For the problem of collecting and transmitting the transient temperature data of top surface of internal combustion engine piston quickly and stably, a set of acquisition system for piston top surface transient temperature was designed and the hardware and software system were developed respectively. The system used Zigbee wireless communication technology with high reliability, low cost and low power consumption, which overcame the fuel spray interference and fixing difficulty during the infrared test and the high power consumption during Bluetooth test. The designed system was applied on the 4100QB2 diesel engine and was verified by the experiment. The results show that the system has good reliability and high test accuracy under high temperature and high reciprocating acceleration environment.