Cylinder Block
The cylinder block is a special one-piece casting with the cylinder bores drilled directly into the block. Special oilways for the lubricating system are also drilled into the block.
There are two tunnels for the balancer shafts in the block. The tunnels have aluminum bearing bushings pressed into them. The bushings are replaceable without requiring machining.
Pistons
The pistons are made of light alloy and have grooves for two compression rings and one oil scraper ring.
The plain top compression ring is chromium-or molybdenum-coated and the bottom compression ring has oil scraping characteristics. The actual oil scraper ring is in three parts. The pistons are tin-coated.
The engines are fitted with reinforced pistons, the tops of which are hard-anodized, of slightly lower dimensions that previous models to give lower compression. The pistons have been adapted to take connecting rods with trapezoid little ends. They are also fitted with nitrogen case-hardened gudgeon pins. All 2.0 litre engines have a compression ratio of 8.8:1 and 2.3 litres engines 9.3:1.