Rut
Obi Wan
Online
We had some friends visit us this week and one of them shares a passion for performance engines with me. He's been a mechanic 30+ years and was talking about engine break in and the use of Bon Ami thru the carbs to help seal the rings! I had never heard of this and it's not an accepted practice today, but there are some tech articles from companies like Catapillar that actually recommend it. That said I found this article online that really helped me understand the process and thought I would pass it on.
Rut
Piston Ring Sealing: The Chi of Free Horsepower
Hereâs how to free up more horsepower in your engine by finding balance
By Jeff Huneycutt
Honestly, we donât know much about chi, crystals or any other new-age hokum. But we do know to shut up and listen when the horsepower experts talk. And lately, Driven Racing OilâsTM Lake Speed Jr. has been talking about how to free up more horsepower by finding âbalanceâ when you build your next engine.
And no, heâs not talking about yoga or meditationâalthough weâve heard thatâs good for youâinstead, he means finding the right combination of parts and preparation to properly seal the combustion chamber floor. When most people think of the combustion chamber in a running engine, they picture the cylinder head and maybe the valves. But that is only the top of the chamber. The chamber floor consists of the top of the piston and the rings. Itâs the piston rings which keep combustion pressure from squeezing down the side of the piston between the skirt and the cylinder walls, and the more efficient the rings are at keeping the rapidly expanding combustion gases from escaping the chamber, the more power your engine will make.
Itâs a mistake, however, to think that the piston rings do all this by themselves. The rings depend on motor oil splashed up onto the cylinder walls by the rotating crankshaft to provide lubrication where the ring contacts the cylinder wall. Without proper lubrication, friction between the ring and the cylinder wall will cause irreparable damage within a matter of minutes. But the oil also provides a secondary benefit: It actually helps seal any small gaps between the edge of the ring and the cylinder wall, decreasing blow-by and improving horsepower. The oil, in turn, depends on the engine machinist to properly prepare the cylinder bores by honing a series of tiny grooves into the cylinder wall in a crosshatch pattern. Itâs this pattern of grooves that actually helps trap a small film of oil so that the cylinder wall isnât wiped dry every time the piston rings slide past.
âAt Driven Racing Oil, we have great relationships with a lot of the top engine builders,â Speed says, âbut we also work very closely with some of the top manufacturers such as Total Seal Rings and Sunnen. And by learning from each other, it helps us all understand what is necessary to help an engine make as much power possible while still maintaining great dependability. What is very clear is that the system that seals the combustion chamber from the cylinder is dependent upon several factors. In other words, the piston ring isnât doing it all by itself, and the oil definitely isnât doing it all by itself, either. You have to have a balanced system where the rings, the motor oil, and the cylinder wall preparation are all designed to work together.â
Lake points out that what may have worked in the good old days will likely leave you eating your competitorsâ dust today. Ten years ago a set of high-tension rings 0.043 of an inch thick for the first and second ring were standard fare, and so was heavy motor oil. Today, low tension rings only seven millimeters thick are quite popular, but if you are running the same oil you were 10 years ago you are robbing those new piston rings of some of their potential performance. Performance oil technology has advanced just like hard parts. It goes back to that balance Speed talks about. And if your engine isnât balanced you are losing out on either power or durability.
âThe old school 0.043 piston ring has a lot of tension, or pressure, against the cylinder wall,â Speed explains. âSo you need a thicker oil to keep the piston ring from scraping all the oil off the cylinder wall. But with the newer seven-millimeter ring, you donât have as much tension, so if you keep that same oil, all you are doing is making it more difficult for the piston and ring to move up and down the cylinder bore, costing you horsepower. Modern oils with better resistance to heat and improved lubrication qualities like those in Drivenâs lineup allow you to run lighter-weight oil than ever before while also improving protection.
âThe same thing is true for the other corners of our triangle,â he adds. âFor example, you can try to cut some internal friction by making the cylinder walls smoother by taking away the depth of the grooves in the crosshatch. But if the cylinder bore is super smooth and flat and you donât leave any valleys in there, you are going to have to use a thicker oil. It has to be more âclingyâ than normal, otherwise you wonât have enough oil remaining in the upper cylinder bore region to maintain good ring seal. Because youâve gotten rid of the valleys in the crosshatch, there isnât any place for the oil to hang on to, so now you have to raise the viscosity to make up for it. But increasing the viscosity raises the internal resistance in the engine. Not only is it tougher for the rings to move through that film of oil in the cylinder bore, but it also makes it more difficult for the oil pump to push the oil through the engine. So the result of trying to create super-smooth cylinder walls to cut friction can actually raise friction in other ways throughout the engine and wind up costing you horsepower.â
Rut
Piston Ring Sealing: The Chi of Free Horsepower
Hereâs how to free up more horsepower in your engine by finding balance
By Jeff Huneycutt
Honestly, we donât know much about chi, crystals or any other new-age hokum. But we do know to shut up and listen when the horsepower experts talk. And lately, Driven Racing OilâsTM Lake Speed Jr. has been talking about how to free up more horsepower by finding âbalanceâ when you build your next engine.
And no, heâs not talking about yoga or meditationâalthough weâve heard thatâs good for youâinstead, he means finding the right combination of parts and preparation to properly seal the combustion chamber floor. When most people think of the combustion chamber in a running engine, they picture the cylinder head and maybe the valves. But that is only the top of the chamber. The chamber floor consists of the top of the piston and the rings. Itâs the piston rings which keep combustion pressure from squeezing down the side of the piston between the skirt and the cylinder walls, and the more efficient the rings are at keeping the rapidly expanding combustion gases from escaping the chamber, the more power your engine will make.
Itâs a mistake, however, to think that the piston rings do all this by themselves. The rings depend on motor oil splashed up onto the cylinder walls by the rotating crankshaft to provide lubrication where the ring contacts the cylinder wall. Without proper lubrication, friction between the ring and the cylinder wall will cause irreparable damage within a matter of minutes. But the oil also provides a secondary benefit: It actually helps seal any small gaps between the edge of the ring and the cylinder wall, decreasing blow-by and improving horsepower. The oil, in turn, depends on the engine machinist to properly prepare the cylinder bores by honing a series of tiny grooves into the cylinder wall in a crosshatch pattern. Itâs this pattern of grooves that actually helps trap a small film of oil so that the cylinder wall isnât wiped dry every time the piston rings slide past.
âAt Driven Racing Oil, we have great relationships with a lot of the top engine builders,â Speed says, âbut we also work very closely with some of the top manufacturers such as Total Seal Rings and Sunnen. And by learning from each other, it helps us all understand what is necessary to help an engine make as much power possible while still maintaining great dependability. What is very clear is that the system that seals the combustion chamber from the cylinder is dependent upon several factors. In other words, the piston ring isnât doing it all by itself, and the oil definitely isnât doing it all by itself, either. You have to have a balanced system where the rings, the motor oil, and the cylinder wall preparation are all designed to work together.â
Lake points out that what may have worked in the good old days will likely leave you eating your competitorsâ dust today. Ten years ago a set of high-tension rings 0.043 of an inch thick for the first and second ring were standard fare, and so was heavy motor oil. Today, low tension rings only seven millimeters thick are quite popular, but if you are running the same oil you were 10 years ago you are robbing those new piston rings of some of their potential performance. Performance oil technology has advanced just like hard parts. It goes back to that balance Speed talks about. And if your engine isnât balanced you are losing out on either power or durability.
âThe old school 0.043 piston ring has a lot of tension, or pressure, against the cylinder wall,â Speed explains. âSo you need a thicker oil to keep the piston ring from scraping all the oil off the cylinder wall. But with the newer seven-millimeter ring, you donât have as much tension, so if you keep that same oil, all you are doing is making it more difficult for the piston and ring to move up and down the cylinder bore, costing you horsepower. Modern oils with better resistance to heat and improved lubrication qualities like those in Drivenâs lineup allow you to run lighter-weight oil than ever before while also improving protection.
âThe same thing is true for the other corners of our triangle,â he adds. âFor example, you can try to cut some internal friction by making the cylinder walls smoother by taking away the depth of the grooves in the crosshatch. But if the cylinder bore is super smooth and flat and you donât leave any valleys in there, you are going to have to use a thicker oil. It has to be more âclingyâ than normal, otherwise you wonât have enough oil remaining in the upper cylinder bore region to maintain good ring seal. Because youâve gotten rid of the valleys in the crosshatch, there isnât any place for the oil to hang on to, so now you have to raise the viscosity to make up for it. But increasing the viscosity raises the internal resistance in the engine. Not only is it tougher for the rings to move through that film of oil in the cylinder bore, but it also makes it more difficult for the oil pump to push the oil through the engine. So the result of trying to create super-smooth cylinder walls to cut friction can actually raise friction in other ways throughout the engine and wind up costing you horsepower.â