Bump for related question: I have an OEM cast aluminum accumulator piston (1 large sealing ring, 1 small sealing ring) now. Is there a benefit to upgrading to either (a) a billet replacement that has the same # of sealing rings as OEM or (b) a billet replacement that uses 2 large & 2 small rings?

I have no reason to believe there is any problem w/ the OEM cast piston being used now, but want to know if this makes sense to upgrade it while I'll have the pan & valve body off anyway. Thanks - Brad

i too, wonder about those billet accumulator pistons. another question on those. do you run them with springs, or get the one that has the rod on the tip, keeping it up ?

I mentioned above in my 09/25/18 12:01 AM post that I'd read a lot of discussions (that's putting it nicely) about using springs, no springs, blocker rods, etc. People have different opinions and approaches.

FWIW, I'm going to try a heavy outer spring w/o restricting the piston travel and see how that works for me. "Your results may vary!"

No matter what you do with the accumulator springs you won't feel any difference in the seat of your pants. The only change that's noticeable is blocking the accumulator piston.

The billet piston without the built-in blocker rod does seem like the solution for a problem that doesn't exist.

Uhhhh... trans bling for people who want to replace the crappy plastic version with something shinier?

I don't think that all the people who have broken a stock plastic accumulator piston would agree with that statement.

You don't need a pricey billet piston to replace the plastic one, a factory cast aluminum one will do.

Believe it or not, good used factory cast aluminum accumulators are not as easy to find as they use to be, especially if you need to have a regular supply of them. Chrysler hasn't put them in anything since the 80's (over 30 years). No Cummins powered truck came with the cast aluminum accumulator, no overdrive transmission ever came with the cast aluminum accumulator. The switch to plastic happened before either of those even existed. There is a huge market for people that are building transmissions for Cummins trucks and people building performance overdrive gas transmissions. Most shops that specialize in rebuilding those transmissions wouldn't even reuse the plastic accumulator in a completely stock rebuild. If someone building a transmission thinks that 45 bucks is too "pricey" for a part that is readily available and completely solves a problem that does exist, well, I guess I don't really have an answer for that.