Well I did order some Childs & albert Stainless steel ring sets. "I should be getting them today". But yesterday I had a rather long BS session with ROD at Childs & Albert. And we went through all the different theorys of ring styles. 1st being the latest and greatest of gapping the second ring larger than the top ring. This will prevent a pressure buildup between the rings resulting in the top ring being lifted. Rod states this ONLY applies in Pro stock engines where high PRM is being used, and you have a exhaust drivin crankcase evac system. Even then it's rare that it would occure and most of the time the cause is related to incorrect tuning. On a daily drivin car this kind of ring setup would not help in the slightest infact it would hinder performance. It seems odd cause it makes perfect sense, considering How in the heck could the pressure be higher between the rings than the pressure in the combustion chamber. but yet Speed Pro even suggests doing this in their manual.

 

lots of successful mods don't work in some combos.
if you are really curious, you would have to test both theories in your engine.
how much $$$ for the SS rings?

 

I paid 207. They usually run for 227. I don't know why I got them for less. We also went into the gappless ring and the benifits of them, and it got rather confusing. I cannot remember why he was saying using a gapless top ring is actually a bad engineering idea. But at the same time he stated the only thruthful benifit between the standard and gapless is when running forced inducted you can get excess blow by through the increased ring gap. This dilutes the oil in the crank case, and as a result when you change your oil it's always rather odd looking. But then the gapless is installed, the oil comes out looking like oil. Other than that he said the only advantage is a small torque increase which was found on 1 test a few years back. Worth it? well it's not a hiderance as far as performance potential or any other factor. It's all a matter of how you want nothing but the best. Truth be told, the only advantage of the idea of having a gapped ring set was to keep this idea of the rings from floating. if this is truly not an issue, then shouldn't the gapless be the best design out there.

 

The larger gapped second ring is NOT new technology. GM has been subscribing to this techonology for 10 years, that I am aware of. SP (and others) have proved the larger gapped second ring to produce superior sealing/torque.

I find it interesting C & A find the top gapless ring flawed technology. I consider the gapless second ring flawed technology. The second ring is technically NOT a com-pressin ring. It is a glorified oil control ring. With material advancements, TS is now (for about 2 years) able to put the gapless ring where it belongs, in the top groove.

Well, I agree on one point with C & A. That of the gapless ring providing superior sealing with a wider range of operating temps, such as a FI application.

I really question the choice of SS as ring material.


[Modified by arnold, 9:44 PM 7/30/2003]

 

I don't quite see how having a greater gap on the second ring works. it just does not make sense to me, Pressure likes to travel to areas of low pressure untill they are equal. and it seems pretty obvious that the combustion chamber would have the greatest pressure. so how could the pressure between the top and second ring be greater? In drag racing it seems more probable, Much like a positive crankcase evac system, the only time it is helpful is if A: you almost freeflowing, and B: your running wide open. When using that kind of system along with the increased gap of the second ring it would help draw the air past the top ring, aiding in a much quicker ring to wall seal. So yes it definitly works for racing applications. And people want HP, So where do they go to get their ideas, To the dragraces, thats where the most HP is being built. As for Chevy using it, perhaps the effects of it are not really negative I do not know, I am just trying to understand the theory behind it all together.
but as for the stainless steel being used as an O-ring. it's about 2 times as strong as the Ductile iron, it's also plated to keep any effects of scuffing from occuring. Above all else lets take a look at those damm imports. They have been using them since the mid 80's. big reasons is A: it's actually cheaper to make than the iron rings. b: the wear effectivness seems to be none and nill. Ford is now using Stainless in their current V8's. On top of that, look at the running life of a common import engine now days, 200k is not a problem before even needing to be rebuilt, obviousally stainless works.

 

my next engine will have a greater gap on the 2nd ring. it makes sense to me that with a small gap on #2, pressure could build up between 1 and 2, and that pressure could briefly upset the seal on #1.
since #2 is an oil ring i'm not worried about a tiny bit of oil sneaking through an extra .005".

 

Why would you think it would need to be greater?

 

Well from my understanding, the whole reason they started increasing the gap between the top and second ring is cause they say that in some situations the pressure can build up between the top and second ring and become so great that it would lift the top ring off the land basically making it useless at sealing the walls. According to what I have heard, the reason this could happen is mainly due to Cylinder lean out. Otherwise. Again, I would think the combustion would/should have the greatest pressure.

 

I disagree. It's building pressure cuz the leakage past the top ring is being stopped by the second ring. Has little to do with A/F ratio.

 

But again if it were being stopped by the second ring, how could the pressure become greater that that of the combustion chamber. And it has to become greater in order to lift the ring off the land right??? I'm taking a stab in the dark here, but perhaps in high RPM, there is considerable pressure buildup. then the cylinder leans out, with a rather sudden pressure drop the and high PRM's there isn't much time for the pressure between the rings to escape, creating a top ring floating effect.