Endless Piston Rings for Internal Combustion Engines!

[Brisc P.]

Hey there,

I wonder if anyone knows how an "endless combustion ring" looks like. WEINECK engines claim on their website (in "Our Engines, tab 2") that, in contrast to other manufacturers, only use "endless piston rings", preventing blow by!

Weineck

I can't imagine how this is going to work if the ring is made out of metal?? Even if they would succeed getting the ring on the piston, how do they make sure that there's no play between ring and cylinder?

Anyone in here who's more educated on the topic?

 

[Simon]

Can't help you with info about the rings, but who's daft enough to buy a 1200bhp cobra? how would you use that sort of power in a 2wd car? I wonder if they sell any?
Simon

 

[Kevin Box]

Go and Check out this

Total Seal Home

Maybe this will answer your question

 

[Brisc P.]

Kevin, that's awesome! Thanks a lot for posting the link. There's a good article on the website. Peak Power increased from 435hp to 450hp. Something they didn't mention was wheather or not they left out the 2nd ring in their test, but I assume that a 2nd set would only increase wear?

That WEINECK engine is awesome, 780CUI, about 13 liters displacement. I once read an article in a magazine where it said that they make engines up to 16 Liters displacement. Some company in the US casts the blocks.

BTW: 1200 HP for 13 Liters of displacement is about 100HP/Liter, equivalent to any standard production engine these days. In the supercharged F1 era, engines had up to 1000HP/Liter, implying that if engineering effort was the same on this engine, the engine should crank out about 13000HP.

 

[Dave Wood]

I was thnik that it was just the terminology that was different and that they were talking about Total seal. It's kind of funny, because when I was a machinist in the early seventies we used to cut the top ring land on pistons that had loose grooves and install a stainless "spacer" ring above the regular ring. It basicly created a total seal system, although the purpose was to bring back normal ring tolerances. I always thought they must have done some of the same work and were inspired by the procedure. Of course these are designed to fit within existing ring lands without the machining, so they have a little less friction, but the same concept.
I think it was created to replace the ported ring systems that were used for a short period, they wound up getting so much pressure that the ring drag was increased and cylinder wear accelerated.

 

[Brisc P.]

So this is your invention then Dave?
I think these guys hold a patent on the design

Can you educate me on "ported ring systems"? What does that mean?

Thanks a lot mate!

 

[Jim Rosenthal]

It isn't a Cobra if it has a Chevrolet engine. May be a nice car, but it isn't a Cobra. A Cobra has a Ford engine, not a Chevrolet.

I thought the dyno tests on Total Seal rings was interesting. I would buy these if I were redoing one of my engines.

 

[Ian K]

Yeah, the Total Seal rings are pretty nifty. It's nice when not only is something
easier to install, but actually seems to work better.

Ian

 

[JohnC]

I would be a bit wary of the Total Seal rings; if you speak with them, they require a specific cylinder boring & honing procedure, plus a certain surface profile when finished, and they have some specific requirements for ring tension, and engine breakin.

At least that's how they were when I contacted them six years ago to find out why my set didn't seal. In my case, the engine had to come out for another honing and set of rings. To be sure there were extenuating circumstances, so it wasn't really Total Seal's fault, but their requirements were tight enought that they couldn't tolerate any "sloppy" procedures elsewhere, and we had plenty of "slop" during the breakin.

Definitely get all their recommendations and follow them before you build your engine.

 

[colin artus]

Childs & Albert (rip) used to do a line of 'gapless' rings as well.

 

[Dave Wood]

So this is your invention then Dave?
I think these guys hold a patent on the design

Can you educate me on "ported ring systems"? What does that mean?

Thanks a lot mate!

Not at all, it was either Sealed Power of Perfect Circle that created the item. I would be willing to bet that a read of the Patent would reference whichever one it was. The only difference I have seen in them and the others if they are designed to fit in an unaltered ring land as opposed to having the ring land widened to eliminate play. EVEN if I had invented it, that was in the early 70s and Patents only have a 17 year lifespan before others can mfg. without licensing fees. I believe these were introduced long after the patent had expired on the others. I was doing the procedure in the early 70s and it was a fairly long standing operation at that time.
I think that you can access patent#'s online now and would not be surprised that PC,SP or whomever is referenced. I know my patents have been referenced in others. The Can Am Spyder by BRP is an example. Actually if you examine a predominant number of patents you will find that most reference earlier ones and they are really refinements to earlier creations. That would be patents in the later part of the 20th century...I doubt that Eli Whitney, Thomas Edison or Alexander Bell were referencing too many earlier ones

 

[Dave Wood]

Can you educate me on "ported ring systems"? What does that mean?

Thanks a lot mate!

Missed this in my previous post. Ported ring systems employ small holes drilled from the crown of the piston down to the top ring land. as compression and combustion pressures move through the ports( drilled holes) they pressurize the rings against the walls. This, however, increases drag/friction and while helping power output it is one of those things that was pretty hard to evaluate advantages/disadvantages. Some specialized tool companies created piston vices for the procedure, but I don't recall if there was ever a definitive diameter or number that was determined to be the "best". Since you are unfamiliar with it, that says a lot about how quickly it lost favor.

 

[Brisc P.]

Thanks so much Dave - this is exactly what I wanted to know. I just realized that many crate engines with an aluminium block still employ steel liners. Most modern aluminium engine blocks these days are directly coated with silicon carbide particles (Nikasil, etc.). Why is this not common yet with crate engines?

 

[Dave Wood]

Thanks so much Dave - this is exactly what I wanted to know. I just realized that many crate engines with an aluminium block still employ steel liners. Most modern aluminium engine blocks these days are directly coated with silicon carbide particles (Nikasil, etc.). Why is this not common yet with crate engines?

I can only speak from experiences in the bike industry where spray coated cylinders have been in use for decades. They are not really, user friendly, if you will. They don't take much abuse that is a common by-product of the average consumer. They require special low tension plasma rings to not have a wear effect. They are also pricey to replace or have re-sprayed. Most of the Motocross bikes have been using them, of course MX cycles have a short life usage as they are updated yearly. They also have maintenance far beyond what a normal bike does. I believe that Suzi used to reccomend replacing rings and top end gaskets after ,maybe, 6 races ( or less). The majority of old MX bikes become plunkers, the owners typically find it easier,cheaper, and far less maintenance to have them bored and a steel sleeve installed. There is a whole industry set up for that eventuality. It's pretty much the same for the Vega engines. I can't even recall how many of those I bored and sleeved because the cylinders wore excessively. IMHO, that type technology is fine in Porsche engines and other high zoot, highly maintained( read expensive) but not so much in regular usage vehicles.