The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of design parameters on the friction loss in piston skirt. An analytical model to describe the friction characteristics of piston skirt has been presented, which is based on the secondary motion of piston and mixed lubrication theory, It could be shown that the skirt friction closely depends on the side force acted on the piston pin. The side force is inf1uenced by cylinder pressure at low engine speed, but by inertia force at high engine speed. The usage of extensive skirt area and low weight piston is effective to reduce the friction loss at high speed. The low viscosity oil considerably decreases viscous friction as engine speed increases, but it increases boundary friction at low engine speed. From the parametric study, it is found that the skirt axial profile is the most important design parameter related to the reduction of skirt friction.