EBS was very good to me, they had the cylinder inspected, found the issue, and had Millennium re-plate them with a focus on a low Ra
So here is a history in pictures
You be the judge if the original Ra look too high to the untrained eye: March 2015, "new"
The rings never seated. and i did two more top-ends to chase the issue. ~400 miles per Qt. and smoke on every start. Disassembled in August 2015:
Still leaked so torn down the third time in November 2015:
This is when EBS took care of me and got the cylinder re-plated and specified a smoother finish. As an added bonus, the coated the piston skirts. All for free. Can you really tell the difference? Well, it mattered. Seated well, but still al little bit of blow-by causing some foaming of the oil. Overall >
Since I was getting pretty good with rebuilding my engine, i figured I'd swap in a bigger cam. This turned into an opportunity to re-ring again, with better.
Here is what they looked like in March 2018:
I used Scotch-brite and soapy water to refresh the cross hatching. Plus later I added the Total Seal dry lubricant prior to installing the pistons.
As of today, works really well. Leak-down late last year was 1-2% at 100psia, and compression 148-150 psia on all cylinders.