I called wiesco and they do not make a piston for the Savage. I ended up buying a half over piston OEM from the dealership. Original piston was blown. I called 3 dealerships until one found the part number. Can always shave the head to bump compression.

Need to make sure of valve clearance and need to be aware of slack in timing chain. There is a mod that can take up extra slack, just not sure where I saw it.

longmi01 wrote on 08/07/08 at 10:19:22:

I actually had the barrel skimmed by 1mm, which coupled with a thinner head gasket took the compression to about 9.2:1.  

This does produce more slack in the chain, but with the Verslagen mod, or something similar done yourself if you have access to welding gear and a pillar drill, that's not a problem.  I also re-drilled the cam gear to relocate the camshaft dowel pin because the chain slack also changed cam timing - not by much, but I was being thorough.

Bending the chain guide doesn't actually achieve much - I'd already tried that.

Valve clearance is not a problem - there is loads with it being a low compression engine and a relatively low lift cam, so skimming the head isn't going to cause a problem in that respect.

I couldn't find an off the shelf replacement piston.  However, I have come across a guy who had a high compresson domed piston made - unfortunately I've lost his contact details.
There are companies which will make you one-off pistons, just not cheap.  He went pretty wild with his Savage, ended up with over 60hp.