Posted by Matt Wilson on Thursday, February 20, 2003 at 11:06AM :
In Reply to: Piston Rings posted by Matt Wilson on Wednesday, February 19, 2003 at 7:07PM :
I thank you all for your great input. I don't know for certain what caused the ring breakage. The engine did overheat early on, but to be honest with you, I could hear a ticking that I now believe was coming from the rings, even before the overheating incident. It just got a bit louder after it overheated.
To answer some other of your questions, I had the block completely reworked, including 0.060" bored and honed cylinders. I did check the end gaps before assembling the engine, and they were definitely more than adequate. In fact, I checked everything in that engine very carefully, using calipers, micrometers, telescoping gages, dial indicaters, straight edges and plastigage. And I torqued everything up with a torque wrench.
All of the machinists I've talked to have said that ring breakage is usually caused by installation error. I guess it could be the case, but again, I don't know for sure. I used a ring expander to install the rings on the pistons and a ring compressor to install the pistons very carefully into the engine. One machinist, however, said that occasionally, these things do happen, as it happened to him recently.
Anyway, I don't think I will have a ring breakage problem this time.
I do appreciate the responses!
Matt