I pulled the last piston out to blend the valve relief (I have another thread about that) and this is what I found...
This

and this


I'm beginning to think this engine was not assembled at the machine shop.

 

jeez, looks like someone got a little careless when they installed the ring compressor/installing that piston.

was it burning a lot of oil?

 

Based on the fact that no other ring gaps are visible in the picture, it would appear to be some type of assembly error.

 

I believe it was an assembly error too. Thankfully the engine never had any significant run time on it, or so I was told. The person I bought the car off of (after the rebuild) could get it to fire, but it never ran for very long. And I have never ran this engine either.

 

i found that exact same thing a couple years back when i rebuilt mine. what ever happened to people doing quality work. not just in the automotive field but pretty much across the board.