There is a lot of information about AA P&C's doing exactly what your explaining on Samba.com. Im not saying they are bad equipment but the large number of times i have read about this happening will definatly make me steer clear of them.Hope you have better luck the next go around.

the next set of pistons i put on it will not be aa brand, in my opinion they are junk, what kind of pistons does most people run?

Yall ever watch Star Trek? Every time they all beam down to the new planet the young new Luetenant gets ate by the monster. Same with the Vdub motors.

I don't what the big deal is about the VW engines, I think they will last a long time if properly built with proper parts and even proper maintenance. They are high maintenance engines and will need to be checked out every other ride for good oil level, end plays, and run good fuel. There are guys I know that has been running their VW engines for 10+ years without splitting the case to rebuilt it, all they had to do is just re-ring the pistons once every few years or by checking them with a compression tester to see if it needs to be done, I like some of the water cooled buggies, but for what I like doing now, I am sticking with the VW engines myself because they are lighter, easier to work on and even lighter than w/c engines.

Mahle are hard to find & will get harder so start looking now .