Did up measure ring gap before installing the rings on the piston? What was it? If u didn't do it now. If your ring gap was large it could affect oil consumption and compression/leakdown numbers.

Update: just got back from the first,1 hour, drive. So far the engine ran pretty well. Definitely burned some oil but no real noticeable smoke. Time will tell. Just
Letting it cool down so I can adjust the clutch.

I did check all ring gaps. Out of the box the total seal rings were in spec. At the higher side of the new range. No filing was needed

Assembling the three piece oil ring is tricky. The two-piece second ring was equally tricky.

A nice touch was the top ring was .001" thinner than the goetz. Which works out better with the JE pistons for side clearance. Porsche wants 0.0027"-0.004" side clearance. The goetz were at -0.0015-0.002". The total seal top ring was at 0.0025-0.003 side clearance.

Any update?

Cheers

Just got back from my second hooligan, ring-seating run and saw this post. It's been a while.

Apparently I suck at breaking in rings. :(

Executive Summary: Apparently you need to flog the engine to get the rings to seat. After 115 miles of practically continuous throttle on-to-off, between 4000-5500 rpm in 3rd, the rings are (hopefully) starting to seat, and the oil smoking has been noticeably reduced at idle.

Lesson I think I am Learning: You really need to push the rings into the cylinder wall, from top to bottom (the whole stroke) to get the cylinder wall to smooth out and match the rings. Light throttle will only cause that pressure to occur at the very top of the compression stroke. The result of light throttle is rings floating on oil, and smoke. Hearty throttle application, as soon as possible on a new engine is the best.

The Long Story:

The first 200 miles consisted of burning 2-3 quarts of SAE 30 oil. I was very cautious to carefully warm the engine up, light to medium acceleration and deceleration. 2000-4000 rpm. A few commutes to work on pretty days. At the end of 200 miles I had a steady cloud of oil smoke and borderline fouled #2 plug (it was dark brown with carbon)

By Tuesday, every time I started the engine I got a big cloud of smoke. Even if I sat for 15 minutes and restarted the cloud burst from the exhaust. With the engine running at idle there was light smoke. At ~2000 rpm, a steady flow of smoke. Snap the throttle closed and a good puff. This plain sucked.

Drained the oil and pulled the spark plugs. Oil looked really good and virtually no debris on the magnetic plugs. Only the sump plug had a small ring of smudge. Oil Tank plug was spotless. So no wear occurred in 200+ miles.

Did a leak-down test and on the first go around leak-down varied , but low. Turning over the engine with the plug in was a bear. Once all the plugs were out, the second go around had all the rings leaking 20-30%. Did they unseat on the piston groove? Who knows, not important. Rings blowing oil....

Plugs showed signs of fouling. some carbon on #1 and #2. Mostly a mix of tan and dark brown electrode. #2 was the worst.

Reinstalled the plug, put 20W-50 oil in so that I could run the engine really hot. I decided I needed to really be aggressive with ring seating if I had any chance of salvaging this latest disaster. Sadly, the 1QT per 350 miles with the Goetz rings was starting to look like a happy dream...

The plan was to go out a flog it, to force the rings to scrub the entire surface of the cylinder bore, not just the top. The only way to do that is to really give it a lot of gas, get the engine hot, and alternate throttle on then off, coasting down in gear. Third really is the only choice for road speeds. Fourth and fifth are just too tall to drive this way.


Past Two Days:
Go out at night, in the dark, and run the engine very hard in 3rd. 3/4 to full throttle from 4000 to 5000. Let off, do it again. Long deceleration down to 3500, blast back to 5000 rpm. Very loud.

Results:
Seems to have really helped. Oil consumption was ~1/2 qt in 115 miles. Plus, when shining a flashlight at the tailpipe exhaust , I saw no visible smoke at idle, or at ~2000 rpm like before.

Plus, wow, this thing really pulls strong. 4000-5000 in 3rd happens in about 1.5 seconds. The cam is particularly rowdy above 3500 rpm as expected. By 4000 it is loud. Ears ringing loud. Strong engine compression breaking too.

This weekend I will do more runs. And I'll let y'all know how it went.

Nice. Don't be afraid to give it the beans. My first drive with new rings over 180F oil temp saw 7000rpm in 1st and 2nd. Lots of runs from low rpm up high and then letting the engine decelerate on gear to vacuum down the rings as well. You won't hurt it if it's up to temp.

The toughest part is running a engine hard enough on public roads to seat the rings. If I was driving at lime rock, 5000 rpm would be on the low end.

A water-brake dyno would be ideal.

And THAT'S precisely why we spent the money to have one. Its the only way to measure & control one's output. :) :)

It can be done on a load-type chassis dyno, but its a little trickier to do so.

So I need a water-brake dyno?

Would be pretty cool.

Likely not going to pass the wife test. :(

At least I'm getting really good at engine pulls and reinstallation. Can pop that baby into the car and be running in about two hours.

You can use a hub dyno - more precise control than a water brake.

VT Dyno | Improved Performance; Optimized Power

I'm not sure where the nearest is to you but there is one in Vermont at VEMS in Milton. They have 4 pods so you can do also AWD dyno testing/tuning with Subaru STI's, Mitsubishi EVO's etc... might be worth the trip.

Or an Eddy Current one. They are quite useful, however hardly a hobbyist tool due to the total expense. :) :)

Practice makes Perfect (but I'm glad you seemed to have a handle on this).

Mike

Continue to drive it hard. Our highways are pretty empty at dawn on a weekend morning. Great for extended pulls and decels.

Mine seated quickly babying. I'm from the 500 mile break in baby it camp. :)

Just tell the wife that all your Pelican brothers pitched in. That way when we all start showing up, it will be understandable!

A more tactical question: when you first installed your cams, how easy were they to turn by hand? I can turn mine by hand using the sprocket flange, but it takes a little effort.

I could turn the cams by hand by the end of the cam. No sprocket needed. There was a little bit of siction from the assy lube.

If you need the sprocket to turn the cam you probably should retorque the head studs to fix that. I had a similar experience and it does not get better. Just back up and untorque and retorque in a slightly different sequence.

After about 150 miles of hard driving in 3rd, it would appear I am getting closer to fully seated.

I have gotten back to about 400 miles per qt.

Still puff smoke on start, although I am beginning to think it is related to fuel and fouled plugs as much as oil blowing past the rings.

I was on a mission to set the carbs properly. Until the oil consumption dropped I was burning oil and needed fuel to offset the low octane. Now was the time

So I was sitting at idle , tuning away. And blue smoke starts coming out the exhaust as before. This was quite odd. Opened the throttle to 3000 and held for ten seconds or so, and the smoke stopped. Really odd.

So this can't be a leaky ring. This sure seems like fuel. And it stinks of partially burned fuel. It wasn't black smoke. More blue.

After a bit, everything was synched, balanced, and idle screws set for just above stumble. 12.5 AFR.

Still get a puff of smoke on a start. Even if the engine was off for a couple of minutes.

At least it drives nice. Loud , but nice.

Status: Still smokes on start up, still burns ~1qt every 300 miles.

The Likely Culprit: It is looking like the #2 rings have migrated to the worst possible location, and letting oil into the combustion chamber. Which might explain the crappy starts with a large cloud of smoke, then a wonky/rough sounding idle and wonky sounding with small throttle opening as I try to sneak out of the neighborhood at 7AM.

Wife has commented on the strength and persistence of the "odor of air-cooled"

This is my conclusion, based on getting some Data:

HOT compression check. Yesterday I got 150-150-155-148-145-150. Basically awesome. :) 10:1 compression ratio from 9.5:1 Pistons. Interestingly, this morning I did a COLD compression check. All were in the 138-145 range. Pretty impressive for a cold engine: Average was 9.5 compression ratio. Conclusion, engine is quite healthy, so I should not be having a problem. Right? Sadly no. :(

Hot Leak-down was interesting. #2 started at 45% and was quite loud out the oil tank, then, all of a sudden it was 15% and quiet. :confused: All others were in the same low range. As if a ring was not seated, and then got pushed into place.

You can say 10-15% is too much, but one thing I've learned is the Harbor Freight leak-down tool is a poor tool. Quite unrepeatable in set up. My only conclusion is relative leaks per set up. Yes, I hear air leaking into the oil tank. Yes that means the rings are probably still trying to seat. But, did you see those compression numbers? Rings are doing there job in compression! All cylinders, too.

I've been pulling the plugs for the past month and I can say #1, #3-6 plugs look pretty good, and are pretty dry, and have a good brown (rich, but not too bad) electrode.

Number 2, however is the problem. :( I am fouling this plug. Oil seems the be the culprit. Here is #2 evolution over the past month. Note, the original #2 didn't even make it! I replaced it with a low time plug (first break-in run, June 8th) An now it is still looking sad.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1446401629.jpg

This makes me feel the ring gaps in #2 are probably at the bottom, allowing oil in always. Causing starting smoke, and rough running till the plug clears.

I'm going to give it a few more days of flogging (after it is warmed up and the plug clears) to see if I can get it to seat/move.

Otherwise, I think there is another tear-down in store, to reset the rings on the #2 piston.

Any oil in the intake? or is it dry?

I didn't even look. When the heads were off and the valves out, you could see where the overlap was pushing combustion product into the intake a short distance. So oil was probably getting pushed up there.

I haven't dismissed the possibility. But I think seeing oil in there wouldn't be surprising.

Although looking might confirm if there is no oil on the dry(er) cylinders.

Compression numbers look ok, but but my stock 3.2 had 180lbs before 1000 miles.
Interesting problem, my Goetze rings sealed well very early on. After the initial 20 minute cam break in I had no real smoke, and by 1000 miles no real oil burning issues.