Ringy Dingy

I have been putting together the piston, ring and pin kits. Then weighing each part individually in preparation for a full balancing of all reciprocating weight. During this process I began to admire the oiling rings that came with the vintage racing pistons we acquired. At first I considered using the oil rings from that set in leu of the ones from Total Seal. They sure looks the part. Its of a 1-piece design and beautifully machined. However it weighs 15 grams to the Total Seal 3-piece ring set's 8 grams. Plus after slipping it into the cylinder to check fit it appears like it would drag a lot more and rob valuable horsepower on top of being heavier. Its such an interesting piece I thought I'd share a pic or two even if I'm not using them. The 3rd set of oil rings is a 4-pice design and from the pistons I pulled from the motor. They weighed in at 10 grams. Oh, and I almost forgot the piston pins. I had 2 sets of these as well. A set from the pistons that were already in it and the other are from the Mahle racing pistons. Only 1 of the four was a gram lighter. The other three were exactly 105 grams. Guess I won't have to do too much "balancing" after all...

Soda blasting

We picked up a blast cabinet a while back and rigged it to run with the soda blaster. Worked great for de-carboning the heads after disassembly. Also noticed to large steps in the ports and look forward to "porting" these guys soon.

Where did the time go?

I told several people I would be finally putting up a new post last month but my software for retrieving photos from my camera went south and I didn't want to post anything without a picture. Anyway here's a quick pic of the cylinders after paint. Its designed to better dissipate heat and was done by Applied Plastic Coatings in Wheat Ridge. More updates will follow soon.