96-98 stock pistons, are they really that bad

[esandes]

When going to a blower it is best to get the heads and intake ported and also get forged dished pistons. The 99+ heads have a higher compression ratio than previous stangs so porting them a bit will help bring the compression down to make for a blower friendly engine. The dished pistons do wonders with a blower by lowering compression again by adding the extra cc's.

It's just a good idea to get stronger forged pistons when you get near 400 HP. I don't know how much 8 psi will get you for HP but I bet further down the road you'll tweak with the boost (more) and then you'll need new pistons anyways.

To make the most of a blown stang you really need some new cams too, x-pipes and cat back, long tube headers and a custom dyno tuned chip.