5.3 vs80 power output ?
I didn’t gap them on my First car I ever setup and I skipped it on the latest build as well. First car is still running 12 years later and 5 owners.... so I’m gunna try again without gapping em.
It depends what the gap is. I've seen them tight on 2 pistons and "standard" on the other 6. I think people go WAY overboard with ring gaps. Stock48 is one of the most well known SBE guys. And ran .018 on a 4" bore and BIG boost and power. E85 only, no water meth etc. Over gapping is just power left on the table. Small amounts of power, sure. But there's no reason for it. .005" X the bore size it typical formula for big power adder gaps. That's .019" on a 5.3. The .028 - .030" gaps are ridiculous IMO, esp. on E85 with an IC.
I usually go .022/.024. Which is close to what most of my high mileage motors have on them. But I've seen a few down in the .016" range. Only way to know is to check them all. And if you do that might as well open them up if they need it. I can't go backwards or I'd run .018" and .020". I've never butt a ring land and have run 25+ on MANY motors. One of my current setups is an alum 5.3. has no IC, E60 and runs .022/.024. Run 19lbs., Zero issue.
I think very few people are butting rings. The crushed ring lands I see here are usually a result of too much power to early in the rev range and/or detonation. A butted ring will usually only lift the top ring land off at the pinch point. Ive done this on nitrous motors. Looks like this... Which I have yet to see in here on a turbo car.
I usually go .022/.024. Which is close to what most of my high mileage motors have on them. But I've seen a few down in the .016" range. Only way to know is to check them all. And if you do that might as well open them up if they need it. I can't go backwards or I'd run .018" and .020". I've never butt a ring land and have run 25+ on MANY motors. One of my current setups is an alum 5.3. has no IC, E60 and runs .022/.024. Run 19lbs., Zero issue.
I think very few people are butting rings. The crushed ring lands I see here are usually a result of too much power to early in the rev range and/or detonation. A butted ring will usually only lift the top ring land off at the pinch point. Ive done this on nitrous motors. Looks like this... Which I have yet to see in here on a turbo car.
Last edited by Forcefed86; Jun 10, 2020 at 08:06 AM.
Too small of a ring gap to me is similar to running too hot of a plug.....very small downside to running 1 step colder plug/larger ring gap.....very large downside to running too small of a ring gap or 1 step too hot of a plug.
That's not a great comparison IMO. There is no power to be had with a hotter plug. The heat range of a plug is specifically to prevent fouling. A hot plug won't make more power than a cold plug, spark energy is not changed.
There are dyno proven gains to be had with tighter gap. As I said, I've yet to see an SBE pull the top ring land off as pictured. "Crushed" ring-lands have nothing to do with ring gap. (seen plenty of those!) I'm sure there are extremes where a .016 gap with a max effort pump gas build *MAY* be an issue on a small bore LS. But if the tune is within reason and you are going .005 X Bore... I"ve never seen it. If I can run E60 and no IC at 19-20lbs with .022 top gap... I'd say a 100% dedicated E85 intercooled car for most DIY guys would be fine. Why give up 10hp (or what ever it is) for no reason? Esp when that gain compounds with boost. You have now given up 23hp at 20lbs... I'm not saying it's worth 10hp... I've seen 16hp gains on a 430NA hp SBC going from .030" gap to a gap-less ring. back to back testing.
Its another band wagon thing IMO. Much like the old rod bolt rule. If we had a significant amount of folks test the bandwagon theory's... then all could benefit. The squirrel tuned fella didn't gap his rings and ran race gas/e85 mix at over 40+psi. Pretty safe bet they weren't in the .028-.030 range. Stock 48 ran tight gaps on his setup as well and was one of the #1 SBE guys in the nation for a long time.
There are dyno proven gains to be had with tighter gap. As I said, I've yet to see an SBE pull the top ring land off as pictured. "Crushed" ring-lands have nothing to do with ring gap. (seen plenty of those!) I'm sure there are extremes where a .016 gap with a max effort pump gas build *MAY* be an issue on a small bore LS. But if the tune is within reason and you are going .005 X Bore... I"ve never seen it. If I can run E60 and no IC at 19-20lbs with .022 top gap... I'd say a 100% dedicated E85 intercooled car for most DIY guys would be fine. Why give up 10hp (or what ever it is) for no reason? Esp when that gain compounds with boost. You have now given up 23hp at 20lbs... I'm not saying it's worth 10hp... I've seen 16hp gains on a 430NA hp SBC going from .030" gap to a gap-less ring. back to back testing.
Its another band wagon thing IMO. Much like the old rod bolt rule. If we had a significant amount of folks test the bandwagon theory's... then all could benefit. The squirrel tuned fella didn't gap his rings and ran race gas/e85 mix at over 40+psi. Pretty safe bet they weren't in the .028-.030 range. Stock 48 ran tight gaps on his setup as well and was one of the #1 SBE guys in the nation for a long time.
That's not a great comparison IMO. There is no power to be had with a hotter plug. The heat range of a plug is specifically to prevent fouling. A hot plug won't make more power than a cold plug, spark energy is not changed.
There are dyno proven gains to be had with tighter gap. As I said, I've yet to see an SBE pull the top ring land off as pictured. "Crushed" ring-lands have nothing to do with ring gap. (seen plenty of those!) I'm sure there are extremes where a .016 gap with a max effort pump gas build *MAY* be an issue on a small bore LS. But if the tune is within reason and you are going .005 X Bore... I"ve never seen it. If I can run E60 and no IC at 19-20lbs with .022 top gap... I'd say a 100% dedicated E85 intercooled car for most DIY guys would be fine. Why give up 10hp (or what ever it is) for no reason? Esp when that gain compounds with boost. You have now given up 23hp at 20lbs... I'm not saying it's worth 10hp... I've seen 16hp gains on a 430NA hp SBC going from .030" gap to a gap-less ring. back to back testing.
Its another band wagon thing IMO. Much like the old rod bolt rule. If we had a significant amount of folks test the bandwagon theory's... then all could benefit. The squirrel tuned fella didn't gap his rings and ran race gas/e85 mix at over 40+psi. Pretty safe bet they weren't in the .028-.030 range. Stock 48 ran tight gaps on his setup as well and was one of the #1 SBE guys in the nation for a long time.
There are dyno proven gains to be had with tighter gap. As I said, I've yet to see an SBE pull the top ring land off as pictured. "Crushed" ring-lands have nothing to do with ring gap. (seen plenty of those!) I'm sure there are extremes where a .016 gap with a max effort pump gas build *MAY* be an issue on a small bore LS. But if the tune is within reason and you are going .005 X Bore... I"ve never seen it. If I can run E60 and no IC at 19-20lbs with .022 top gap... I'd say a 100% dedicated E85 intercooled car for most DIY guys would be fine. Why give up 10hp (or what ever it is) for no reason? Esp when that gain compounds with boost. You have now given up 23hp at 20lbs... I'm not saying it's worth 10hp... I've seen 16hp gains on a 430NA hp SBC going from .030" gap to a gap-less ring. back to back testing.
Its another band wagon thing IMO. Much like the old rod bolt rule. If we had a significant amount of folks test the bandwagon theory's... then all could benefit. The squirrel tuned fella didn't gap his rings and ran race gas/e85 mix at over 40+psi. Pretty safe bet they weren't in the .028-.030 range. Stock 48 ran tight gaps on his setup as well and was one of the #1 SBE guys in the nation for a long time.
And 23hp at 20 psi? This isn't the NA section. Most boosted people could care less about 20hp which is less than a 1 psi difference for most. Class racing/max effort sure, knock yourself out. Street car stuff, I would much rather have too wide of a gap than too small of a gap.
I agree, luckily if you have some common sense there is no danger of running to little ring gap. .005 X bore is more than enough. If your in there anyway and checking them, why would you over gap them? Who is to say somethings gonna go "boom" with the CORRECT ring gap?
The point is, overdoing a thing doesn't make it better. Which is where this .028/.030 non sense came from on small bore motors. Free power is free power. When there's no reason to give it up, why would you? 20hp here and there adds up. Pissing it away for no reason make no sense. It's pissing away fuel mileage efficiency etc etc... You lose cranking compression... period. There's no reason for it. Lets seem some examples of boosted folks butting rings?
The point is, overdoing a thing doesn't make it better. Which is where this .028/.030 non sense came from on small bore motors. Free power is free power. When there's no reason to give it up, why would you? 20hp here and there adds up. Pissing it away for no reason make no sense. It's pissing away fuel mileage efficiency etc etc... You lose cranking compression... period. There's no reason for it. Lets seem some examples of boosted folks butting rings?
I agree, luckily if you have some common sense there is no danger of running to little ring gap. .005 X bore is more than enough. If your in there anyway and checking them, why would you over gap them? Who is to say somethings gonna go "boom" with the CORRECT ring gap?
The point is, overdoing a thing doesn't make it better. Which is where this .028/.030 non sense came from on small bore motors. Free power is free power. When there's no reason to give it up, why would you? 20hp here and there adds up. Pissing it away for no reason make no sense. It's pissing away fuel mileage efficiency etc etc... You lose cranking compression... period. There's no reason for it. Lets seem some examples of boosted folks butting rings?
The point is, overdoing a thing doesn't make it better. Which is where this .028/.030 non sense came from on small bore motors. Free power is free power. When there's no reason to give it up, why would you? 20hp here and there adds up. Pissing it away for no reason make no sense. It's pissing away fuel mileage efficiency etc etc... You lose cranking compression... period. There's no reason for it. Lets seem some examples of boosted folks butting rings?
I agree, luckily if you have some common sense there is no danger of running to little ring gap. .005 X bore is more than enough. If your in there anyway and checking them, why would you over gap them? Who is to say somethings gonna go "boom" with the CORRECT ring gap?
The point is, overdoing a thing doesn't make it better. Which is where this .028/.030 non sense came from on small bore motors. Free power is free power. When there's no reason to give it up, why would you? 20hp here and there adds up. Pissing it away for no reason make no sense. It's pissing away fuel mileage efficiency etc etc... You lose cranking compression... period. There's no reason for it. Lets seem some examples of boosted folks butting rings?
The point is, overdoing a thing doesn't make it better. Which is where this .028/.030 non sense came from on small bore motors. Free power is free power. When there's no reason to give it up, why would you? 20hp here and there adds up. Pissing it away for no reason make no sense. It's pissing away fuel mileage efficiency etc etc... You lose cranking compression... period. There's no reason for it. Lets seem some examples of boosted folks butting rings?
Last edited by Kfxguy; Jun 8, 2020 at 03:11 PM.
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do rings not move when the engine is running? I ran it a bit after it broke. Is there any way to prove that it absolutely, 100% breaks at the gap? It’s more plausible that it would break at the weakest point. In my opinion, the weakest point is that area where the dot is casted in the piston. There’s no signs of detonation that I can see. I’m pretty sure the ring butted. That’s typically the hottest cylinder
Correct ring gap is by definition, correct lol. Is 19 mils correct and 20 incorrect? If it doesnt blow up at 19 mils then yes, 20 is technically incorrect. But the difference is not noticed by many/if any. Examples of wasted fuel mileage going from 19 mils to 28 mils? Then even if it does exist, most people couldn't care less about a 2% change in fuel mileage for example when most peoples modded stuff gets low teens mpg anyways and you're talking about less than 1mpg.
Recommending using a tighter gap to pick up .00001% hp and fuel mileage is silly to me. I’d much rather piece of mind for more safety, stuff happens and I’d rather be safer than sorry. Just my opinion.
Correct would be the least amount of gap without pinching a ring. Since we have multiple E85 "fast guys" running crazy amounts of boost on much less than .028,why would anyone purposely file the rings down more? Most of the high mileage motors I pull apart are around .022. 90% of the time I leave them as is. Id run tighter with zero fear of butting a ring, but I'm not going to buy a ring set for 5hp. Likewise I'm not going to cost myself another 5hp for no reason and open them up to unreasonable amounts.
Thats a good one, def looks like they butted to me. Factory spec for an LS1 is 0.009-0.017. And that's on a 3.9" bore. I've seen a few that are really tight. E85 isn't going to do that. And apparently E60 isn't either as I'm running 19lbs at .022 without an IC. As have many others.
Thats a good one, def looks like they butted to me. Factory spec for an LS1 is 0.009-0.017. And that's on a 3.9" bore. I've seen a few that are really tight. E85 isn't going to do that. And apparently E60 isn't either as I'm running 19lbs at .022 without an IC. As have many others.
well if you run e85 then you can get away with it easier. He asked for pics of broken pistons from a butted ring. So I posted one.
Recommending using a tighter gap to pick up .00001% hp and fuel mileage is silly to me. I’d much rather piece of mind for more safety, stuff happens and I’d rather be safer than sorry. Just my opinion.
Recommending using a tighter gap to pick up .00001% hp and fuel mileage is silly to me. I’d much rather piece of mind for more safety, stuff happens and I’d rather be safer than sorry. Just my opinion.
My gripe is seeing people new to the "sport" opening up 230k mile rings .030+ on their E85 build because that's what the guy before him did.
That said, I will gladly "**** away" 20hp for more cushion on 93 pump gas. Yeah I've ALWAYS been 93 only and have only recently ventured into the WMI world. We don't have E85 within normal driving distance of me unfortunately. I readily admit that E stuff is pretty amazing when it comes to knock supression.
The argument isn't that massive gains can be had. It's not to **** away power needlessly, no matter how little the amount. IMO 15-20 HP or so at peak boost isn't anything to sneeze at. Hell, some $1000+ intakes don't get you 20 hp across the board.
My gripe is seeing people new to the "sport" opening up 230k mile rings .030+ on their E85 build because that's what the guy before him did.
My gripe is seeing people new to the "sport" opening up 230k mile rings .030+ on their E85 build because that's what the guy before him did.
hey my man, think of it this way...if they are new to the sport, a wider gap would be in their favor....being new and all, it might save their motor with a wider margin of error...especially on pump.