I'm having a hard time getting my piston rings to seat. Does anybody have any suggestions or tricks to get them to seat?

FYI, motor is d16a6, .020 over, 10.5:1 CR

TIA

 

One of my instructers at school said they had about 2500 miles on an engine with chrome rings, they overrevved it by accident. They thought maybe too high, but the rings were seated and no problems occured. I wouldnt try that though. Hate to blow your ****.

 

What oil are you useing?

 

Rings should seat instantly.
If they dont seat, either the installation was bad or the honing was bad.

 

I used non detergent for the first 1000 then regular Valvoline 10/30 since...

 

Spray some WD 40 down the plug holes. Run the motor. That sometimes will cause more friction on cyl walls to help seat. If that doesn't work, look into a product called Risilone. You add it to your oil to help seat the rings.
If you put new rings on old cylinders, they may never seat right.

 

Yeah, non-detergent is good ****.

 

how are you sure they are fully seated? just when the blue smoke stops? that happened pretty fast on my rebuild. does a compression test validate this?

thanks!

 

no smoke...good compression...they're seated


[Modified by earl, 11:54 PM 7/24/2002]

 

I've got 210 dead nuts across the board for compression. The cylinders were bored and honed when the new pistons and rings went in.

Thanks for the tips guys. I'll try some WD40 or Risilone this weekend, if it doesn't work, the motor comes apart.

Man this is annoying.

 

The good news is that it's just the oil ring that's not seated. If you go the Rislone route, I think you need to give it some time to work. Follow their directions.
Have you jumped on it hard a few times? Usually on about the second dyno pass on a new motor, rings start to seat. Give it a little time before you tear down. I assume you are not getting a huge smoke screen out the exhaust?

 

Oh, yeah, I have more miles than it should take for them to be seated, and have gotten into it alot since break in time was up.

No big smoke screen on acceleration, but quite a puff if I get on it after coasting down/motor braking.

 

Hhmmmm..valve seals?

 

Well, I redid the head, with new exhaust valves, and all 16 valve guide seals, 3 angle valve job, shaved .030. I didn't mic the valves in the guides, but they didn't feel out. All my other rebuilds have been fine with this same rebuild.

I swapped this head out for another known good one and I still have the problem.

I appreciate you keeping up with this thread!

 

My rule of thumb has always been if it smokes on acceleration, it's rings...deceleration, valve guides. You seem like you are an experience builder that knows what he is doing. Did you check for any kind of plugged crank case breathers? Something must be sucking or pushing the oil past the rings. If that's not it, maybe an oil ring just failed during installation. There's not too many options left to look at. Let us know if you find the problem.

 

What is so special about non-detergent?

 

I'll let you know what the problem was.

Thanks for your time, Earl.