Dyno Testing Piston Rings - Conventional, Metric , Gas Ported & Gapless Rings - Surprising Results! 

Imagine an old flathead with 4 rings... The better the oils and metals get, the less rings you need lol.

Very true!

Thanks

Thanks for the question. For a pure street driven engine, we'd recommend a gas ported top ring. The gapless/gas ported combo is just for racing.

@@TotalSeal thank you!

@TotalSeal I am very curious why not gapless top ring on a street vehicle. I do hyper-mileing and would like to have those gains. Would gas-ported top ring and gapless second ring work for my application?

There’s always more ideas that we’d like to test than we have dyno time available to test, but maybe we will get around to that one sometime.

The gas ported rings are awesome for street engines.

@@TotalSealwhat about a boosted application for gas ported rings

The 1mm, 1mm, 2mm rings will live longer than the 1/16, 1/16, 3/16 rings by at least double the life, and the piston prices are equivalent. The @EnginePerformanceExpo engine uses off the shelf pistons (not custom) that came with 1mm, 1mm, 2mm ring grooves.

ABout 8 years ago, I was at an auto show, two guys with engine builder experience noticed the thin rings in a cutaway of a new Ford engine. They were stenned and asked "Do these last? How can they last?" I had some information from Total Seal and from Engine builder magazine to explain it. I said "The the rings are forged steel instead of iron. The performance coating on the rings is a better alternative to chrome. The reduced friction puts less wear on the bore. Sometimes you could rehone the engine when on older engines, a rebore would have been mandatory." I also explained that people who race SBC and Ford Flathead engines buy pistons that accept these narrow rings. It gives them an edge. The two guys were amazed, and the salesman from Ford were fascinated by what I said. I may have missed a few details, and maybe I even got a thing or two wrong. However, I definitely got the point across that the narrow rings do last, potentially more than thick old rings. I do not know if that Ford had 1mmX1mmX2mm rings. It may have been equipped with 1.2mmX1.2mmX2.5mm rings or some other narrow ring combo. However, the point that these rings are possible due to forged steel and alternatives to chrome do explain long life.

Thanks for the question. A steel top ring with either a CrN or TiN face coating is recommended. Also, the oil ring rails should be non-chrome.

Thanks!

Yes, the higher the cylinder pressure, the more power the engine will make. This is true of both gasoline and diesel engines.

The Edelbrock carb is for consistency. We are not trying to make max power. We just want consistency, and a professionally rebuilt Edelbrock carb does that job amazingly well.

A 1.0, 1.0, 2.0mm PVD coated steel ring set with an appropriate cylinder bore finish for methanol (Rpk 10-15, Rk 30-40 and Rvk of 50-60) works great.

On a street car I want too drive anywhere

Yep, call 623-587-7400 to speak with our tech guys.

Thanks for the comment. We love making these videos and sharing what we find. The part number for a gas ported, 1.2mm top ring for a 87.5mm bore is 102100GP. The Gapless & Gas Ported version is 102100GPF. In regards to the temperature reduction, it is not from trapping heat in the piston. We can say that with certainty because the oil temperature did not increase. In fact, the oil temperature decreased. If the thinner piston rings trapped the heat in the piston, then the oil temperature would have increased because 40% of piston cooling comes from the oil splashing up unto the pistons. This is what cools the under crown area of the piston. The pro race teams we work with all use piston oilers to provide the primary means of cooling the pistons. We cover that in this video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-gNbzvWs-DEM.html

@@TotalSeal Great to see mention about piston cooling jets and their value. It has been said it was a huge reason that people were turning up the boost in the Nissan 300ZX Turbo and Twin Turbo and getting away with it.

That's awesome. The engine is a 4.050 bore, with a 10:1 compression ratio and 3.750 stroke.

@@kilianlastrasbetancor5416 We don't have combustion analysis on that engine, so we don't have the Indicated Mean Effective Pressure per cylinder. However, the peak torque is 474 Pound Feet. You could divide that by 8 to get the power per cylinder.

is there any engine spec sheet i can use as reference?

Thank you! @@TotalSeal

Good question. Yes, the 1mm rings are lighter than 1/16 rings, so we did factor that in.

In what respect did you factor that in?

Check out our videos on break-in oils and break-in procedures: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-teDgJgPeeeU.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-6XEYJrSqHtw.html

We should have done that. Next time…

@@TotalSeal Oh by the way, a couple years back I needed rings for a kawasaki v-twin that I was building slightly modified. Had cast sleeves installed did away with the nicaseal. Everyone says bad ideal? I say cast bores have been around over a hundred year - ha! Your guys in Phoenix hooked me up with a coated top ring. In addition the oil comsumption on this engine is tablespoons between oil changes.

They said in the follow up vid it is 380+ inches

@@derrelcarter9401 ok, that makes more sense then. Probably a 383 0r 385 stroker. Thank you for letting me know.

Yep, it is 383 CI.

We are sorry to hear that. Some engine combinations don’t respond well to the stronger intake signal and reduced blow-by. It is hard to know which engines will like the Gapless rings, but the ones that do, love them.

@@TotalSeal Ya that's very true because we have had many engines that were fine.

Who is "we". I've found when someone uses "we",it's usually not the poster,but someone they work with or have a weak association with. What makes it more questionable is when the "we poster" doesn't use their real name or business name,but hide behind some pseudonym. I never believe a word of anyone posting behind bullshit pseudonyms. Their opinion is not valid to me.

@@YouCantSawSawdust I have a weak association with gapless rings...now.

@@jcnewbee8124 JC. I've used gapless rings one time after doing more than 400 engines. Mostly Fords. And the first time I used these rings, I have an oil burning, plug fouling engine. Really pisses me of. Going back to a conventional ring. Never had problems with them.

The 1mm gas ported only test is coming later. Parts supply impacted the ability to do all the tests at the same time.

Yes!

Great question! When going from the 1mm rings to the 1/16th rings, we have to rebalance the crankshaft because of the change in weight.

You are right, there is no substitute for a properly honed cylinder.

@@TotalSeal Yes, I always thought it was important. Of course, I am seeing with these and the Stapleton videos, that it is even essential. Now I will say, I am not sure that any machine shop I've ever been to had a Rottler hone. But if they did, I would want my blocks honed with one of their honing machines.

@@TheCrewChief374 No doubt! That new Rottler HX85 is amazing!

1.5mm

@@TotalSeal thanks for the reply. I believe we are running 1/16 total seal rings now and they work awesome. Here is a video of the tractor. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-IYA2UwRk1VI.html

Thanks for the feedback. We’ve been looking to upgrade our editing software to Adobe Premier Pro.

We use BR40 for break-in and the baseline runs.

See what you can find with .043, .043, 3.0 mm grooves. That’s the next best option.

maybe create one and testing everything on both for some time for build solid baseline for new platform.

You should be able pause the video and check it out.

On this dyno, that difference is less than 2 HP. That’s a fact. We’ve done it dozens of times over 10 years.

Actually, the rate of wear during engine break-in is much higher than at any other time in an engine's life, so we can compare wear during break-in to establish longer term wear trends. We also do real world, long term engine tests as well. We have over 15,000 miles in a street car on gas ported 1.0mm rings.

@@TotalSeal did you mean 150,000 miles?

@@gbsgarage no, it is closer to 20k miles now. We have the gas ported rings in a street engine for R&D purposes. It should also be pointed out that most OEM’s now use 1.0mm or 1.2mm rings in their production engines today.

@@TotalSeal I'm currently blueprinting an engine that runs two ring pistons with a .8mm Riken compression ring.

Great questions. Because the thinner rings are made from steel, they do hold their tension better than the thick, cast iron rings. Also, oil consumption is really a function of oil ring tension, so that is something that can be tuned. One of our R&D engines has thin rings with higher tension oil rings and there is zero oil consumption.

@@TotalSeal thanks for answering and being so on top of this subject. Your videos are excellent!

@@CherezianRacing thank you!

Will do!

You'd be right

Thanks for the question. The reduced water and oil temperature indicate it is due to reduced friction. If the heat was staying in the piston, the water temperature would drop but the oil temperature would increase (the oil will still pull heat from the pistons regardless of the rings). As such, these results show the reduced cylinder bore friction is reducing overall engine temperature. That reduced friction relates to the increased horsepower.

Those test have been done. You are correct. Most people worry too much about end gap. The independent testing we know of showed no power gain between and end gap factor of .006 per inch of bore size and a factor of .004 per inch of bore size.

The final test results are coming out today. The new video explains some additional details.

The gas ported only top ring will be easier on the bore and valve stem seals than a Gapless/Gas Ported top ring.

Yes, the 1, 1, 2mm rings are excellent for street cars and will outlast the standard size rings.

Sometimes we have spacers for adapting old 5/64th rings.

Thanks!

@@machinesnmetal Not running yet, although it's very close to initial testing. Awaiting radiator restoration.

Absolutely!

There are not spacers for the oil ring, but we can change the tension on the 3/16 oil ring to match the tension of a 2mm oil ring.

@@TotalSeal Sure. I run 6# to 8# tension now. It was just interesting to read about the difference in "standard" tension.

@@AlanRoehrich9651 Yep, it is something often overlooked or misunderstood.

@@TotalSeal Well, we just ran into an issue of the 3/16" hastings style "expander" having a massive end gap. I always liked the old SS50-U oil ring because swapping the expander easily set the tension. The hastings style expander and rail isn't nearly so familiar and comfortable.

@@AlanRoehrich9651 the flex vent style is different, but it is better for engines that pull crankcase vacuum as they are less restrictive on oil flow back through the oil drain back holes.

Longer with thinner rings

PS: have y'all ever done a gapless oil ring setup?

Thanks!

Nope. It is ok to have a gap on the oil rings, in fact it can be something modified specifically for high vacuum, dry sump systems. We will be doing a video about that in the future.

Our pleasure!

Yes. In fact, we typically see a reduction in cylinder bore wear with thinner piston rings.

It is the Honing for Horsepower video

Most modern cars have pistons that have performance coatings on them. So do many rebuilder grade pistons. Also, although pin bores are not coated, extreme applications often have an option pistons pin with DLC performance coating.

Three piece oil rings are certainly better for high RPM engines. The oil ring wear can be controlled by the proper coatings and honing.

We will have to agree to disagree on that one. A massive blow-by problem is the result of the combination of piston, ring, cylinder bore geometry and surface finish. It is not just one part.

Good question. In an engine not pulling crankcase vacuum, you must have a vent to prevent crankcase pressure from unseating the rings. As such, your best bet is measuring the volume of blow-by through a fixed orifice gauge.

For max performance, go with a Gas Ported ring set. Summit Racing has the GPX line of gas ported rings, which provide excellent performance for the dollar.

Both guys have lapel mic’s, but they are engine guys not pro video guys. We will pass along the feedback.

Go with the 3/16 oil rings. Contact the tech department for details. 623-587-7400

So thin oil rings are no good for street (for longevity) 1/8" or your thin oil rings? If thin oil rings are not for a street car you should say so.

We don’t recommend ever using an additive.

@@TotalSeal Ive had absolutely fantastic results with Oil Extreme..... I've had some engine builders have bother with poor ring seal. Oil Extreme has fixed the issue every time. Hope to see you at the Autosport Show in January.

Thinner is better!