new rings . . . is it worth is?
Thread Starter
Teching In
Joined: May 2005
Posts: 15
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new rings . . . is it worth is? Hey guys, I'm pretty new here only buying a 2000 TA last year. I bought the car already modded, in really good shape and I figured there would be no issues. I bought the car with 50k and put 5k on it before parking for the winter. No problems at all except for the dreaded ring flutter blow-by from the low tension rings. I was not aware of this when buying the car and did not run it hard enough to notice before handing over cash.
I took it to the dyno shortly after buying to confirm, and managed to hit 388rwhp with the hotcam so I knew it was making good power, in spite of the black cloud. Car was running rich (12.2 on the top end) and has no CATS so hard to tell where the squid ink cloud came from, but I suspect the rings after some research. Compression test and leak down are all fine.
I'm now making plans for the spring. I will get it tuned again to lean it out and see if that helps with the James Bond smoke cloud, if not I'm left with the rings. I really don't like the cloud about 4.5k rpm and wonder if it is worth having the oil and scraper rings done at 55k on the clock? I"d prefer to just have it re-ringed rather than tore down especially if the bores are OK or even replacing the short block. I've been thinking about heads and a new cam, but need to get this corrected first.
Does the engine need to come out, or can this be done by pulling the heads. Assuming the bores are fine, that might be the ticket, get it done with new heads. I had planned to do the heads and cam myself, but with the ring issue, might have a shop do the heads and rings.
What kind of labor costs would I be looking at for heads/rings from a decent LSX shop? I'm in the middle of a major home construction project so the car is not my main concern, especially since it is not a DD, but I need to start thinking of options before spring rolls around and I've spent all my money on house projects.
I took it to the dyno shortly after buying to confirm, and managed to hit 388rwhp with the hotcam so I knew it was making good power, in spite of the black cloud. Car was running rich (12.2 on the top end) and has no CATS so hard to tell where the squid ink cloud came from, but I suspect the rings after some research. Compression test and leak down are all fine.
I'm now making plans for the spring. I will get it tuned again to lean it out and see if that helps with the James Bond smoke cloud, if not I'm left with the rings. I really don't like the cloud about 4.5k rpm and wonder if it is worth having the oil and scraper rings done at 55k on the clock? I"d prefer to just have it re-ringed rather than tore down especially if the bores are OK or even replacing the short block. I've been thinking about heads and a new cam, but need to get this corrected first.
Does the engine need to come out, or can this be done by pulling the heads. Assuming the bores are fine, that might be the ticket, get it done with new heads. I had planned to do the heads and cam myself, but with the ring issue, might have a shop do the heads and rings.
What kind of labor costs would I be looking at for heads/rings from a decent LSX shop? I'm in the middle of a major home construction project so the car is not my main concern, especially since it is not a DD, but I need to start thinking of options before spring rolls around and I've spent all my money on house projects.
TECH Regular
Joined: Oct 2005
Posts: 430
Likes: 0
Black smoke is usually rich mixtures. Oil smoke is blue. I'd do a dyno tune first, then see if smoke is still visible. Even then, drive it long enough to evaluate oil consumption and do a leak down and or cranking compression test before tearing into it.
