I am building a SBC 3.5 in bore with either a 3.48 stroke or 3.75 stroke crankshaft with fuel mileage in mind . Some shop talk about compression height with longer rods and a short compression height. What is the trade off with long rod ,short comp height as opposed to shorter rod and tall comp height. The advantages I see is less cylinder side load, less friction, and the narrower rings even less friction. Now what are the disadvantages to the longer rod length? Will the short comp height piston suffer from any reliability problems? My reason for asking this is I have a set of 5.94 powdered rods out of the L99 4.3 v8 and I found these pistons out of a 99 Pontiac 2.4 (quad 4) Brand Keith Black/KB Pistons
Manufacturer's Part Number 3442H-STD
Part Type Pistons
Product Line Silv-O-Lite Hypereutectic Pistons
Summit Racing Part Number UEM-3442H-STD
UPC 800745030382

Bore (in) 3.543 in.
Bore (mm) 90.000mm
Piston Style Dish, with no valve reliefs
Piston Material Hypereutectic aluminum
Compression Distance (in) 1.170 in.
Wrist Pin Style Press-fit
Pin Diameter (in) 0.866 in.
Piston Ring Thickness 1.20mm x 1.50mm x 3.00mm
Quantity Sold as a set of 4.
Notes 2.400 inch diameter, 0.070 inch deep recessed piston head.
The pin bore will have to be bored .061 for a .927 pin. Of course the block will have to bore .043. With this combo it looks like .005 below the deck if my math is correct and the compression height will be similar to a 383 stroker motor with a 6" rod.

 

http://www.iskycams.com/techtips.html#2005