Total Seal rings?

NYSpeed Automotive
1

Now that my car is off the road for winter…

Before I put the pistons in, I’m wondering if I should get the Total Seal gapless rings.

At first I was a bit concerned, I’m already gonna be running 10.2:1 compression ratio in a motor that has no knock sensor, as some have said the rings can slightly increase compression

however i dont think that is the case, it seems it just decreases blow by

i already have rings, they came with the pistons (which were custom). curious if it’s worth it, and also I’d assume I’d have to send my rings to total seal so they sent me the correct ones

2

Honestly I don’t like using the total seal rings, and properly gapped / offset std ring should do the job 100%

If you gap the ring correctly and the bore/hone is done right (ie. no taper) you should have less than 1% leakdown and sometimes as low as .5% you can’t really ask for more than that

3

i’m keeping stock bore, hopefully don’t have to re-hone (my last m20 block had 160k and still butter cross hatching, this block only has 100k) but i’ll know when I take it apart

4

you ALWAYS have to rehone…

just get a bottle brush and do it that way

but you ALWAYS have to rehone with new rings…

even if the cross hatch is still visable it doesnt carry teh same surface as a newly cross hatched bore… so your new rings Will NOT seat into the cyl walls the way they are supposed to

5

Exactly what he said.

And properly gapped rings are the way to go

6

alright

7

You know what is funny… If you read and understand this then your views will change as you know it

http://www.diagnosticengineers.org/Page%20B5-37.htm

food for thought

8

thats a really good read. very informative

9

when me and djnick were building my first motor i asked him about staggering…

he told me the same thing that it doesnt matter

so when i built my last motor i didnt bother to stagger them at all

although i didnt line them up directly i paid no attention to which way they were put on …

no problems with 7k on this new motor

10

honing is not always necessary. if theres a decent cross hatch left then you should be fine. Some people say stagerring isnt important but ive always done them to oem spec to be on the safe side.
oh, dont use the total seal rings.

what pistons are you using now? and what rings?? I think you should stick with what you got.

11

total seal user here with JE pistons in the GN, never a problem with sealing at all.

12

I’ll be using custom racing dynamics forged pistons, 10.2:1 compression ratio, with a crank from a 2.7 m20 and rods form a 2.5 m20

but i already have the rings that came with the pistons, so maybe I’ll just stick with those. already still need to spend $400 on a fucking cam, don’t need to dump too much money

13

I agree with JnJ. These rings do increase cranking compression and show lower leakdown numbers - IOW there is less blow by in a cold, non-running motor. As to any beneficial effect in a running motor, I doubt it. AFAIK, no OEM uses gapless rings. Now, I know how much cost drives OEM’s, but I am including high end motors (C6 Z06, Porsche, M-series BMW, Ferrari, etc.) so I figure there must not be much gain, and maybe a downside.

OTOH, if you already have them, you might as well use them.