Four ring pistons

FYI: Nowdays - one of the techniques to reduce friction and gain just a bit of HP is "low tension rings" - which are typically used with a vacuum pump to pull a positive vacuum in the engine (crankcase, valve covers, etc) and to reduce the amount of drag on the ring pack as well as the reciprocating assembly (oil mist, etc). Of course, most of these OHV/OHC engines are also running dry sump oiling systems - which also reduce drag.

Totalseal rings: On my recently ordered set of custom Ross pistons - 3 5/16 bore, I specified the 1.5, 1.5, 3.0 mm rings - which came from TotalSeal. This is the first time I've used this type of ring package in a Flathead Ford . . . so I'll report back how they work out and will do a leakdown at some point to really know. I'm finally going to start the engine in the next week or two . . . been waiting for this day for a long time!
 
Ronnie,

I know they're not the same; I should have said "similar", not "identical". My mistake.

Tubman
 
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I went through the pistons, rings and packaging, trying to get any information from them. Surprisingly, there is nothing. They came in a plain white Speedway box with no other identification. The rings themselves are wrapped in glossy paper with generic instructions printed on them. No manufacturer, no part numbers, nothing. I tried Speedway, but since these were garage sale items I purchased over a year ago, they were of no help. I had heard bad things about Speedway pistons (particularly that they had low compression height), so I checked these out thoroughly and they seem to be in spec. I had a thread here about 6 months ago verifying the compression height, and from numbers obtained from other piston sets, these seem to be right on.

Bottom line, I guess I got what I paid for at less than $140 including shipping for pistons, pins, rings, and locks. I am going to go ahead and use them unless my machinist finds something wrong. I have everything I need to complete this engine, and with the parts I had, the parts I scrounged, and these pistons (and a few other pieces from Speedway), I should have a complete rebuilt running dressed flathead for a total outlay of around $2000. This is going in a "T" tub which will probably weigh less than 2000 lbs, so if it runs well, performance won't be a problem, at least not in my eyes. If worse comes to worse, I could always get a set of 3 5/16" +.020 pistons with Volvo rings that Ol' Ron was talking about.

I still wouldn't mind a few more opinions on whether this (leaving out the bottom ring) is a good idea or not.
 
Dale,
JWL comments in his book that he felt the gapless rings had excessive tension in his opinion. What's your thoughts on this?
Martin.
 
Incase you didn't get the jist of my earlier post, I feel that the fourth ring, the one piece cast one in your set, is redundant.
Therefore I'd leave it out, and have done in the past with no problems. I keep the three piece oil ring, just leave out the #4 ring.
Martin.
 
I figured Henry put it there for a reason. Don't see that it hurts anything and I paid for it. The only advantage I can see in leaving it out would be friction. I don't see any advantage to shaving 1/10th seconds in a daily driver. Next one I rebuild I will use 3 ring pistons but if there is a 4th groove I will put a ring in it.
 
tubman said:
Ronnie,

I know they're not the same; I should have said "similar", not "identical". My mistake.

Tubman
Click to expand...

I'm am not slapping your keyboard"LOL" :) just pointing out how important a visual can be when describing your rings.A novice could take that info and be mislead.

I now have the question do you know what ring goes in the top groove and what one goes in the second groove there must be instructions to help you out as the compression rings are top and second groove. There will also likely be dots or bevels to determine the installed orientation on the compression rings. The dots will be on the ring points and the bevel on the inside of the ring radius. If you have a ring with no dots and no bevel there is no top or bottom.You also may have on one of the rings a dot and a bevel the dot takes priority and will face up.Also on one with dots,hold the ring with the points up at 12:00 o clock and tell me what side the dot is on left or right.

R
 
scooder said:
Dale,
JWL comments in his book that he felt the gapless rings had excessive tension in his opinion. What's your thoughts on this?
Martin.
Click to expand...

Unless one built two engines - exactly the same and honed the bores to match the specific ring package, and did a lot of dyno time, not sure how he'd know that.

From my perspective, they don't appear to have any more tension than normal top-rings, just that they have a secondary "rail" ring (almost like the oil rings do) to help seal the gasses that sneak by the ring gap. When I install them, they don't feel like more tension . . . so my gut is that they are not any worse than the regular ones I've ran. They are also a moly ring - which I do like, so that is another reason I selected them to try on this engine.

I would think that the 1.5mm size would actually reduce tension as compared to a 3/32 ring . . . but I don't have anything to back that up.
 
Note - listen to Ronnie on the ring issues . . . what goes on the top, versus the second groove. If you get this wrong - you'll not have correct compression sealing, bore wear issues and potential failures. If for some reason you are worried about it . . . buy another set of rings. :)
 
Bored & stroked
I have those same Ross pistons as you running in a 3 5/16 X 4 1/8 engine.
As far as I'm concerned they're just fine.
Be careful installing, as they are easy bend a ring.
As an added note, virtually all Super Stock racers use a digital fish scale to check ring friction, and make an effort to make them all the same.
Less friction, more power
 
Bored&Stroked said:
I don't disagree on the lack of need for the second oil ring, but I would wonder what you all are considering 'modern rings'? Many of the ring sets that I see are not modern (Grant, Hastings, etc) - they're the same stuff that was run 60 years ago (for 3/32, 3/32, 5/32 or 3/32, 3/32, 3/16 groove widths). Only certain piston sizes have the option of modern ring availability - at least from what I've seen.

Due to this, I try to order pistons with the 1.5, 1.5, 3.0 mm ring sets (true modern stuff) - or even TotalSeal gapless ring sets.

Anybody know about modern ring sets and the standard sized piston ring grooves . . . anybody make anything truly modern (Like moly upper rings).

Just curious . . .
Click to expand...

The rings made today in plants are of the up most quality and materials.Just because the ring looks the same the material and benefits far out way the rings made in the 50's and 60's.The rings mentioned by other posters as to moly and other coatings are only available in certain bore and ring widths that are popular.. A 3 and 3/16 bore size in 3/32" compression width really isn't popular enough to make in moly.Other sizes in width for a metric width or a 5/64" is more common and can be had easily in many bore sizes,the rings really are made to bore diameters and ring width not really for engine design at the replacement level. An example would be the engines out there today such as a small block Chevy or a small block ford both share the 4" bore combination and they both take the same ring set.
The same analogy is taken with many engine bore sizes.The one Old Ron talks about being a Volvo is a classic example. A small block dodge is another example of the 4"bore family. Hope this helps there is a vast amount of knowledge out there just for the asking,it is not rocket science.
If Old Ron gave me the bore size and ring width I could tell him the ring sets that are made to that configuration without too much trouble at all.

R
 
Ronnie said:
I'm am not slapping your keyboard"LOL" :) just pointing out how important a visual can be when describing your rings.A novice could take that info and be mislead.

I now have the question do you know what ring goes in the top groove and what one goes in the second groove there must be instructions to help you out as the compression rings are top and second groove. There will also likely be dots or bevels to determine the installed orientation on the compression rings. The dots will be on the ring points and the bevel on the inside of the ring radius. If you have a ring with no dots and no bevel there is no top or bottom.You also may have on one of the rings a dot and a bevel the dot takes priority and will face up.Also on one with dots,hold the ring with the points up at 12:00 o clock and tell me what side the dot is on left or right.

R
Click to expand...

Sorry, I have been a bit cavalier about the specifics of the other rings, because they are not the subject of this thread. Be assured that I have kept the various sets of rings separate and in their own initial packaging, which is well marked, Also, I am quite familiar with the various orientation markings on the rings and will observe them. Thank you for your concern, we all need a little refresher in this stuff once in a while.
 
Ford had oil consumption problems with the 3 ring pistons and wanted to eliminate that problem. As I understand it from people working on fords after wwII, Ford hired some Olds engineers and their advice was to add a forth ring below the pin. Well it stopped oil consumption, but as any of you found out when tearing down a high mileage 4 ring motor, more often than not the top ring overheated, broke apart and crawled over itself. It toasted the lands too. The reason given was the forth ring. It did its job so well that it starved the top ring for oil and caused the overheat and meld down I have always left out the forth ring or used a 3 ring piston. In reality, the extra oil used is minimal and and I never saw scuffing due to the ring being left out. So, if it were me, leave out the bottom ring and enjoy life.
 
Bored&Stroked said:
Unless one built two engines - exactly the same and honed the bores to match the specific ring package, and did a lot of dyno time, not sure how he'd know that.

From my perspective, they don't appear to have any more tension than normal top-rings, just that they have a secondary "rail" ring (almost like the oil rings do) to help seal the gasses that sneak by the ring gap. When I install them, they don't feel like more tension . . . so my gut is that they are not any worse than the regular ones I've ran. They are also a moly ring - which I do like, so that is another reason I selected them to try on this engine.

I would think that the 1.5mm size would actually reduce tension as compared to a 3/32 ring . . . but I don't have anything to back that up.
Click to expand...

Dale keep us posted/updated with this - I'm gonna be looking at building a nice stroker short next year and this info will come in handy. Unless I can con you into putting one together for me this time lol ;)
 
Whoa boys!! In my book I DID NOT say anything about the TENSION of Gapless Rings. I did go to some lengths to explain how rings(in general) are intended to work and I did say that for performance applications the gapless second ring is a bad idea AND I explained why. However, the gapless top ring is a different matter. Go back and re-read that section to learn what I wrote and why things work the way they do.
 
With respect to the 4 ring piston I would run all the rings. The skirts on these style pistons were most likely not "cam-ground" but "round". For stability I would use all the rings. That single add'l bottom ring (horsepower-wise) would be considered a "non-issue" here considering all the other "cast" rings on top. We still stock and sell the Hasting 533 rings (and cast pistons) but we rarely build with them anymore.

On a side note about "ring-seating", if the block has a proper bore finish (this includes using a block-plate) and you use a plasma-sprayed (most decent rings are mfd this way) "metric or std" ring pack they will pretty much be seated by the time your done assembling the unit! Between this ring setup and roller cams (not specifically speaking Flatheads here) there really is no more "break-in" time so to speak.

Thanks, Gary in N.Y.

P.S. Also, just my own opinion here, but we would NEVER use any "gapless" ring packs (tops or seconds) in any builds here. Totally unnecessary in my opinion. Have dynoed many builds (not ours) and found no value one way or the other, whatsoever!
 
Gary,

I'm going to throw a mic on the pistons this afternoon. If I find out they are cam ground and not round, would you change your opinion on running the bottom ring? I'm in a quandary here, given my financial situation, I'd like to keep this as cheap as possible, even to the point of giving up some performance, but I wouldn't want to jeopardize what I already have here.
 
tubman said:
Gary,

I'm going to throw a mic on the pistons this afternoon. If I find out they are cam ground and not round, would you change your opinion on running the bottom ring? I'm in a quandary here, given my financial situation, I'd like to keep this as cheap as possible, even to the point of giving up some performance, but I wouldn't want to jeopardize what I already have here.
Click to expand...

On your type build I would run the 4th ring I have no issue with that??

Thanks, Gary in N.Y.

P.S. The only time we would be concerned about that "cast" ring pack is if we were "chasing-horsepower" otherwise we would consider it a non-issue.
 
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