Well, technology has improved over the years, and products have come around which are good.
If you look at how lubricants, both 2T and 4T lubricants have improved over the years, it would be hard to argue that technology and performance has not increased greatly over the years.
If look the automotive technology, carburetors were king forever, then came throttle body injection, then port injection, and now we have direct injection. All of these advancements have meant better efficiency, power, and reliability.
Products like Jet-Hot on headers , and ceramic coatings on turbo chargers have also shown benefits.
There are many high performance engines with coated bearings, cam shafts, crank shafts, pistons, etc.
I contacted Calico coatings whom I have used in the past to have engine bearings and pistons coated on a high performance turbo engine that I built. Upon tear down, the coated piston skirts had noticeably less wear and scuffing on them when compared to non-coated pistons. Calico and Swain are two of the big guys in the industry.
They recommended the following:
CT-2 Ceramic coating on the piston top and conbustion chamber (cyl head). Thickness is between .5 - 2 mil (.0005 - .002") , and it provides thermal protection in excess of 2000┬░.
http://www.calicocoatings.com/coating-d ... c-coating/
And
CT-3 Dry Film Lubricant and Anti-Scuffing coating on the piston skirt. Thickness is 1 - 1.5 mil (.001 - .0015" ) . Reduces friction and anti-scuffing on the skirts means better lubrication with 2T oil and less wear, longer life of the piston and bore. This reduction of friction also means less heat & better efficiency, which in the end means more power gained, less energy being wasted and converted to heat.
http://www.calicocoatings.com/coating-d ... lubricant/
The quote for this work was $71.20 including shipping back to me. For as much money as we put into these toys we have, what is another $70 added to it?
Swaying away from the Honda scooters, I used to have a pretty built Yamaha blaster which was bored 1mm over, and was extensively ported and tuned with the ProCircuit pipe and silencer, and a bunch over other go-fast goodies. That quad was FAST! People used to laugh at my 200cc AC quad, but it would destroy Raptors off the gun and would run with just about anything. Anyway, it was originally built with a Wiseco Forged piston, and then later with a WSM Factory Coated piston. I'm not sure what they used, but it was some sort of anti-friction coating on the skirt. The piston and bore held up MUCH better than the "raw" Wiseco did.
So from what I have seen, these coatings are a good thing. I don't believe that their thickness's would cause any clearance issues.
So I guess I'm already sold on the product, but I was more interested to see if anyone else has done this with their scooter? And also, since I've read that the Corsa kit "may" have a graphite coated piston (which I have been unable yo verify, and maybe someone who sells these or had owned them can chime in on that) , does anyone know if that "graphite" coating would cause an issue with having the piston coated by one of these companies. "IF" in fact Polini ships the Corsa BBK's with a graphite coated pisto n, is it a coating on the skirt? Entire piston? Etc. I will have to contact Calico to see if that is something which can be removed before they do their coating , or if you are stuck with it how it is.