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Old 01-21-2022, 01:28 PM   #21
Shoebox
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Default Re: Thoughts/Opinions on Piston Rings

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Hypereutectic 3-ring pistons were offered for a while but then disappeared. Either sales were dismal or there were problems in service but either way, they are no longer on the market.

Just a mention, I spotted hypereutectic 3 ring pistons in Speedways catalog, in the flathead stuff section.
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Old 01-21-2022, 04:32 PM   #22
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Default Re: Thoughts/Opinions on Piston Rings

Ross makes an excellent piston,,,,,,well worth the money,,,,,if you need it .
Any real high performance application would definitely benefit from them .

For a stock type rebuild,,,,,cast are more than enough ,,,,,maybe 120 horsepower?
Even 150 hp,,,,,,although I can’t imagine a stock type rebuild making that much power.
Cast are good to about 400 HP .

Egge makes an excellent product,,,,,a very good quality cast piston.
I bought their 4 ring pistons and plan on only running 3 rings with them .
They were about half the cost of the Ross,,,,,I bought the factory type rings too .
Saved a lot of money,,,,,,but still have quality parts,,,,at least for my application .

I’m sure the metric rings are great in a race engine,,,,,,,you would never know it on the street ,,,,,complete overkill .
Also,,,,,,for a stock type rebuild,,,,,,,boring with deck plates will never be appreciated.
Just more money,,,,and you will never realize any power increase.

Again,,,,I’m talking about a stock type engine,,,,not a race mill .

Tommy
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Old 01-21-2022, 05:28 PM   #23
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Default Re: Thoughts/Opinions on Piston Rings

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Originally Posted by Shoebox View Post
Just a mention, I spotted hypereutectic 3 ring pistons in Speedways catalog, in the flathead stuff section.

Those hypereutectics in the Speedway catalog are only available in a 3 3/4 stroke and 3 3/8 bore. They are left over stock and otherwise a discontinued item.
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Old 01-21-2022, 05:30 PM   #24
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Default Re: Thoughts/Opinions on Piston Rings

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Originally Posted by Desoto291Hemi View Post
Ross makes an excellent piston,,,,,,well worth the money,,,,,if you need it .
Any real high performance application would definitely benefit from them .

For a stock type rebuild,,,,,cast are more than enough ,,,,,maybe 120 horsepower?
Even 150 hp,,,,,,although I canÂ’t imagine a stock type rebuild making that much power.
Cast are good to about 400 HP .

Egge makes an excellent product,,,,,a very good quality cast piston.
I bought their 4 ring pistons and plan on only running 3 rings with them .
They were about half the cost of the Ross,,,,,I bought the factory type rings too .




Saved a lot of money,,,,,,but still have quality parts,,,,at least for my application .

IÂ’m sure the metric rings are great in a race engine,,,,,,,you would never know it on the street ,,,,,complete overkill .
Also,,,,,,for a stock type rebuild,,,,,,,boring with deck plates will never be appreciated.
Just more money,,,,and you will never realize any power increase.

Again,,,,IÂ’m talking about a stock type engine,,,,not a race mill .

Tommy

Tommy,
I don't disagree with a single thing you've said. Sometimes one does something more than what's needed,....just because you can.


My engine is no race engine, but I guess I have been short on details. Got a nice 8BA block that will be 3 5/16x 4,new rods, two new 97's on Offy manifold and Offy heads. PETE ground me an awesome Isky 1007B cam and original Johnson lifters. One of the 97's has ported vacuum, will use that with my Bubba modified Chev dist. I use ARP studs because I like them, don't need to, but I do.
I won't order pistons till we're in the machine shop and until then going to keep an open mind. As mentioned earlier, I saw some 3 ring hypereutectic pistons in Speedway catolog, we'll see.
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Old 01-21-2022, 07:54 PM   #25
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Default Re: Thoughts/Opinions on Piston Rings

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Those hypereutectics in the Speedway catalog are only available in a 3 3/4 stroke and 3 3/8 bore. They are left over stock and otherwise a discontinued item.

Good to know! Well that narrows thing down, Thanks.
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Old 01-21-2022, 08:21 PM   #26
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Shoebox ,
Yeah,,,,,Pete ground a cam for me,,,,,a nice Potvin 3/8 profile ,,,for my 8BA (8CM Merc ),,.
The machine work is second to none .
If I hadn’t known it was an old cam,,,,,I would have sworn it was new,,,,,beautiful grinding work .
Top notch guy .

Tommy
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Old 01-21-2022, 08:30 PM   #27
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Default Re: Thoughts/Opinions on Piston Rings

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.....One of the 97's has ported vacuum, will use that with my Bubba modified Chev dist....

I believe that "ported vacuum" is a method used for emissions control and is not the best for general use or performance. Are you sure you want to do this? Straight manifold vacuum is better.
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Old 01-21-2022, 08:31 PM   #28
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Default Re: Thoughts/Opinions on Piston Rings

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Shoebox ,
Yeah,,,,,Pete ground a cam for me,,,,,a nice Potvin 3/8 profile ,,,for my 8BA (8CM Merc ),,.
The machine work is second to none .
If I hadn’t known it was an old cam,,,,,I would have sworn it was new,,,,,beautiful grinding work .
Top notch guy .

Tommy
We’re the bearing journals polished after “Parkerizing”?
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Old 01-21-2022, 10:14 PM   #29
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Default Re: Thoughts/Opinions on Piston Rings

I agree with Desoto. You will never know the thickness of the rings on the chosen pistons if you are building a moderate street application engine. And for that matter the brand of pistons will be irrelevant too.
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Old 01-21-2022, 11:15 PM   #30
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Default Re: Thoughts/Opinions on Piston Rings

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I believe that "ported vacuum" is a method used for emissions control and is not the best for general use or performance. Are you sure you want to do this? Straight manifold vacuum is better.

Well, have BOTH options, will review each.
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Old 01-21-2022, 11:35 PM   #31
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Default Re: Thoughts/Opinions on Piston Rings

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Well, have BOTH options, will review each.
In one of my many former lives, I was a "Corvette Guy". In that world, it was a given that changing a '70's engine (with ported vacuum) back to straight manifold vacuum (which the same engines used in the '60's) yielded a noticeable performance increase. This usually involved a change of vacuum advance "cans" as well.

The General was chasing emissions compliance in those days, not performance.
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Old 01-22-2022, 09:33 AM   #32
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Default Re: Thoughts/Opinions on Piston Rings

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In one of my many former lives, I was a "Corvette Guy". In that world, it was a given that changing a '70's engine (with ported vacuum) back to straight manifold vacuum (which the same engines used in the '60's) yielded a noticeable performance increase. This usually involved a change of vacuum advance "cans" as well.

The General was chasing emissions compliance in those days, not performance.

The distributor to be used is one from Bubba back when he purchased a quantity of new gm distributors to modify for our flatheads. I understood he set up the weights, springs, vac cans, for our flatheads. I'm aware of his current situation but will try to reach out to him, and Charlie NY who does the same conversion and see what their take on this topic is. Like you, I have a thing for flat top Mallorys and have one of those, also set up by Bubba, but my hope was to take advantage of the vacuum as well as mech advance.
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Old 01-22-2022, 11:02 AM   #33
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Default Re: Thoughts/Opinions on Piston Rings

Manifold vacuum for sure. I worked as an engineer in the auto industry in the 60's and 70's and ported spark was emissions related.
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Old 01-22-2022, 12:30 PM   #34
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Default Re: Thoughts/Opinions on Piston Rings

The cost of Ross pistons and good metric rings will be over $600, so definitely not a "cheap" solution - but there are just not many "cheap solutions" for most of the components we use in high-performance flatheads these days.

I'd love to have a great hypereutectic piston supplier who would put metric ring packs on their pistons and give me custom bore sizes and compression heights - for a reasonable up-charge. I'd run these sorts of pistons on street engines - for many builds.
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Old 01-22-2022, 01:23 PM   #35
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Default Re: Thoughts/Opinions on Piston Rings

As B&S mentioned, going "cheap" on any engine component is false economy. I have Ross forged pistons and metric rings in 4 engines. Have never noticed any noise before warming up. The less friction of the metric rings to me added horsepower over the old school cast iron rings. You can feel the difference just by turning the engine over by hand while assembling it. I also like the added strength of forged pistons. A small butterfly screw came out of a throttle plate on my avatar roadster and it sounded really bad. Only a few thread marks in the head and very little on the piston. I think a cast piston would have failed.
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Old 01-22-2022, 01:37 PM   #36
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Default Re: Thoughts/Opinions on Piston Rings

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As B&S mentioned, going "cheap" on any engine component is false economy. I have Ross forged pistons and metric rings in 4 engines. Have never noticed any noise before warming up. The less friction of the metric rings to me added horsepower over the old school cast iron rings. You can feel the difference just by turning the engine over by hand while assembling it. I also like the added strength of forged pistons. A small butterfly screw came out of a throttle plate on my avatar roadster and it sounded really bad. Only a few thread marks in the head and very little on the piston. I think a cast piston would have failed.
I'm with you and B&S on this one. Nothing about doing a flathead is cheap. Why cheap out on one of the most important parts of a rebuild?

I noticed the same thing about the reduced friction. The ease of turning the motor over by hand was surprising compared to a stock cast iron ringed motor.
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Old 01-22-2022, 02:10 PM   #37
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Default Re: Thoughts/Opinions on Piston Rings

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Manifold vacuum for sure. I worked as an engineer in the auto industry in the 60's and 70's and ported spark was emissions related.

Well, that's good enough for me, manifold vacuum it is.
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Old 01-22-2022, 05:07 PM   #38
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Buying and installing components appropriate for the intended use is NOT an act of "cheaping out". Buying gold parts for a copper system is , in a word, stupid.
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Old 01-22-2022, 09:53 PM   #39
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Yeah, I get it...and I'm stupid!!! I always go way, way overboard on my builds. But why not?
You Americans are so lucky...you don't have to pay astronomical freight and taxes on top of the top dollar prices for quality parts.
Those narrow metric ring packs certainly reduce the friction, very apparent in turning engine over when compared to regular cast iron 'thick' rings.
Do it once, do it right, and just drive it!
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Old 01-22-2022, 11:05 PM   #40
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Metric rings compared to inch-fractional rings in this back to back dyno test of a small block chevy found 8 hp at 6,000 rpm. From the graph near the end of the video it looks to me like almost 0 hp difference below 4,000 rpm. I find it interesting they found the same torque difference required to turn the crank during engine assembly being reported in this thread. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-29IWc-zrv8
In the rpm range where I street drive a smaller bore flathead, I'll never feel the difference. Cast pistons and standard cast iron rings for me.
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