle well couldn't make the top-10. With Johnson running as high as 14th and Edwards in the top five, the pressure was on.

While Johnson crashed about halfway through the race, Carl Edwards still ran up front while Tony continued to struggle. Nevertheless, a reliable, BME-equipped engine combined with Tony’s tenacity and driving talent, great Goodyear tires and chassis tweaks during pit stops held the points lead. Stewart finished 15th clinching the Championship by a scant, 35 points over Edwards. He never thought twice about pistons.

Why?

The quality and reliability of Bill Miller Engineering Forged Aluminum Racing Pistons. Eight of which were under the hood of Stewart's #20 Home Depot Chevrolet. In fact, during the ten years Tony Stewart drove for Joe Gibbs, the engines in his Pontiacs, Chevrolets and Toyotas all used BMW Pistons.

Reliability in NASCAR

The Nationwide title in '08 and the Truck titles in '07 were just part of BME's success in NASCAR racing. Another part of it was, between 1999 and 2008, Joe Gibbs Racing's three Sprint Cups (Stewart in '02 and '05 and one in 2000 with Bobby Labonte) 61 race wins and 263 top five finishes. More BME success came from the greatest driver of NASCAR’s modern era, seven-time Champion, the late Dale Earnhardt, who relied upon BME performance and reliability to put the famed #3 Goodwrench Chevrolet in the victory circle at Daytona in 1998 and at other races in the final years of his career. His son, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was a BME Pistons user, too, during the six years he drove the #8 Budweiser Chevrolet for Dale Earnhardt, Inc.

Since 1996, six NASCAR Sprint Cup Champions, Jeff Gordon (1997, 1998, 2001) Bobby Labonte (2000) and Tony Stewart (2002, 2005), along with four Daytona 500 Winners used BME Pistons.

Why?

Bill Miller Engineering makes a better product.

Great pit work by the Joe Gibbs Racing crew and the reliability of the 20's BME-equipped engine, were two big factors in Tony Stewart winning the Sprint Cup in 2005. Image: Goodyear/Aaron Vandersommers.

In 1998, the late Dale Earnhardt won at Daytona using BME.

In the mid-’90s, the first Sprint Cup team to switch to BME Pistons gained 8-10 horsepower. In the cutthroat competition of NASCAR’s top series, where five horsepower is big difference, that’s an amazing improvement. Soon, other teams made the switch. By the end of 1999, all the top GM teams in Sprint Cup were buying BME Pistons.

What is it about a Bill Miller Engineering piston that offers the extra power, reliability and durability which gives guys like Tony Stewart, Clint Boyer and Ron Honaday a winning edge? To get an idea, go back a dozen years when Cup teams used another brand of piston. Back then, the engine shops at Richard Childress Racing and Hendrick Motorsports had trouble with “microwelding.”

At the 2005 Daytona 500, of the six lead cars in this picture, three of them ran BME pistons, the Home Depot, NAPA and Cat cars. That says a lot about how Bill Miller Engineering sets the trend as far as pistons in NASCAR race engines
Image: Goodyear/Aaron Vandersommers..

In the mid-to-late-'90s, NASCAR engine technology was such that the heat transfer path was: from the piston top, to the top ring, to the cylinder wall and finally to the water jacket. In order for the piston to not overheat, this path had to facilitate adequate heat transfer. Those other pistons had ring land surface finishes so rough that heat transfer from the piston to the top compression ring was inhibited. That allowed the ring to get hot enough that microscopic, heat-softened pieces of piston material would weld to the ring. Once that happened, ring seal degraded and power dropped.

The solution to microwelding is the higher-quality ring groove finish on a Bill Miller Engineering Forged Aluminum Piston. Superior manufacturing processes, using Okuma Simulturn CNC machining centers, and rigid quality controls hold tolerance for ring groove run-out to less than two ten-thousandths (.0002) of an inch, 360° around the piston. A BME Piston’s nearly mirror-smooth ring groove surfaces improve heat transfer. That reduces the peak temperature of the top ring, eliminating microwelding. Ring seal during the intake stroke is enhanced. That increases the pressure differential caused by the piston moving down on the intake stroke so the engine pulls in more air. More air means the engine can burn more fuel. The final result is more power.

BME Pistons are manufactured in Carson City, Nevada. BME's factory is clean, modern and filled with the latest in manufacturing technology, such as Okuma Simulturn five-axis CNC machining centers.

Since BME Pistons are custom made, the company offers a wide variety of optional services. One of these services some NASCAR teams prefer is the option to purchase a unique piston design. This allows the team to have pistons of its own, special configuration. The specifics of these designs are known only to the teams’ engine shops and the engineers at BME. Teams using specific piston designs may be getting even more of a performance edge than the 8-10 horsepower discussed earlier.

BME makes 400-gram, NASCAR racing pistons for the Chevrolet SB2 and RO7, the Dodge R5-P7 and the Toyota NASCAR engines.


	Six views of a BME Forged Aluminum Sprint Cup Piston.

BME Pistons: The Drag Racers' Choice

Six-time IHRA Top Fuel champion and current NHRA T/F racer, Clay Milican has used BME Pistons in his Werner Enterprises/Knoll Gas Dragster for 17 years straight. Image: Goodyear/Aaron Vandersommers.

Bill Miller Engineering's cutting-edge technology and premium quality wins races in another motorsport which is a grueling test of pistons: blown-fuel drag racing.

Ever since legendary, dragster and funny car crew chief, Dale Armstrong, switched to BME in the late-1980s, many blown-fuel racers have used BME Pistons in their engines. Since then, in the Top Fuel and Funny Car classes of National Hot Rod Association and International Hot Rod Association competition, where 8000 horsepower, supercharged, nitromethane-fueled, 500 cubic inch hemis are the norm; BME products are the benchmark by which hard-core, racing pistons are judged.

In 2008, Spencer Massey won the IHRA Top Fuel Championship and Terry Haddock won the IHRA Funny Car title with BME. In 2006, the IHRA Top Fuel title was won by Clay Millican using Bill Miller Engineering Pistons. In fact, Millican is a six-time IHRA Top Fuel Champion and has used BME pistons in his Werner Enterprises/Nitro Fish Dragster for 18 straight seasons. Millican moved-up to a full NHRA T/F schedule in '07 and continues to rely on the performance and reliability of BME parts. In NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing, Doug Herbert’s Snap-On Tools/Red Line Oil Top Fuel Dragster and Bob Vandergriff's Mac Tools fueler run BME Pistons.

Independents in drag racing's nitro classes are self-sponsored and their racing programs are more focused on cost issues. For that reason, many Independents use BME Forged Aluminum Racing Pistons for the durability advantage they offer compared to other brands of pistons for blown fuel applications. So far, 1/3 of the way through the 2009 NHRA Full-Throttle Drag Racing season, Alan Hartley is the only Independent currently running the full NHRA schedule who's car has qualified at every National Event. His Hartley Racing Top Fuel Dragster is driven by his son, Joe, and the team uses not only BME Pistons, but BME Rods, Wrist Pins and the Gibson/Miller Supercharger, as well.

Bill Miller's BME/Okuma/Red Line OiI Top Fuel Dragster, driven by Troy Buff, is a key development and continuous improvement tool which Bill Miller Engineering uses to validate its Pistons along with the company's other products, BME Rods, BME Wrist Pins and the Gibson/Miller Mark II Supercharger. During 2008, the BME Top Fuel Team finished 14th in points, the highest finish by any Top Fuel team running a partial schedule.

What better way to prove you make the best blown-fuel pistons in the industry by running them in your own Top Fuel Dragster? Image: Auto Imagery/Dave Kommel

And then, there’s Pro Stock. “I bet you a quarter of the Pro Stock field run my pistons.” Bill Miller says. Anyone who’s seen the size of the Pro Stock entry list at an NHRA or IHRA event knows that’s a lot of cars. Some Pro Stocks using BME Pistons are: Larry Morgan's Dodge Stratus, Justin Humphreys' RaceRedi Motorsports Pontiac GXP, Steve Schmidt's Pontiac GTO, V. Gains Dodge Stratus and Kenny Koretsky's Nitro Fish/Indicom Electric Chevy Cobalt.

Melanie Troxel, shown here driving the Skull Gear Top Fuel car in 2006, has used BME Pistons since her return to driving in 2005. She continues to use BME Pistons in the Funny Car she drives today. Image: Goodyear/Aaron Vandersommers.

How about Pro Mods, Econorails, Super Gas cars, Super Stocks, Sport Compacts...even bracket cars? Lots of drag racers in the NHRA and IHRA sportsman categories, wanting the same reliability had by the Clay Millicans, Mike Ashleys, Larry Morgans of the sport, use BME pistons to win races.

Two well-known reasons many nitro class engine builders choose BME Forged Aluminum Pistons are 1) their winning record and 2) their reliability. But, there's a third important issue and that's cost. Top Fuel and Funny Car teams need many sets of pistons because each of them has half-a-dozen or more engines. If the pistons are more durable, they will last longer and a team will need less of them. That makes the BME Piston not only a winner but also a great value. Image: BME Ltd.

Piston Tech Briefing

Bill Miller Engineering Forged Aluminum Racing Pistons are made with forged, 2618-T61 aluminum. BME has used 2618 for almost 25 years because Bill Miller believes it to be the best choice when strength and durability are the prime considerations.

Another reason racers pick BME as their piston supplier is attention to detail. This set of racing pistons is being built for Drag Racing megastar, John Force, but whether it's pistons for Force or just your average bracket racer, every Bill Miller Engineering piston gets the same care taken in its manufacture.

Many other piston manufacturers use a silicon-aluminum alloy, such as 4032 or MS75. Pistons made from that have good wear characteristics because the silicon particulate's hardness improves the piston skirt's durability, however silicon is, also, their downfall because it makes pistons brittle. Through extensive race track testing, BME found that silicon-aluminum alloys, because they are brittle, are prone to fracturing when subjected to extreme loads. The failure rate of silicon alloy pistons in severe-duty, racing applications is fairly high.

In the tongs is a BME raw forging that has just come out of the forging die. Just right of the piston blank in the tongs is a chunk of aluminum bar stock that will go into the forge on the next cycle. The forging temperature is 800 deg. F and it applies a force of 18,000 tons to forge a piston.

This gets worse. With pistons made of brittle, silicon-aluminum alloys, once a crack starts; it doesn’t stop until the piston suffers a catastrophic failure. In the rare case of a crack in a BME, 2618-T61 piston, once the crack reaches an area of lower stress; it stops, making failure less likely.

Sprint Cup racers are using BME pistons to win races with engines which must produce upwards of 850 horsepower, sustain speeds above 9000 rpm and do that for up to 600 miles. The choice of a strong and durable raw material, subtle differences in the design of the forging and precision finishing of ring grooves are just some of the reasons why pistons made by Bill Miller Engineering outperform and outlast virtually all other racing pistons in NASCAR Sprint Cup engines.

With its blown-fuel drag race pistons, BME takes durability measures even further by treating each piston to a very low temperature, hard anodizing process. As a result, BME Pistons, when compared to other brands, last about twice as long in blown-fuel, drag race applications.

Bill Miller Engineering uses state-of-the-art equipment to manufacture BME Pistons. Here a BME Team Member programs an Okuma Simulturn CNC machining center prior to a run of BME Sprint Cup racing pistons. The Okuma CNC equipment is used to machine ring grooves and to "cam turn" the piston's outside diameter.

The Bill Miller Engineering Forged Aluminum Piston line is focused on the types of products hard-core racers tend to buy. “I’ve decided.” Bill Miller states, “to concentrate my efforts on making high-quality, high-tech racing pistons for professional racers who compete in specific types of motorsport using certain types of engines. By focusing on a limited amount of hardcore racing pistons and making those pistons to order, we can give our customers a measure of performance, quality, reliability and durability no other piston manufacturer offers. We, also, can do that with very short turnaround times."

The three most important things about a Bill Miller Engineering piston are quality, quality and quality. Every step of the way, the manufacturing process at BME employs stringent quality control along with careful records keeping.

BME makes pistons for most Chevrolet small-block and big-block V8s along with the SB2 and the RO7. For Ford engines, BME offers pistons for the 460 big-block, 289-302W and the BOSS 302/351s. Bill Miller Engineering has Chrysler, late-Hemi-style, blown-fuel, blown-alcohol and Pro Stock pistons, along with parts for the older small-block Chryslers and the Dodge R5-P7, NASCAR engine. Lastly, BME manufactures sport compact drag racing pistons for Honda four-cylinder engines. Prices for most BME pistons are listed on our price page. BME offers a number of special services which are optional at extra cost. See a list of those on our services page.

BME makes no inventory items. All its pistons are custom-made to customer specifications or, in the case of race teams who take the specific forging die option, are completely unique.

Bill Miller Engineering prides itself on great customer service, accurate technical advice, quick turnaround of orders and high quality parts at fair prices. More importantly, everyone at BME, from the office staff, to the high-tech manufacturing specialists who make the pistons, to the shipping department and, of course, to Bill Miller himself, are intent upon great communication with customers.

Want proof?

Try this with any of the other piston makers: call and ask to speak to the owner. If you don’t get the reply, “Uh--he’s not taking calls.”, you’ll at least get voice mail. At BME, when you ask for help from the top, Bill Miller, himself, answers the phone.

That’s the sign of a great business--the one from which you should buy your next set of racing pistons.

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