With standard production cars that is possible because no matching is done. With racing cars pistons are matched with the cilinders. Ofcourse piston rings will take care of the gaps between piston and sleeve but still a perfect size piston hardly needing a piston ring will work better, that is why F1 engines as an example are heated up first before starting, just to prevent a tiny bit wear on the piston with a cold start to keep the perfect fit.

With our engines all comes to microns which is impossible to get produced out of the machines. Even after grinding the sleeves and pistons still a matching of piston and sleeve is done so after seveal processes it is unclear which parts you have from which timeline of the production.

As mentioned by me, the goldhead could have better mached parts for an optimised performance.