piston rings?
 

what tension oil ring is good for a lt1 350 stocker motor?

Re: piston rings?
 

Low

Re: piston rings?
 

I am no pro, but have 6 lb pull in my SS LT1 right now. Have had as low as 4.5 lbs, but it left a blue cloud on the starting line. Never dyno tested both ways, but ran the same times both ways.

Re: piston rings?
 

Go with a Napier second ring and a 7 to 9 pound oil rings.

Re: piston rings?
 

Thanks Ed. Really don't want a lot of smoke. Was thinking about a 11-12 pound package. What's your opinion? What is to much that it will really put to much drag? Thanks for your help.

Re: piston rings?
 

What Carl said

Re: piston rings?
 

I use a Napier with 6 lbs. Dry as a bone.

Re: piston rings?
 

What is the correct procedure to check drag from the ring package? Cylinder vertical or horizontal, dry cylinder wall or lubrication on the wall, if lubricated with what and how much, just piston with pin and oil ring or is the rod on it too. Is it the breakaway number or the dynamic pull reading?

Re: piston rings?
 

This is what I run. I am not the fastest but run well. I ran some 9 lb rings and they were OK too.

Re: piston rings?
 

funny

Re: piston rings?
 

How do you remove the tension on your oil ring ?

Re: piston rings?
 

Total Seal can sell you oil rings in several different tensions. To fine tune the tension you bend the end of the expander to either tighten of loosen the tension

Re: piston rings?
 

For reference for the OP, I found "standard" tension rings to be in the 18-24lb range.


I've also used the fish scale gauge to check the drag of the oil ring using the "dynamic" method. Like most gauges, weather stations, etc., the calibration will vary, plus other factors. So I use the same one for my comparisons. "Your results may vary."

Re: piston rings?
 

I may do it wrong, but I use a fish scale, hooked to a zip tie around the rod cap, oil the cylinder wall, turn the block so the cylinder tested is level, parallel with the floor. Put the piston in upside down (rod toward me), with only the oil ring on it. Pull it with the fish scale. I do it a couple of times to make sure it repeats. Steady pull. My backwoods Okie method. Gotten by with it for over 50 years. There are likey better ways to do it.

A rep for Speed Pro told me many years ago that their "low tension" oil rings simply had expanders for a.030" smaller bore. May not be that way now. That was probably 20 years ago. I can tell you .060" smaller expanders pumped oil & smoked in my old '56 Chevy Jr Stocker. LOL

Re: piston rings?
 

Thanks Mr. Ed.

Re: piston rings?
 

One thing that is over looked using a fish scale was the block plate honed or was the scale test done on cylinders that were not plate honed ??

If the block was not plate honed once the heads are installed not its a whole different ball game as you dealing distorted cylinders ( Not Round cylinders )

I plate hone all my blocks which is more important with OEM blocks as they are pretty frail.

Do a search on Torque plate honing.

I have seen circle track engines that were not plate honed and even after 2 or 3 years running still no ring seal and poor leak down numbers.

Ring can never break in when cylinders are not round.

Fish scale tests depends on cylinder finish.

Re: piston rings?
 

keith at total seal said he had 3 packages. 5lb,11lb, and 13 pound. for the 4mm oil ring that lt1s have to run i might have to go with the 11lb ones. any thoughts anyone?

Re: piston rings?
 

With my limited experience, I believe that anything much lower than 11 lbs would probably work better with vac-u-pan system or vacuum pump, which aren't legal for Stock. As mentioned earlier, ring seal and life is influenced by the precision of machine work and maintaining round cylinders.

Re: piston rings?
 

Trying to get back in Stock after a 15 year lay-off (shifter-kart/stock car racing with my son), so I am a little out of date. I used to use discarded standard bore oil spacers with .030 over rails, giving 8-9 lbs vertical pull(wet), with no smoke. On LS6's, using deck plates did not make a difference on the pull. Is that still acceptable today?
Also, has anyone tried installing empty heads & hand-honing from the bottom with the block upside down? I experimented with that once long ago & ended up smashing my hone (gave up!).
What is the current upper ring combo today, or is that a big secret? Last time, I used a Dykes upper ring with a back-cut 2nd backed up with a spacer.
Thanks for any help.

Re: piston rings?
 

I find you have to use a napier second ring with lower tension oil rings. you can run 6 # oils with napier and engine will run dry. without vac pan setup. breathers only. been using this in small block mopars last number of years. wall finish can impact results also.

Re: piston rings?
 

Funny you should mention honing with the head on. I've contemplated taking a hole saw to a junk head, cutting all four holes right through the head. To me this would be better than a hone plate

Re: piston rings?
 

DING DING DING We have a winner.

Some of the Mahle pistons I have been using have a 1MM 1MM 2 MM ring pack with very low tension ring pack, So far all my engines seem to like this ring pack.

Re: piston rings?
 

Any knowledge of ET differences from all the different oil ring tensions. Also I just Had Carl Hinkson prep my new Dart Little M block and the fit and finish was spot on perfect. Thank you Carl

Re: piston rings?
 

Dynamic pull reading what I use. And I leave the rod on, and put a Zip tie around the big end of the rod, and hook the fish scale to that.

Re: piston rings?
 

The old style rings we used to crimp with needle nose pliers till we got the desired amount of tension. I've also ran a smaller bore expander then the actual bore. Others may have better ideas, but I was happy with my results.

Re: piston rings?
 

I use a torque plate to test ring tension.

Re: piston rings?
 

Thank you !

Re: piston rings?
 

What are you using for a hone and what finish do you use ?

Re: piston rings?
 

Beats me. Al Parker does the honing, and I just trust him for the ring package. Never been wrong so far. I still check the tension. We had one 0.060 over 283 that literally was air tank tight. Zero leak down on 8 cylinders. Zero, nada, zilch, nothing.

Re: piston rings?
 

Interesting !!! I know of Al Parker does some nice sprint car engines.

Re: piston rings?
 

I've been a lot of places in 44 years for engines. He's absolutely the best cylinder wall guy in the world. Absolutely. And his valve jobs are tremendous. We had one engine pick up 0.11 after another builders valve job. Now that is not normal but on the average friends and myself pick up .03 over anybody else's valve job.

Re: piston rings?
 

That's what I do. Patterson hones my blocks with his Rottler diamond hone. I've used 4 1/5 lb rings, but not as dry as 6.

Re: piston rings?
 

They're also very good. I use their piston work, but never had a block by them.

Re: piston rings?
 

They did all my short block machine work, and sold me all the parts except the camshaft. Gordon Holloway at Comp works with me there.

Re: piston rings?
 

About 6# tangential is what I have successfully run and had no oiling. with a Total Seal Napier cut second ring.

With 3/16" rings, my usual approach is to buy open stock Speed Pro SS50U oil rings, and use bore size rails with smaller bore size expanders.

Unfortunately, Speed Pro has been bought several times over the last decade or so. They've become less and less oriented toward customer service and open stock sales, also, I've been told that as the SS50U tooling wears out, they're not going to repair or replace it. In my experience, the Speed Pro SS50U oil ring is the finest in design and quality, as well as the most friendly to the machinist, builder, and assembler.

The expander in the SS50U is what controls ring tension, and the radial width of the rail is consistent and stable, as well as easy to assemble. Not so with the Hastings/Perfect Circle oil ring with the gold expander. In near 40 years of doing this, I've never had a problem, or a customer with a problem with the SS50U. Not true at all with the Hasting/Perfect Circle.

As far as testing tension goes, my method is similar to many others. I oil the cylinder with the oil to be used when the engine is being raced, carefully wiping it until it is wet, but not completely slathered in oil. I install the piston with the oil ring only into the bore, with a pin in the piston, and the pin connected to a 0-12# scale. I then roll the engine inverted, and pull the piston from the deck toward the crankcase, and record the drag.

Re: piston rings?
 

Carl where do you find low tension 1mm 1mm 2mm rings Mahle only makes std. tension rings in 1mm 1mm 2mm thanks John

Re: piston rings?
 

As far as I'm concerned, along with some of the factors already mentioned - piston skirt design, piston oil groove drain back design, oil kinematic viscosity at your operating oil temp, rod bearing clearance, isolated cam tunnel or not - can also impact the minimum oil ring tension or drag required for acceptable oil control.

I use the Hastings flex vent style oil ring in all cases where it is available. I pull the piston/pin assembly with WD-40 and a fish scale I've had for years, and have a backlog of data with. As far as adjusting tension, I'll get smaller or larger bore expanders and adjust as necessary. If I can't get the tension down to where I want, I'll install each oil ring expander with excessively gapped oil rails on an undersized piston, and use a band style ring compressor to squeeze some tension and circumference out of the expander. If I need more tension, I'll stand the expander upright on a flat surface, and press an ever so slightly larger drill bit in between each lug of the expander to increase it's circumference and tension.

Also, each lb. of oil ring tension removed per set is worth ~ 1 lb. of torque at the flywheel.

Re: piston rings?
 

You keep the correct rails for the bore, and expander for a smaller bore size. Expanders from a .030" smaller bore is usually pretty safe.

Re: piston rings?
 

I never measure the drag with a fish scale LOL. Compared to a standard tension Speed Pro set I can push the the piston in with two fingers

I don't know what they base there standard tension but its a lot different tension then every one else.

You have to remember the top and second are on 1 MM and the radial depth is not much so it makes the drag a lot less then a 1/16/ 1/16/ 3/16 ring pack.

Mahle has just come out with them in the last 6 months and only have used a maybe 7 or 8 sets they seem to work fine so far.