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Thank you very much for this information. I've recently had an apparent ring failure after 10years of total use and finally retuning & raising the boost recently. Listening to this and having the damage that I do it seems my 2nd rings were tighter than my top rings. Piston 1, 2 and 3 have cracked ringlands. Piston 2s crown was pushed up and cracked similar to a tree root pushing up through pavement. I did not notice shiny ring ends indicating butting together. All crank journals, bearings, rod journals and bearings appear to of been doing just fine. The cylinder walls are also fine. I was suddenly experiencing excessive blowby as my dipstick was trying to blow out. I did a cylinder leak down test and found cylinder 3 was down 40%. I will recheck my ring gaps as the engine is apart now and I'm investigating. SR20DET, 1.01×86.5 HKS headgasket, supertech 86.5 pistons, FIC 1000cc injectors, journal bearing billet compressor 3076 turbo, king main/rod bearings. Thanks so much 🍻
I had a piston look something like that first one, minus the huge hole, in my diesel. I learned a big lesson that time around to never trust pregapped rings. Rings help carry heat and if they produce heat they can help the piston overheat. When the ends butt together massive amounts of frictional heat gets generated. This can assist in piston melt down instead of piston cooling. In my case melted material locked the ring in place in the piston which allowed me to see there was no gap.
Another advantage to tight ring gaps not mentioned is less oil contamination, thus longer oil life or the oil will be degraded less just before oil change.
The ring gap is also effected by whether the block is cast iron (lower coefficient of thermal expansion) or Aluminum (higher coefficient of thermal expansion).
I absolutely lost a piston to factory ring gap in my boosted LS7 when one of my injectors got obstructed or just started leaning out. Under hard acceleration I would sometimes feel like an anchor was dropped out the back and then the chain would break. A hard stop and then start but at speed. Turns out it was the ring grabbing the cylinder wall and stopping the piston until it scraped iron off and then eventually ripping the piston apart on the up stroke. I drove for hundreds of miles and made lots of 1/4 mile passes on 7 cylinders. I knew the motor was done and was trying to blow it up. It lived until I took it out for a Texas Speed 427.
It might not be common in the in the professional racing side but it's common in the world with DIY builds putting turbos and nitrous. They just throw on kits without properly setting anything else
If it’s a NA race engine or mild boost engine I always use the .005 to .0055 per inch of bore if it’s a high performance daily driver I tend to run tighter to reduce as much blow by as possible especially if still running the dreaded factory PCV system which always coat the intake manifold and runners with oil so I try to reduce that as much as possible
Catch can is the solution to the dreaded blow by oil coating. Now I'm not disagreeing, as tight as possible without exploding ring lands is best. And I think .005-.0055xBore for a street application is a good one on an application that's running 7psi of boost. However there are other factors. What kind of boost is it? Roots style blower boost? That's much hotter than a large turbo, perhaps even a smaller turbo. This is where complications come into play.
I check ring gaps at 3 positions in the cylinder and I just use a piston with no rings to set that distance. Of course my diesels have flat edges on them.
when i built mine the haynes manual called for a tight gap. the rings i got for my 20 over pistons were gapped quite wide, i did not need to file. i called the company and they gave me updated numbers for a considerably wider gap
piston ring squaring tool? i just use the piston upside down and then use a caliper with the slide locked to push it down in 3 places to the same depth to ensure its square.
right. dead giveaway is the molten metal is pushed DOWN, as the piston fired on its way up at high RPM. Not good. now the rod/s are junk, and probably the crank too.
People try and run piston end gaps to close today. A extra .005 to .010 won't hurt a thing. Especially on Hypoeutectic pistons which put more heat on the rings. I have found out you buy the correct oversized rings for your pistons you still need to file the end gaps a little more. Buy file fit piston .005 oversize you will be there forever. Just buy stock oversize for your piston and check the gap a few strokes with a file you are good to go. Remember .005 over what is called for for your setup won't hurt power. To tight is the killer to the whole engine. GM said years ago up to .060 ring gap on the dyno caused no lose in HP. All they found was more blow by. That gap is about twice they want in standard ring end gap. Why take a chance open them up .005 and I have never had a problem with ring butt and break the top piston land.
Concerning the Audi oil consumption problem someone mentioned, ~2008-2010 Audi 2.0T engines suffered from a poor piston design leading to piston, ring, and bore wear. Ask Audi if your engine is one which could be affected by this problem. As for rings rotating in the bore, my impression is that they stop rotating once they are fully bedded in.
The PCVs fail regularly on those 2.0 TFSI engines causing very high crankcase pressures. Typically blows out the front crank seal, rear main crankshaft seal, and/or moving the piston rings in the bores. I have pulled out pistons and rings while doing the warranty repairs and the piston ring gaps were lined up so the oil had a straight shot out of the crankcase into the combustion chamber. IMO VW/Audi have never really made a good PCV system.
hey another thing to add to this thread is the fact that there may also be issues with the valve cover. I bought a tfsi 2.0 T for 300 bucks and repaired anything I needed to but I had massive oil consumption out of nowhere. It appears that the crappy plastic valve cover warps (of course it does) and it allows crankcase pressure and blow by straight into the intake. I needed to top off every 300 miles (!) before replacing the valve cover. Afterwards, the PCV system is working as intended. Don't get me wrong the same issue applies above, its still a bit hungry for oil but now I can actually get through an oil change.
Hi, very interesting but also a bit scary, why? Ok, I am rebuilding/restoring a Jaguar E-Type V12 and found that 4 pistons out of the 12 had broken rings, so I decided to remove pistons (7.8:1 ratio from the US version) and sleeves and got new ones with 9:1 compression ratio (Euro version of that engine) and had Total Seal modify the second rings (their suggestion for normal aspirated) to „gapless rings“. Now after you mentioned that those gapless have a short lifespan it scares me a bit since I do not plan to rebuild this engine every few years. This car will run about 3000 Miles per summer and I had hoped to drive this for at least a hundred thousend miles (by that time I will be long gone 😁). The car will be a cruiser with good power but except for a few nice runs on the autobahn here in Germany it will see no racing actions. Will I be in for a bad surprise with those rings???? Greetings Bernhard
Maybe. I only know one person who has tried gapless rings on a road car and he wound up going back to conventional rings because they didn't last and didn't offer a noticeable performance increase. YMMV though, other people claim they're great and will last just as long as a conventional ring. Guess you'll find out.
Ugrasrava Thanks for your reply. This does not sound too good but now I have them so I might as well use them. Since I will be using this car for only a few thousend kilometers per season, I hope it will be ok. I guess that everyone raves about such things but has never used them for himself. So, I believed the stories that I had heard about how good they are. I guess I am the testobject with mine. Total Seal did not think that there will be any problem with them, hmmmmm? Greetings Bernhard
Hi I’ve been in engine rebuilding for over 50years and never heard such rubbish,there’s always a compromise to be made in engine power and oil consumption. There is No such thing as Gapless rings because no ring gap means certain engine seizure because of expansion and no oil getting to the top of the cylinder. This Bullshit is nonsense because theirs still a ring gap. When fitting normal pistons the rings are supposed to be fitted so that the ring gaps are spaced around the piston so they don’t line up,also pistons are designed so the ring rotate when the engine is running so that adequate lubricant can Stop the ring seizing in its groove and stop the cylinder bore wearing prematurely in one spot. People are obsessed with a little oil consumption,all engines have to use some oil but it all depends on how the cylinder bores are honed and what material is used for the rings and of course the amount of ring gap. These rings are going to cause all sorts of trouble depending on which engine they are used in and what they are going to be used for ie. racing Ect. Snake Oil comes to mind about these rings leave them alone. If these were any good engine manufacturers like Ford, Cummins, Scania, Volvo, Cat, Perkins and countless others would be using them in their engines,think about that before using them it might save you a fortune in repairs.
Hi. I installed or will kind of rebuilt my motor today. I got any piston. to replace the old ones. Still the same size. Seventy millimeter. This is a flat top high compression. So I understood that when. I was after I. had installed the piston. I would have to check the gap to make sure that the valve tolerance was still there. But because I was supposed to go to what was it0..550. is what it was.
@@TheDashocker240 Andrew wanted a high viscosity break in oil, because every highly boosted built engine has more bearing gap then OEM spec. Ravanol has also a 5w30 break in oil, but thats not the viscosity Andrew was looking for. 38:25
I've been thinking. Piston manufacturers provide the same clearances for all engines. But, it will not be the same for a 4-cylinder engine and for an 8-cylinder engine. After all, the thermal load at the same power will be greater for a 4-cylinder engine. I'm talking about power per cylinder. So what is the correct gap?
Hi , excellent info as always. My question is unrelated to the topic but please answer . 1) In the video you said you doubled the power of the fa20 engine with 8 psi boost. So theoretically if the engine is stock with stock cams and no head work the air flow can only increase about 55%. So you managed to double the power because 1) you are on e85 so you were able to run timing even more than in degree than the engine was running stock ?, even under boost. Or did you do some other airflow improvements like cam?. Or any other reason. Also you mention that under 40 to 60 psi of boost and not running dry sump you run too much oil into catch can, any solution for that? Thank you.
It's a rather complicated calculation just using 'boost', as there may normally be less than atmospheric pressure inside the NA manifold due to induction losses. There is also the point that engines suffer parasitic losses* from internal friction, pumping losses, driving water pumps and other ancilliaries, etc. that reduce the actual output of the engine from what it potentially could produce - with forced induction those losses are about the same so the potential difference is greater. *It can be surprising just how much power is used just to turn the engine - if your vehicle has an idle adjustment, bring the idle speed up to, say, 3k rpm and then drive the car going through the gears until the rpm drops to the normal engine speed without using any additional throttle - you may find that the power the engine uses just to increase the idle by that amount will allow the car to travel at 15-20 mph, maybe more.
5:10 OMG - 1-2% power difference!!? I’ve stressing over NOTHING this whole time talking to Wiseco about my piston ring on my forged piston VQ35DE engine!! No wonder they said I was fine with a 0.005 bigger ring gap….engine won’t perform different.
Yes it's all relative. Where 1-2% is massive to some, it's nothing to others which is good to keep in perspective =) One podcast guest had some interesting comments around this and the use of expensive lightweight metals for little to no gain that 99% of drivers would need, notice or utilise in a homebuilt application racing other homebuilt applications etc for example. Still great to understand it all mind - Taz.
Thank you so much for this thorough presentation of a highly technical engine building topic :) Question: if piston rings are stuck due to poor oil maintenance and even perhaps a bad engine break-in procedure when the engine was new, will solvents like engine flush and fuel system cleaners actually free them thereby reducing or even eliminating excessive oil consumption/burning oil through the exhaust?
It is unlikely. Once the cylinder wall is glazed or something is damaged, there's no magical fix I know of beyond pulling it all apart and machining/replacing as required. We do all wish that wasn't the case, don't get me wrong, tipping a can of something in vs rebuilding an engine would be the dream - Taz.
@@hpa101 As I thought :( All roads lead to piston ring replacement being needed in my 4AGE 20 Valve Blacktop since I already replaced the stem seals with Supertech. Engine runs great and pulls hard otherwise. Previous owner did a bad job of maintenance. After I ran a can of engine flush I noticed the oil burn and smoke issue popped up. Traces of burned oil/sludge and varnish were found beneath the valve cover too. Typical signs of bad oil run for too long. New oil turns black pretty fast too. Some people just don't deserve special cars.
@@RolanTHUNDER absolutely not. the ring land and the ring have near ground faces, thats one of the sealing methods. ANYTHING in there, they stop sealing. clean wet oil, thats normal. burnt oil, carbon particles. no. once theyre coked, theyre coked, and it just gets worse as they start leaking more...
@@paradiselost9946 Yeah. Those "in tank solutions" are snake oil for the most part. Once the oil control rings (or compression rings) are stuck, they'd have to be changed out for new ones to solve the problem.
Can't seem to find any of those awesome ring squaring tools online.... Will continue to drop old pistons into the bore and go fishing... Unless someone has a link?
If you have flat top pistons that way is fine to be fair, otherwise I can easily find them with a quick search. ProForm do them if you need a specific brand name but a simple and cost effective one (I haven't used it personally but we have used other ProForm part tools with success). Hope that helps - Taz,. www.google.co.nz/search?q=Ring+squaring+tool&rlz=1C5CHFA_enNZ939NZ939&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
It's circular so it's not straight up and down, and the rotation you turn the handle can either be filing from front to back or back to front which is what Andre is explaining there - Taz.
@@hpa101 it took me a while but i finally got what you mean :) the key was the location of the ring relative to the grinding wheel's rotating axis. If the ring sits above the rotating axis and towards your side, the direction should be downwards (referred to the tangent of the grinding wheel).
What is happening to a piston with 0,1 mm ring gap instead of recommended 0,48 mm by JE? Turbo charged 3,2 Liter BMW S50 engine. Piston got damaged properly but does mor e look like it overheated and even rings melted.
I have a question. If science says it's this number to answer formula, not two other numbers in place of the 760mmHg. That number being 14.7 psi is in the absolute, or FI uses what number then? Make sense in the science? Then where is the science to eliminate the other two, if one floats in the middle of the groove, the second one is flat on the piston groove, and the third is the angle of the piston direction and the ring is cocked at both top and bottom of the ring groove. What two do you eliminate? And trick question says; we live in a magnetic world and ohm says balance or it burns out soon, or shorts right now, because science says; it only assembles one way as it only works one way. Thanks for the attempt at it. Signed, The Cranial Concussion Club.
i dont see how someone would think the first example would be the result of ring lift. its so melty and explodey that there was obvious extreme excessive heat and pressure in the chamber.
I'm about to build my motor and I'm kinda confused about the break in process with setting the rings. Do I break in the motor normally or do I have to get it tunes before the break in?
It varies per application. You need to know the change in temperature, Coefficient of thermal expansion of the ring material, and the length of the ring at the initial temperature.
They 'should' have close to normal service life - maybe more as there isn't the gap to increase. It may be down to the ring material/surface treatment not being compatible with the honing process and bore inish.
in a way, they usually have the same outcome: trashed rod/s, junk crank and sometimes junk block. pre ignition is timing issue, and detonation is high heat/bad fuel or a combo of both i always thought.
Does anyone know why 1st and 2nd compression rings aren't in the same groove? Doing that would mean the top ring gap is faced by the steel second ring rather than the aluminum of the piston. It also shortens the height between the piston crown and rod pin. Both seem desirable, but there must be a downside that's so obvious and well understood that no one mentions it anymore.
@@joshkerto7115 No, leave the ring gaps unchanged. Make the piston top ring groove twice as tall as it is now. Delete the second piston ring groove. Install both compression rings (with 180° indexing) into the single top ring groove.
because rings dont work like that? having two rings in one land is like having a thick ring... FLUTTER. except now its got an extra surface to deal with. and then, they seal by being pushed down against that groove buy combustion pressure, and then the gas gets behind and forces them out. aluminium in pistons is relatively hard, low deformation, and with the contact area of the groove... theres no problem with it being aluminium on steel. the first ring gets the most pressure, as its the first one. second one gets a fraction as its just blowby and gap leakage. third rings... becoming rare now.fourth rings? got an interesting chart on ring numbers and compression leaks... theres basically no advantage to more than 3 rings in total. as the pressure reduces, they seal less and less. the pressure is what makes them seal. then the oil scrapers. as soon as you have two in a groove, you got bounce, flutter, momentum, and bad sealing to contend with. rings have been a pain in the arse ever since newcommen or watt made their first engines...
use cylinder liners and piston rings made out of invar? bore and machine to fine accurate finish... maybe use hydrostatic bearings, on side of piston. closer seal... probably less leakage. less wear too.
Andrey, I have a problem. And being a person like yourself, you probably have a answer for me. I want to have my 2007 Miata’s engine rebuilt with performance rods pistons and bearings. It seems that this year of engine is different then the previous years and even the Miata clubs here in the DFW area of Texas don’t do much with them. Do you know why. And do you know the exact parts I could purchase for this type of rebuild. I know it seems weird. I’m in the US and I can’t find someone who knows how to build a simple 4 cylinder engine. Well hopefully you can help me.
@@sedhendo4177 it makes quite a difference how you chose to build it for NA vs Forced induction. For turbo you'd generally want to drop the compression ratio a little with low comp pistons... Say taking it down from the factory 10.8 closer to mid 9s. You can build for even lower compression, but if you have good fuel where you live, there's no real need, plus the compression will help spool the turbo a little earlier. Other than that, any compatible forged pistons and rods of a reputable brand will do, ARP head studs, main studs, and the required machining and of course a good new set of bearings and you should have a pretty good combo. Provided it's built well, the tune will be the deciding factor when it comes to reliability
I’m building an RB25DET. I’m not planning on going over 500WHP I will be utilizing my stock pistons and rods would I gap my rings bigger than what my manual says? Or like you said on the video it will be straight drop in since it’s OEM? Everybody has given different opinions and answers. You’re very knowledgeable shed some light on me good sir.
I‘m impresset witw your argumentation. But you you never mentiont ghe dT/dt. Wich means the chanche in teperature over time in surtan ereas like piston crown ore exhaust valve. This is a big factor. I would likd to have a take with you a bit more on the deceloper side then on the dyno side
Since the LS came out there has been a problem. The ease of turbocharging is the problem. People are going to the salvage yards, junkyard, breakers whatever you call it and getting a motor and turbocharging. This is likely a US problem but happens with other. Normal aspiration engines are getting 20 psi of boost on a stock NA piston and ring. Cracking or breaking the piston crown or ringland. Especially OE big block engines.
![How To Tune A Turbo Engine | Turbocharged Engine Tuning 101 [GOLD WEBINAR LESSON]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Dca43nEWEys/mqdefault.jpg)
![How To Tune A Turbo Engine | Turbocharged Engine Tuning 101 [GOLD WEBINAR LESSON]](/img/tr.png)
What engine are you working on?
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bigger gaps = bigger catch can
smaller gaps = bigger trash can.
🤣class.
TRUTH!
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Nicely put👍
When I'm filing rings I like to wear some super good Reading/Magnifying glasses to closely inspect any Burrs etc. that need to be hand filed away.
Yes an optical visor etc can be a handy thing to have around - Taz.
i use a jewlers loupe
Thank you very much for this information. I've recently had an apparent ring failure after 10years of total use and finally retuning & raising the boost recently. Listening to this and having the damage that I do it seems my 2nd rings were tighter than my top rings. Piston 1, 2 and 3 have cracked ringlands. Piston 2s crown was pushed up and cracked similar to a tree root pushing up through pavement. I did not notice shiny ring ends indicating butting together. All crank journals, bearings, rod journals and bearings appear to of been doing just fine. The cylinder walls are also fine. I was suddenly experiencing excessive blowby as my dipstick was trying to blow out. I did a cylinder leak down test and found cylinder 3 was down 40%. I will recheck my ring gaps as the engine is apart now and I'm investigating.
SR20DET, 1.01×86.5 HKS headgasket, supertech 86.5 pistons, FIC 1000cc injectors, journal bearing billet compressor 3076 turbo, king main/rod bearings.
Thanks so much 🍻
I had a piston look something like that first one, minus the huge hole, in my diesel. I learned a big lesson that time around to never trust pregapped rings. Rings help carry heat and if they produce heat they can help the piston overheat. When the ends butt together massive amounts of frictional heat gets generated. This can assist in piston melt down instead of piston cooling. In my case melted material locked the ring in place in the piston which allowed me to see there was no gap.
Another advantage to tight ring gaps not mentioned is less oil contamination, thus longer oil life or the oil will be degraded less just before oil change.
Not necessarily. Tighter gaps means less contraction of the rings, which accelerates wear. It's a balance.
@@LynxStarAuto : Under no thermal conditions should the tips of the rings ever touch each other. If they ever do, you are in trouble.
Addendum: when the engine running, which is why some race engines NEED to be preheated before they are started.
The ring gap is also effected by whether the block is cast iron (lower coefficient of thermal expansion) or Aluminum (higher coefficient of thermal expansion).
That was pretty good. Knew a lot of that but I learnt a few things.
I absolutely lost a piston to factory ring gap in my boosted LS7 when one of my injectors got obstructed or just started leaning out. Under hard acceleration I would sometimes feel like an anchor was dropped out the back and then the chain would break. A hard stop and then start but at speed. Turns out it was the ring grabbing the cylinder wall and stopping the piston until it scraped iron off and then eventually ripping the piston apart on the up stroke. I drove for hundreds of miles and made lots of 1/4 mile passes on 7 cylinders. I knew the motor was done and was trying to blow it up. It lived until I took it out for a Texas Speed 427.
It might not be common in the in the professional racing side but it's common in the world with DIY builds putting turbos and nitrous. They just throw on kits without properly setting anything else
If it’s a NA race engine or mild boost engine I always use the .005 to .0055 per inch of bore if it’s a high performance daily driver I tend to run tighter to reduce as much blow by as possible especially if still running the dreaded factory PCV system which always coat the intake manifold and runners with oil so I try to reduce that as much as possible
Are there any considerations to take when doing this on an aluminium open deck block with wet iron liners?
Catch can is the solution to the dreaded blow by oil coating. Now I'm not disagreeing, as tight as possible without exploding ring lands is best.
And I think .005-.0055xBore for a street application is a good one on an application that's running 7psi of boost.
However there are other factors.
What kind of boost is it? Roots style blower boost? That's much hotter than a large turbo, perhaps even a smaller turbo.
This is where complications come into play.
I always learn something watching HPA now i just need money to upgrade my FRS more :)
I drive a Supra
this content is so great
I check ring gaps at 3 positions in the cylinder and I just use a piston with no rings to set that distance. Of course my diesels have flat edges on them.
Fantastic content once again guys 👍
when i built mine the haynes manual called for a tight gap. the rings i got for my 20 over pistons were gapped quite wide, i did not need to file. i called the company and they gave me updated numbers for a considerably wider gap
Thank you!
Great info as always........keep it up
piston ring squaring tool? i just use the piston upside down and then use a caliper with the slide locked to push it down in 3 places to the same depth to ensure its square.
I learned a lot on the PESTONS!!!
I just recently, in the last few years, began using Total Seal quick seat. That powder is awesome! Your opinion?
Love it thanks 😊
As soon as he showed that piston I knew that wasnt a ring gap issue . A bad ring gap wont melt a hole threw your piston.
right. dead giveaway is the molten metal is pushed DOWN, as the piston fired on its way up at high RPM. Not good. now the rod/s are junk, and probably the crank too.
easy way out is 35 thou on turbo and 25 on n/a (top and bottom ring)
I'm wondering what kind of ring gap the guy that ran 3k horsepower on a k24 runs
@@Prestiged_peck Whoo!?!?
People try and run piston end gaps to close today. A extra .005 to .010 won't hurt a thing. Especially on Hypoeutectic pistons which put more heat on the rings. I have found out you buy the correct oversized rings for your pistons you still need to file the end gaps a little more. Buy file fit piston .005 oversize you will be there forever. Just buy stock oversize for your piston and check the gap a few strokes with a file you are good to go. Remember .005 over what is called for for your setup won't hurt power. To tight is the killer to the whole engine. GM said years ago up to .060 ring gap on the dyno caused no lose in HP. All they found was more blow by. That gap is about twice they want in standard ring end gap. Why take a chance open them up .005 and I have never had a problem with ring butt and break the top piston land.
LOOOVE these long videos, saludos desde Argentina
Should I drop the ring pack lower from the pistion top for boosted applications?
Concerning the Audi oil consumption problem someone mentioned, ~2008-2010 Audi 2.0T engines suffered from a poor piston design leading to piston, ring, and bore wear. Ask Audi if your engine is one which could be affected by this problem.
As for rings rotating in the bore, my impression is that they stop rotating once they are fully bedded in.
The PCVs fail regularly on those 2.0 TFSI engines causing very high crankcase pressures. Typically blows out the front crank seal, rear main crankshaft seal, and/or moving the piston rings in the bores. I have pulled out pistons and rings while doing the warranty repairs and the piston ring gaps were lined up so the oil had a straight shot out of the crankcase into the combustion chamber. IMO VW/Audi have never really made a good PCV system.
hey another thing to add to this thread is the fact that there may also be issues with the valve cover. I bought a tfsi 2.0 T for 300 bucks and repaired anything I needed to but I had massive oil consumption out of nowhere. It appears that the crappy plastic valve cover warps (of course it does) and it allows crankcase pressure and blow by straight into the intake. I needed to top off every 300 miles (!) before replacing the valve cover. Afterwards, the PCV system is working as intended. Don't get me wrong the same issue applies above, its still a bit hungry for oil but now I can actually get through an oil change.
Learn something new every day.
Well not every day.
But thanks. I found that interesting as F. Honestly.
Budget a.f. here by the way.
i read a article that ring gaps should measured from the bottom of the cylinder? as the cylinder is cone shaped.
Hi, very interesting but also a bit scary, why? Ok, I am rebuilding/restoring a Jaguar E-Type V12 and found that 4 pistons out of the 12 had broken rings, so I decided to remove pistons (7.8:1 ratio from the US version) and sleeves and got new ones with 9:1 compression ratio (Euro version of that engine) and had Total Seal modify the second rings (their suggestion for normal aspirated) to „gapless rings“. Now after you mentioned that those gapless have a short lifespan it scares me a bit since I do not plan to rebuild this engine every few years. This car will run about 3000 Miles per summer and I had hoped to drive this for at least a hundred thousend miles (by that time I will be long gone 😁). The car will be a cruiser with good power but except for a few nice runs on the autobahn here in Germany it will see no racing actions. Will I be in for a bad surprise with those rings????
Greetings Bernhard
Maybe. I only know one person who has tried gapless rings on a road car and he wound up going back to conventional rings because they didn't last and didn't offer a noticeable performance increase. YMMV though, other people claim they're great and will last just as long as a conventional ring.
Guess you'll find out.
Ugrasrava
Thanks for your reply. This does not sound too good but now I have them so I might as well use them. Since I will be using this car for only a few thousend kilometers per season, I hope it will be ok. I guess that everyone raves about such things but has never used them for himself. So, I believed the stories that I had heard about how good they are. I guess I am the testobject with mine. Total Seal did not think that there will be any problem with them, hmmmmm?
Greetings Bernhard
Hi I’ve been in engine rebuilding for over 50years and never heard such rubbish,there’s always a compromise to be made in engine power and oil consumption. There is No such thing as Gapless rings because no ring gap means certain engine seizure because of expansion and no oil getting to the top of the cylinder. This Bullshit is nonsense because theirs still a ring gap. When fitting normal pistons the rings are supposed to be fitted so that the ring gaps are spaced around the piston so they don’t line up,also pistons are designed so the ring rotate when the engine is running so that adequate lubricant can Stop the ring seizing in its groove and stop the cylinder bore wearing prematurely in one spot. People are obsessed with a little oil consumption,all engines have to use some oil but it all depends on how the cylinder bores are honed and what material is used for the rings and of course the amount of ring gap. These rings are going to cause all sorts of trouble depending on which engine they are used in and what they are going to be used for ie. racing Ect. Snake Oil comes to mind about these rings leave them alone. If these were any good engine manufacturers like Ford, Cummins, Scania, Volvo, Cat, Perkins and countless others would be using them in their engines,think about that before using them it might save you a fortune in repairs.
Hi. I installed or will kind of rebuilt my motor today. I got any piston. to replace the old ones. Still the same size. Seventy millimeter. This is a flat top high compression. So I understood that when. I was after I. had installed the piston. I would have to check the gap to make sure that the valve tolerance was still there. But because I was supposed to go to what was it0..550. is what it was.
Ravanol 20w50 break in oil it also has 2.5% ZDDP
Oil viscosity should be based on bearing Gap. But that is a good ZDDP 😁
@@TheDashocker240 Andrew wanted a high viscosity break in oil, because every highly boosted built engine has more bearing gap then OEM spec. Ravanol has also a 5w30 break in oil, but thats not the viscosity Andrew was looking for. 38:25
I've been thinking. Piston manufacturers provide the same clearances for all engines. But, it will not be the same for a 4-cylinder engine and for an 8-cylinder engine. After all, the thermal load at the same power will be greater for a 4-cylinder engine. I'm talking about power per cylinder. So what is the correct gap?
Hi , excellent info as always. My question is unrelated to the topic but please answer . 1) In the video you said you doubled the power of the fa20 engine with 8 psi boost. So theoretically if the engine is stock with stock cams and no head work the air flow can only increase about 55%. So you managed to double the power because 1) you are on e85 so you were able to run timing even more than in degree than the engine was running stock ?, even under boost. Or did you do some other airflow improvements like cam?. Or any other reason. Also you mention that under 40 to 60 psi of boost and not running dry sump you run too much oil into catch can, any solution for that? Thank you.
It's a rather complicated calculation just using 'boost', as there may normally be less than atmospheric pressure inside the NA manifold due to induction losses. There is also the point that engines suffer parasitic losses* from internal friction, pumping losses, driving water pumps and other ancilliaries, etc. that reduce the actual output of the engine from what it potentially could produce - with forced induction those losses are about the same so the potential difference is greater.
*It can be surprising just how much power is used just to turn the engine - if your vehicle has an idle adjustment, bring the idle speed up to, say, 3k rpm and then drive the car going through the gears until the rpm drops to the normal engine speed without using any additional throttle - you may find that the power the engine uses just to increase the idle by that amount will allow the car to travel at 15-20 mph, maybe more.
How do we gap the bottom oil ring since the first two is 90 degrees
Hi sir if piston 19mm upgrade to 21mm will be great or con
5:10 OMG - 1-2% power difference!!? I’ve stressing over NOTHING this whole time talking to Wiseco about my piston ring on my forged piston VQ35DE engine!! No wonder they said I was fine with a 0.005 bigger ring gap….engine won’t perform different.
Yes it's all relative. Where 1-2% is massive to some, it's nothing to others which is good to keep in perspective =)
One podcast guest had some interesting comments around this and the use of expensive lightweight metals for little to no gain that 99% of drivers would need, notice or utilise in a homebuilt application racing other homebuilt applications etc for example. Still great to understand it all mind - Taz.
I run gapless rings and only run the top set with the oil control rings...
Thank you so much for this thorough presentation of a highly technical engine building topic :)
Question: if piston rings are stuck due to poor oil maintenance and even perhaps a bad engine break-in procedure when the engine was new, will solvents like engine flush and fuel system cleaners actually free them thereby reducing or even eliminating excessive oil consumption/burning oil through the exhaust?
It is unlikely. Once the cylinder wall is glazed or something is damaged, there's no magical fix I know of beyond pulling it all apart and machining/replacing as required.
We do all wish that wasn't the case, don't get me wrong, tipping a can of something in vs rebuilding an engine would be the dream - Taz.
@@hpa101 As I thought :( All roads lead to piston ring replacement being needed in my 4AGE 20 Valve Blacktop since I already replaced the stem seals with Supertech. Engine runs great and pulls hard otherwise. Previous owner did a bad job of maintenance. After I ran a can of engine flush I noticed the oil burn and smoke issue popped up. Traces of burned oil/sludge and varnish were found beneath the valve cover too. Typical signs of bad oil run for too long. New oil turns black pretty fast too. Some people just don't deserve special cars.
@@RolanTHUNDER absolutely not.
the ring land and the ring have near ground faces, thats one of the sealing methods. ANYTHING in there, they stop sealing.
clean wet oil, thats normal.
burnt oil, carbon particles. no. once theyre coked, theyre coked, and it just gets worse as they start leaking more...
@@paradiselost9946 Yeah. Those "in tank solutions" are snake oil for the most part. Once the oil control rings (or compression rings) are stuck, they'd have to be changed out for new ones to solve the problem.
Need help, if I run dual carb dcoe45 sidedraft and 282 cam what ring gap on a 22re toyota engine stock piston?
Can't seem to find any of those awesome ring squaring tools online.... Will continue to drop old pistons into the bore and go fishing...
Unless someone has a link?
If you have flat top pistons that way is fine to be fair, otherwise I can easily find them with a quick search. ProForm do them if you need a specific brand name but a simple and cost effective one (I haven't used it personally but we have used other ProForm part tools with success).
Hope that helps - Taz,.
www.google.co.nz/search?q=Ring+squaring+tool&rlz=1C5CHFA_enNZ939NZ939&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
at 25:00 what you mean from the outside to the inside? the file will grind vertically, either upwards or downwards...
It's circular so it's not straight up and down, and the rotation you turn the handle can either be filing from front to back or back to front which is what Andre is explaining there - Taz.
@@hpa101 it took me a while but i finally got what you mean :) the key was the location of the ring relative to the grinding wheel's rotating axis. If the ring sits above the rotating axis and towards your side, the direction should be downwards (referred to the tangent of the grinding wheel).
What is happening to a piston with 0,1 mm ring gap instead of recommended 0,48 mm by JE? Turbo charged 3,2 Liter BMW S50 engine. Piston got damaged properly but does mor e look like it overheated and even rings melted.
I have a question. If science says it's this number to answer formula, not two other numbers in place of the 760mmHg. That number being 14.7 psi is in the absolute, or FI uses what number then? Make sense in the science? Then where is the science to eliminate the other two, if one floats in the middle of the groove, the second one is flat on the piston groove, and the third is the angle of the piston direction and the ring is cocked at both top and bottom of the ring groove. What two do you eliminate? And trick question says; we live in a magnetic world and ohm says balance or it burns out soon, or shorts right now, because science says; it only assembles one way as it only works one way. Thanks for the attempt at it. Signed, The Cranial Concussion Club.
i dont see how someone would think the first example would be the result of ring lift. its so melty and explodey that there was obvious extreme excessive heat and pressure in the chamber.
Got a shelf of junkers like that. My first thought was. "Someone had a sneeze while mixxing the nitro again"
What could happen if the two ends aren’t parallel?
What about Gapless rings?
I'm about to build my motor and I'm kinda confused about the break in process with setting the rings. Do I break in the motor normally or do I have to get it tunes before the break in?
This will clear a few things up for you Ray: ruclips.net/video/5Ruk6GLJgbA/видео.html - Taz.
Does anyone know how much a ring expands at running temps?
It varies per application. You need to know the change in temperature, Coefficient of thermal expansion of the ring material, and the length of the ring at the initial temperature.
Can you give some insight on the limited lifespan of the gapless rings? What is causing the shortened life?
They 'should' have close to normal service life - maybe more as there isn't the gap to increase.
It may be down to the ring material/surface treatment not being compatible with the honing process and bore inish.
What is fetchery
Detonation and Pre-ignition are not the same. Pre-ignition blows a hole in the center of the piston, leaving the skirts and ring lands looking normal.
in a way, they usually have the same outcome: trashed rod/s, junk crank and sometimes junk block. pre ignition is timing issue, and detonation is high heat/bad fuel or a combo of both i always thought.
Does anyone know why 1st and 2nd compression rings aren't in the same groove? Doing that would mean the top ring gap is faced by the steel second ring rather than the aluminum of the piston. It also shortens the height between the piston crown and rod pin. Both seem desirable, but there must be a downside that's so obvious and well understood that no one mentions it anymore.
Do you mean the two gaps?
@@joshkerto7115 No, leave the ring gaps unchanged. Make the piston top ring groove twice as tall as it is now. Delete the second piston ring groove. Install both compression rings (with 180° indexing) into the single top ring groove.
@@stephenbello1081 it would blow by in my guess
That is basically the principle behind the Total Seal rings - there are several reasons it isn't done as you suggest, though.
because rings dont work like that?
having two rings in one land is like having a thick ring... FLUTTER. except now its got an extra surface to deal with.
and then, they seal by being pushed down against that groove buy combustion pressure, and then the gas gets behind and forces them out.
aluminium in pistons is relatively hard, low deformation, and with the contact area of the groove... theres no problem with it being aluminium on steel.
the first ring gets the most pressure, as its the first one. second one gets a fraction as its just blowby and gap leakage.
third rings... becoming rare now.fourth rings? got an interesting chart on ring numbers and compression leaks... theres basically no advantage to more than 3 rings in total. as the pressure reduces, they seal less and less. the pressure is what makes them seal.
then the oil scrapers.
as soon as you have two in a groove, you got bounce, flutter, momentum, and bad sealing to contend with.
rings have been a pain in the arse ever since newcommen or watt made their first engines...
Love the content but struggling to get pass the infomercial style. Are you gonna sell me some fancy towels that soak up everything or what?
Do you want to buy fancy towels that soak up everything? Never thought about offering them until now.... 😂- Taz
@@hpa101 Hey man I'm gonna need fancy towels by the end of the week for my slammed honda who do I need to contact
But 1000km going easy on the turbo, is that a myth too?
On my New Toyota gr4 I ran it with 3/4 of Power output the first couple of km's and thrashed it Later on the track.🤣🤘
use cylinder liners and piston rings made out of invar?
bore and machine to fine accurate finish... maybe use hydrostatic bearings, on side of piston. closer seal... probably less leakage. less wear too.
Andrey, I have a problem. And being a person like yourself, you probably have a answer for me. I want to have my 2007 Miata’s engine rebuilt with performance rods pistons and bearings. It seems that this year of engine is different then the previous years and even the Miata clubs here in the DFW area of Texas don’t do much with them. Do you know why. And do you know the exact parts I could purchase for this type of rebuild. I know it seems weird. I’m in the US and I can’t find someone who knows how to build a simple 4 cylinder engine. Well hopefully you can help me.
Are you doing this for turbo or NA power?
N/A and then boost a little later
@@sedhendo4177 it makes quite a difference how you chose to build it for NA vs Forced induction. For turbo you'd generally want to drop the compression ratio a little with low comp pistons... Say taking it down from the factory 10.8 closer to mid 9s. You can build for even lower compression, but if you have good fuel where you live, there's no real need, plus the compression will help spool the turbo a little earlier. Other than that, any compatible forged pistons and rods of a reputable brand will do, ARP head studs, main studs, and the required machining and of course a good new set of bearings and you should have a pretty good combo. Provided it's built well, the tune will be the deciding factor when it comes to reliability
Make sure you identify the engine correctly, then do a search for Mazda MX5 tuning/specialists.
GordoWG1 WG1 thanks I did.
LOL @ "thousandth of an inch". What about millionths of a yacht?
Hey Chris, I'm not sure what you mean. This is a very commonly used unit of measurement - Taz.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousandth_of_an_inch
@@hpa101 po
He’s expressing sarcastic distaste of the imperial measurement system
@@TheFakeFatLegitimate Taz is all business
👌
My piston straight up exploded
I’m building an RB25DET. I’m not planning on going over 500WHP I will be utilizing my stock pistons and rods would I gap my rings bigger than what my manual says? Or like you said on the video it will be straight drop in since it’s OEM? Everybody has given different opinions and answers. You’re very knowledgeable shed some light on me good sir.
stock is stock. ie do what your manual says. aftermarket is different. they know what their pistons need.
Don't you mean 15 tent housands of an inch? rather than 15thousand of an inch ...a bit confused
Josh Kerto If you get confused by that you shouldn’t be building engines
Nonono, that piston was damaged by the wrong blinker fluid.
can you give an example of mineral oil?
Otherwise known as conventional oil, it should be printed on the label.
kiwi channel ?
Yep, we're based in Otago 🤘 - Taz.
I‘m impresset witw your argumentation. But you you never mentiont ghe dT/dt. Wich means the chanche in teperature over time in surtan ereas like piston crown ore exhaust valve.
This is a big factor. I would likd to have a take with you a bit more on the deceloper side then on the dyno side
Most of the video you are saying thousands of an inch , but 0.015 is 15 hundreds , if I'm not mistaken
15 hundredths is written as 0.15. 0.015 is 15 thousandths. 0.0015 would be 15 ten-thousandths. See: www.engineering.com/Ask@/qactid/1/qaqid/5086.aspx
.01=hundredth's place
.001=thousandths place
Kind of misleading , but I guess no one can beat math right :)
@@crank3646 15 x 0.001 (a thou) = 0.015 or 15 thou
15 x 0.01 (a hundreth) = 0.15 or 15 hundreths
1/10 = 0.1 tenth, 1/100 = 0.01 Hundredth, 1/1000 = 0.001 Thou. And so on
As the others point out, you are mistaken.
gapless piston rings?
why not just go to gap less piston rings?
You can, but like every option they come with a trade-off. This will explain: ruclips.net/video/HfH1FMeHY9E/видео.html - Taz.
Since the LS came out there has been a problem. The ease of turbocharging is the problem.
People are going to the salvage yards, junkyard, breakers whatever you call it and getting a motor and turbocharging. This is likely a US problem but happens with other. Normal aspiration engines are getting 20 psi of boost on a stock NA piston and ring. Cracking or breaking the piston crown or ringland. Especially OE big block engines.