540 vette

I had a 540 built for me by a local speed shop. I drove it for a while and decided I wanted to put a 671 blower on it. So I bought the pistons, lower compression for the blower and new rings and bearings. I brought it to the machine shop who replaced the pistons, marked the old ones for the specific cylinder they came out of and installed the new blower pistons. The pistons are the same brand and basically the same piston except one was 10 to 1 and the blower one was 8.5 to 1. Same size ring grooves.
The car was stolen so now I have a 540 set up for a blower, decided I didn't want to run a blower any more so I replaced the pistons (10-1) onto the same rods they came off of originally. The question is can I still use the rings I took off the 8.5 pistons on the 10-1 pistons. Both pistons have the same size ring grooves. The rings have 0 miles on them. They were all bagged and marked for the cylinder they were file fit for.

bluedawg

I would figure that the blower rings have more gap to accommodate for the added heat from the the blower, you could probably get them to work but they might have added blow by as with out the blower they won't expand as much.

540 vette

I can slide the rings into the cylinder and check the gap.

bluedawg

you can, you can use a feeler gauge to check the gap, you need to be certain that the ring is equal distance from the top of the cylinder. The ring manufacturer should have how much gap for naturally apirated, nitrous and boosted applications, if you don't have the literature that comes with the rings, you can probably find it on their web site. I gotta ask what are you putting the 540" in and why not stay blown?

540 vette

The 540 was originally in a 77 I had. I took the motor out to have it rebuilt for the blower and put a 427 I had into the car. The car was stolen from my driveway. I put together a pro street 67 GTO and the 540 will go into that. I am not big on things sticking out of the hood of a car. I like a nice stock appearing car. The GTO looks stock except for the wide tires in the back. I have a 250 shoT of nitrous for it and the motor with the 10-1 pistons was dynoed at 700 HP. That should be enough to get me into the 10's with the car.

I made a tool to make sure the rings are square in the cylinder.

I just wanted to find out if using the rings over was a good idea considering they were new and had 0 miles on them.

bluedawg

Sucky that your vette got stolen. You have theft insurance?

540 vette

Yes I got 15k. I had about 50 into it.

bluedawg

Sucky man, just plain Sucky. They didn't go through your recipts? Man I'm sorry to here that bro. Not only did you loose your vette but you got dicked by the insurance company. My condolences.

540 vette

Anyone else have a comment on the rings.

427Hotrod

The rings will be fine...just handle them carefully and double ck the gaps. Having a little larger gap won't hurt anything if they were opened up for boost.

There was a comment on the other Forum about balancing. Did they re-balance for the new pistons? Were weights similar? I know when I installed turbo pistons I had to add some weight back to crank to account for the heavier pistons. You've gone back and forth a couple of times....just curious how they handled that?

JIM

hugie82

and rings aren't expensive. You can pick up a good 20hp with a good set of file fit rings.

540 vette

I have to find the paper work on both builds. Do you think it would cause a big problem if they were. Alot of good knowledgeable guys on that chevelle forum.

427Hotrod

I saw your other post....I agree...that amount will be fine. My N/A pistons were a lot lighter than my Turbo ones.

JIM

540 vette

Thanks Jim.