I can run H116cp hypereutectic pistons in 360, but they require even more milling. They are heavier, Rusty likes them.
I have not found a comparable hyper piston to KB-167 for the 318. There is merit to your views on KB. I have had a cast piston break apart in a 73 340 and simply replaced the piston and ring while cleaning up the bore with a home, changing the oil, a scraping off aluminum shreds and chunks from the bore and combustion chamber-I don’t think that the hypereutectic pistons would have given me as good of recovery (piston broke apart from the lean condition of the 600?cfm 4160 feeding 100mph driving with a coolant leak.
At least with forged, the bearings will probably fail from detonation before the pistons do.
Most 318 pistons are even lower compression until one eclipses $650-$700++ for the several forged options, all with 1.8 compression height as far as I can tell.
I did consider the DSS piston and ring set, they have the reduced ring thickness that you and yellow-?dart? Talk about.