After reading so many bad experiences, i dont know if i was just lucky or what. When I built my motor around 5 years ago, the gapless rings seemed to be the latest craze here on the board so thats what I went with. The car was a daily driver with 500+rwhp and an occasional 100shot. I put around 40-50k miles on the motor till it let go a few months ago(bearing failure). Ive never had any problems with smoking, blowby or excess oil consumption. Besides having just about every rod bearing in the motor destroyed the pistons, rings and cylinders all looked great. So I guess you can chalk that up for at least one good experience with gapless rings heh.

I have thought about whether i should use them in my next rebuild or not. More that likely ill just stick with the convetional rings because of the price and all the negativity towards the gapless rings.

 

Can't say I've had much luck with em in competition bike engines either and believe me we've tried damn near everything at least once or twice.

When I hear horror stories my first thought is along the lines of "was the machine work good"? That could fudge it from day one I don't care what ring you use. So it can be a tough call unless you can actually pull the motor and inspect the work.

Personally, I don't care for the gapless ring varieties. Customers often times have this idea that leakdown numbers are some form of holy grail. And while they do mean something, I often have to remind them that a static engine is quite different from a running one.
One thing I especially don't like about the gapless second ring (besides those already mentioned) is they can trick ya into believing the engine is healthy. When the truth may be that the top ring and/or piston is already in trouble. We all know the importance of accurate analysis with a hp engine so anything that would skew checks is a bad thing in my book.

All that aside you can get near the same leakdown results with gapped if you just want to show your mates impressive percentages. Speed Pro and JE gapped are proven performers and the TS gapped are some good rings too. Best bet is in sticking with proven parts and letting someone else be the lab rat when some new product comes out. Of course none of this matters if the ringlands arent flat and concentric, or the bore isn't correct. Good machine work has gotta be there so theres the whole mix to think about. Isnt there always...

Mike

 

Good post Mike.

Unless you tear the motor down yourself and measure you really just don't know do ya.

Bret

 

i would have to say that if you install gapless rings and have blue smake at start up its more than likely that they are pulling more vacuum and are pulling oil past your valve guides.
I have Childs & Albert ZGTF rings which seem to work great, but are pricy. i would never buy total seal gapless because logic only tells you that eventually the gaps are going to line up(rings do move). The Childs&Albert rings have a one peice design which i feel are superior to total seal. are they worth the money, thats for you to decide. i would buy them again on a high HP motor for the run of the mill rebuild i don't feel they are worth the money, they do how ever seal better of a longer time, less leak down as the miles are put on. and yes you can file fit the the rings. you will notice that they work better over time with forged pistons because they have to run larger clearances between the piston and cylinder. if you running a hyperutetic piston its probably better to spend the money else where, but for a forged it could be worth it.

 

I do have gapless top ring on my engine and the only problem I have with them right now is that there is so much vacuum that my engine is sucking oil trought my PCV at an alarming rate.
See this thread http://web.camaross.com/forums/showt...&highlight=pcv

PAT

 

Good post

 

Thanks! Now i have to have my wife pop my head before it swells too much.