How long before rings set (cro-moly)?

[77broncoguy]

I've got between 200 and 300 miles on my motor, and I'm still going through a lot of oil. A guy at work told me that if they are chrome moly rings it can take 800 or more miles. Anybody have an opinion?

 

[elkarcher]

I've got between 200 and 300 miles on my motor, and I'm still going through a lot of oil. A guy at work told me that if they are chrome moly rings it can take 800 or more miles. Anybody have an opinion?

i would give it atleast 1000mls. as long as you dont have any major oil leaks.

 

[77broncoguy]

There's no sign of any leaks, however I drove it 50 miles to work today and was down a qt. Down a qt and a half after the drive home. I do get some white smoke when I stomp on it, and I expect that for a while, I know there's some blow by. I just though It would start burning less after a few hundred miles. Does that amount of oil seem excessive? Should I be looking for anything else wrong?

 

[Delta4WheelDrive]

Even if the rings don' seat right away, it is uncommon to lose this much oil. Who built the motor??

 

[77broncoguy]

It's called Harry's Guaranteed Engines in New Jersey, it came highly recommended to me by a cousin that has bought a couple of motors from him for drag racing. I felt like it was a lot of oil to go through after only 100 miles, I don't have any oil spots under where I park, and nothing visible underneath looking up at the motor. (not wet anywhere). I does look like it could be leaking from the rear part of the oil pan at the dip. I can see the rubber poking out for about 2/3'd of the span, but it looks like it may have slid out of position a little on one side. I just wonder why I don't have anything visible on my oil pan or tranny inspection plate. Also, my dipstick doesn't feel as snug as it should, could I lose this volume of oil out of there?

 

[elkarcher]

That is a lot of oil. Have you checked your coolant for any oil in it? It could be going there. If not call the manufacturer and find out ASAP. That is way to much oil to be going through.

 

[76Broncofromhell]

It shouldn't be dropping that much oil in 50 miles. How do the valve guides look?

 

[77broncoguy]

I'll have to check the coolant in the radiator, and valve guides tommorow. I know I don't have coolant in my oil pan, I drained it all tonight when I got home. Concerning the valve guides, what should I be looking for?

 

[JWMcCrary]

I have only put 200 miles on 393. It quit smoking on the first test drive and has yet to use a quart of oil. You might want to let you engine builder know about the amount of oil you are having to add before much time passes.

 

[Delta4WheelDrive]

I'll have to check the coolant in the radiator, and valve guides tommorow. I know I don't have coolant in my oil pan, I drained it all tonight when I got home. Concerning the valve guides, what should I be looking for?

The heads were not done at the time of the motor??

The guides are difficult to check with spring tension on the valves. A clear indicator is a nice blue puff of smoke in the morning after the oil has leaked down the guides into the cylinders...but if your motor didn't burn this much before, it shouldn't now. Just look at the things that were changed....

And definitely call the guy who built it. Don't let him pull some crap like you didn't break it in properly. I have always drove new motors hard and have never had an issue...

 

[wildbill]

I used chrome rings in a couple motors that I built and you can figure 8 to 10,000 miles till completely seated. But I havent used them in 30 years now. The rings are just to hard they will eat the cly. Good luck. Bill %)

 

[bmc69]

Wow...still so much confusion about chrome rings after all these years. The chrome rings are designed to be 'seated' almost immediately after startup. Unlike cast rings, there is not supposed to be any 'mating wear in' going on and the chrome rings are not going to 'wear' anyway.

The bore tolerances and hone finish are absolutely critical to making moly rings perform..and the required hone finish in particular is TOTALLY different than that for cast rings. The honing process for moly rings requires additional 'steps' to achieve an almost mirror finish and very tight tolerances on taper and ovality...the guy that does my blocks uses three different grit stones along the way to achieving what is required. Do a standard shop-job coarse-stone cross-hatch or just run a ball home through the bores....and moly rings will never seat..or take forever to do so.

 

[minimatt]

I had this same problem and was using about the same amount of oil. The problem I had was aftermarket valve covers with no baffle under the PCV (to clear roller rockers). It was pulling oil through the PCV and into the intake. Just something simple to check.

 

[77broncoguy]

well, I'm home from work now, and will check the things I mentioned along with the pcv valve idea, pull the plugs and check for oil, and maybe even a leak down test. I'd be shocked if he didn't prep the cylinder walls properly, I'm going to call him this evening as well.

The weird thing is, I've driven it for a couple of months now, mostly trips into town (8 miles), and haven't had to put much oil in it. There's no smoke at start up. Yesterday was the first time I took it to work, a coworked pulled in behind me and mentioned today that I had a lot of smoke at take off.

BTW, it's a completely new motor from oil pan to carb. It was basically turn key. It runs beautifully, and I finally got it timed so it doesn't ping. The same coworker that drove in behind me mentioned something about an additional seal needed on the oil rings on stroker motors. Is this right?

Thanks for all of the feedback guys, I've got my fingers crossed and will post later with what I find.