What do you guys think of using a gapless ring on a supercharged engine? I have heard good and bad about them for an n/a application. Seems like they might be a good thing to none of the boost turns into blow by.

 

i have read several articles saying they definately make an increase over conventional rings. the key is where the placement of the gapless ring is. on a superchargered or NOS car, the combustion chamber can be much hotter than n/a, therefore, you should not use top ring gapless in this application, but they do make a gapless second ring. n/a cars can run a gapless top ring.

i put a gapless total seal 2nd ring set in my 69Z and it will see 15+ boost on a 383.

hope that helps.

mike

 

from the experiences i have read about and talked to people who have actually run them the experiences have usually gone like this (whether n/a or fi mind you)

initial impressions:
great, love them, seem to work well

median results:
starting to have some issues, not sure if rings are the issue

end results:
rings became an issue, had to be changed

^^^
Some people argue most of the experiences are caused from the wrong type of honing finish on the bores and/or wrong application/installation BUT i argue if they need to have things so perfect for them to work, is that really going to be possible for a street motor?

i went with plasma moly top ring

 

We are talking real subtle stuff here. On the order of a few hp either way. In that light, I don't think that zero gap rings are worth the potential problems. There is potential "free" hp here, but I am not convinced they work anyway. Clearly, there is leass leakdown with a cold motor and gapless rings. But if you have "traditional" rings, properly installed, and up to operating temperature I think the difference, if any, is very small.

All this is anecdote, as I have never used them.

Rich Krause

 

Thanks for the replies. I guess I will just stick with the speed pro race rings. I tried gapless once before but could not really tell how good they worked since I had 2 broken oil controle rings.

 

I'm building a blown 383 now and am using C/A Zero gap rings, But as the others have said I'm only using the gapless on the second ring and a dura moly top ring because of the heat.