egge pistons

Egge makes the dished piston as well as the flat top piston for the 290 engine. The dished piston would be part number L2247, and the flat top would be L2340. The flat top set is $329 and the dished set is $299.

Take a piston to the machine shop and have them see what they can find that's close. I know some people have mentioned 305 or 307 Chevy pistons, and the 258 or 4.0L pistons. 199/232/258 pistons fit the same bore as the 290 -- 3.75". 4.0L pistons are 3.875". The 290 can be bored 0.100" safely. Most will say it can be bored 0.125", but I'd have it checked for anything over 0.100" just to be sure. I don't think you can get flat top 199 pistons any more. I don't know what the pin ehight is on the 232/258 pistons, or the dish, but they might be usable and a lot cheaper.

You don't want the 10:1 compression, not unless you plan on running premium all the time.
I'd keep it at 8.0-8.5:1 and get a little more power with a torque (towing/RV) cam and a better intake and carb. For street performance the Edelbrock Performer cam/intake/carb package works good.

You might want to check around and see what you can get a 360 core for. The 360 is the most common AMC V-8, used through 1991 in Grand Wagoneers (check all big Jeeps! 75% will have a 360 in them). The trans you have will hold up okay to a stock 360 in a cruiser. Not much you can do to beef up the M-4x auto though, so I wouldn't go racing with it or build the engine much if you go that route.

The machine shop I go to woundn't even ream the ridge out, he said there would be a chance you can damage the cylinder wall doing that and you would end up boring it anyhow. I've been looking everywhere for 290 pistons, the best deal on cast ones I found was egge. I also tried finding a master kit for a 290 with no luck.

The motor in my car now is burning a good amount of oil and fouling out plugs. I bought a 290 in a package deal with some other parts. I just wanted to do a quick rebuild and ad some performance(cam 4barrel carb, maifold, 71 304 heads with slightly bigger valves). The ridges in the holes were between 6 and 8 with the exception of the rear hole around 10 thosandths. I don't plan on racing at the track, I just want a streetable car with some performance but I don't want to waste money buy throwing it at a 290 either as of now I have no real money into the motor.

Yea bulltear's like 600$ and egge's like 350$. I'm still thinking of re using the old slugs, everything came out good on specs, but if I have low compression pistons I don't want to re use them.