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Sat Oct 25, 2014 1:17 pm

Hi I just Ran in a rebuilt 2332 and am a little concerned about the amount of smoke as this is my first kick at the can with Deves Rings so I'm looking for advice from those who have tried Deves rings.

A little back ground on the combo,
2332
New Cima piston and Barrels ran an ultra finish hone through barrels like I do with every new set of P/C's

Deves Ring set installed with .014" gap on the top and .016 On the middle.
Same gaps I use on Grant or Hastings rings. ( I'm from the school of thought that middle ring has a slightly larger gap than top. )
Assembled dry with Total seal quick seat rubbed into the cylinder walls,
Same as every build I Do.

Oil for break in is Valvoline conventional 10w-30 and a bottle of GM EOS, same as I do with every engine....
Swith to Valvoline VR1 Racing oil later,

On start up it was smoking really bad, I build approx 20-30 motors a year and never have blue smoke like this, sure sometimes a little bit but not clouds..

Anyways after 15 minutes at 2200 RPM it is smoking on Decel RPM but not Accel RPM, so if you start blipping the throttle the smokes buffs are when you are coming off throttle..
The amount of smoke did reduce from start up to now but it is still more than I normally see So I am a little worried about wasting the time to do the install.

What do you guys think should I chance it and spend the time to install, and get it out on the road to attempt to seat these rings or should I pop it apart and go with my tried and True Grant rings?

The reason why I tried Deves is because they are suppose to seal up immediately, but so far I'm just not seeing that..

Oh ya one more thing the heads are untouched from when it was together this past summer and there was no smoke at all from it, I took it apart to put a smaller cam in and replace the Weiscos as they had .0045" clearance and I hated the piston rattle.

any iIdeas, thoughts or wishes welcome..

Cheers

Sat Oct 25, 2014 2:08 pm

I've read a couple of bad dealings with Deves setups with our barrels. Do they specify compatible liner materials and gaps in their instructions? I feel like the rings aren't flawed, but something else...

Sat Oct 25, 2014 2:37 pm

This build has not had luck with Deves rings.
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=520536&highlight=deves+rings
I have not used them, but have been told that the cylinders need to be prepped correctly/ specifically for them to seat

Sat Oct 25, 2014 2:55 pm

Deves rings on cast iron like ours, requires a plateau finish when honing.....if not....yiu will, chew up the rings on brsak, In and smoke a lot. Ray

Sat Oct 25, 2014 4:12 pm

"Plateau" can mean a lot of things. The Ultra finish hone is "plateau" of sorts but a very big step.

I have run them twice. Both times they worked great at first.
Both times I honed with j-63 sunnen stones, a very soft 280 grit, which produce a finer/brighter finish.

The rings sealed perfect. Better than the usual mahle. Very impressed! Then about 6000 miles later I'm getting occasional puffs of smoke, and more blow by. Take it apart and the top ring is worn out! No hone marks left at all.

Re-honed same way and used grant rings, still working.....I don't really know how many miles since. 20 or 30 thousand.

With MORE knowledge now than then I think I could make them last longer with a special hone job, but personally won't be trying again, unless for a race engine that sees few miles...........in which case I'd do nothing different.

Sat Oct 25, 2014 5:25 pm

I haven't run the Deves on VWs, though I have read a few similar comments around the traps here and have used them on strip engines where they are never there long enough to show up problems!. Running a larger gap on the second ring seems counter-intuitive, as the top ring gets hotter - care to explain your reasoning?

Sat Oct 25, 2014 7:11 pm

modok wrote: "Plateau" can mean a lot of things. The Ultra finish hone is "plateau" of sorts but a very big step.

I have run them twice. Both times they worked great at first.
Both times I honed with j-63 sunnen stones, a very soft 280 grit, which produce a finer/brighter finish.

The rings sealed perfect. Better than the usual mahle. Very impressed! Then about 6000 miles later I'm getting occasional puffs of smoke, and more blow by. Take it apart and the top ring is worn out! No hone marks left at all.

Re-honed same way and used grant rings, still working.....I don't really know how many miles since. 20 or 30 thousand.

With MORE knowledge now than then I think I could make them last longer with a special hone job, but personally won't be trying again, unless for a race engine that sees few miles...........in which case I'd do nothing different.

No...really ....plateau finish means one thing. Its just that too many people think its something else.

Its a two stage honing process. It requires the first stage to produce the cross hatch pattern and set the depth of the grooves or scratches that are what create the peaks and valleys.

If you ever look at the scratches that create the cross hatch pattern under magnification you will find that its actually displaced metal. You are not JUST scratching grooves into the metal. You are pushing metal up at the peaks by a small amount.

If the initial scratches are too deep or rough.....you will have to hone too deep on the plateau pass and may increase the bore size.....or may not knock enough of the peaks off to create the plateaus.

The plateau areas are there to hold oil in a film in the valleys. The tops or peaks of the ridges that are worn off flat by the plateau honing pass ......cant be too wide....mwaning dont hone it down too far.... or the plateau spaces between the crosshatch grooves will be too far apart......to much metal contact between oil grooves.

If they are not honed enough.....the peaks are too sharp and will wear yhe ring coating...and the valleys will be too deep and present too much oil to the rings. Ray

Sat Oct 25, 2014 7:29 pm

Yeah I know what it is Ray.
Using the ultra finish hone is NOT a two stage finish? It is very fine, but if it removes some metal then it is a step.
There is base then plateau, two grits

do we do:
180/600
220/600
280/400
320/600

Which one?? they are all plateau finish

Sat Oct 25, 2014 8:13 pm

Thanks to all of your for the informative replays, this afternoon, ( after I posted the original question about thie Deves rings) I finished lunch and went back into the shop for a little more investigative work, First I pulled the plugs, all good except number 2, Wet.. And not with fuel,
So I pulled that exhaust pipe and the exhaust port was wet with oil,
I decided to pull that barrel and see if something was strange with the oil rings, everything looked fine at disassembly so I'm kinda baffled, .
I popped it all back together and will run it again tomorrow morning, if it still puffs, I will pull it down again, and Go with a rehone and the tried and true grant ring in the top and the Cima 2 and oil.

Strange that if the Deves need a specific hone to work correctly there would be some mention of that on thier website, and I would think John would state something in his information. John is very thorough with explanations on other products he sells.

I can always pop the Weiscos back in as well, they were sealed up perfectly, just a little noisy......

I will keep you guys posted!

Thanks again.

Sat Oct 25, 2014 9:17 pm

that was my build....

am I a 'pro' engine builder...well if it is warranty due to oil consumption (I work for Volvo) I am...

I have done literally hundreds of ring jobs. the deves ring that I used were an epic fail...right from the beginning. I will never use/recommend them to anyone. it was the first (and last) time I will use them

like you, I did the normal song and dance, and had smoking issues during break in. ran for about 5-6k miles and still no better. I hope to pull the engine over the winter and start over.

kinda pissed, as the engine runs pretty dam good...

please, post your findings. I will do the same when I dig into it

Sun Oct 26, 2014 1:08 am

Had some great success with mine, Top and second ring gaped to 0.4 mm, oil rings as is (+/- 2 mm :shock: related in this topic http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=557840 )

Cylinders honed with a 600 grit BRM Flex Hone and BRM specific oil, cylinders torqued between plates. Rings installed dry with quick seat compound.

No fumes during and after break in, plugs dry as hell.

Here is the cam break in video.

Sun Oct 26, 2014 4:03 am

Quokka42 wrote: Running a larger gap on the second ring seems counter-intuitive, as the top ring gets hotter - care to explain your reasoning?
Car manufacturers have been doing that on new engines for about 20 years, because it works. A bigger 2nd ring gap can make more power and use less oil.
See what Barry R has to say in this link, about 1/4 way down the page. He was involved in the research behind this, back in the 80s.

http://www.speedwake.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34413&page=4

Sun Oct 26, 2014 5:32 am

Thanks. Interesting stuff.

Sun Oct 26, 2014 8:31 am

I have always thought, blue on accelerating is rings, decelerating heads. I could be wrong.

Jeff

Sun Oct 26, 2014 8:48 am

x-file wrote: Quokka42 wrote: Running a larger gap on the second ring seems counter-intuitive, as the top ring gets hotter - care to explain your reasoning?
Car manufacturers have been doing that on new engines for about 20 years, because it works. A bigger 2nd ring gap can make more power and use less oil.
See what Barry R has to say in this link, about 1/4 way down the page. He was involved in the research behind this, back in the 80s.

http://www.speedwake.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34413&page=4

Thanks for posting that, it pretty much sums it up....

I was taught to enlarge the second ring gap when I worked at Mondello Technical school in Paso Robles, ( RIP Joe ) Have done it ever since.
On my high end builds I am using Total seal Gapless top rings now as well. :D

Now that the sealer has had a chance to dry up over night I'm heading to give it one more run in session, so well see in a few hours if it's... Tear it down or intall it in the car... I'm not gonna install it if it's still smokes in hopes that it will seal itself up over time...

K-Roc,

Sun Oct 26, 2014 10:32 am

modok wrote: Yeah I know what it is Ray.
Using the ultra finish hone is NOT a two stage finish? It is very fine, but if it removes some metal then it is a step.
There is base then plateau, two grits

do we do:
180/600
220/600
280/400
320/600

Which one?? they are all plateau finish

Point taken Dr. Modok! :D

What I was getting at (and explained it poorly) is that most don't know what they are trying to accomplish with it. Just because you use a two step...two grit...honing process........did you actually create the plateau finish desired?

Most dont own the equipment to check what they have created. Some ring manufacturers dont publish the numbers that are required to check against even if you had the equipment.

Since this discussion is at hand...and I am moving toward starting my engine assembly around December (by that time it will be too cold to work on the chassis anymore in the garage so I will move indoors to the work bench)....and I am going to be using Deves rings in very nice NOS cylinders......
I will contact Deves this week and ask them what surface profile and cross hatch angle they recommend for this application.

For the first time in a couple of years...I am not using an employers surface profile gauge.....I own my own profile gauge and microscope. So I can check.

It may be February or March before the beast drives....but if I can plateau hone to the ring manufacturers spec.....and its successful......maybe I can help shed some light on methods.

The issues with Deves rings are prolific. In almost every automotive and motorcycle forum there are threads with failures and unexplained success.

Scares the heck out of me. The rings are very obviously high quality...but they are very finicky.
Ray

Sun Oct 26, 2014 11:40 am

I would do a cylinder leak down and if the compression rings were not leaking I would be looking at the oil ring. From all your comments there is no crankcase blow by. If that is the case it sounds like a faulty oil rings. If the compression rings were leaking I would spring for some Grants or Total Seal.

Sun Oct 26, 2014 2:03 pm

All good information thanks again,

Ray when you call Deves, and you find out that they do require a specific hone could you please do me a favor and ream them out for not posting the information on thier website :D

It will be fantastic if you can come up with a honing strategy that we can follow to guarantee success.

Back to the motor.. Some good news no more James Bond smoke screen!

I did 2 more 15 minute run in cycles today and Things are looking good, I would say the rings are sealing up now, So perhaps I did have something pooched in the 4 piece oil ring installation, I didn't see anything wierd when I disassembled #2 but who knows....
Or perhaps I needed to do a few more strokes with the Ultra finish hone....
Mabe the Quick seat dry lube was too slippery for theses rings?
So I am going to proceed with installation
And hopefully we have some decent weather in the coming weeks so I can go do some hills :D

I will jump back to this thread with a conclusion.

Thanks Gents.

Tue Oct 28, 2014 5:25 pm

So I called Deves today.....and either I spoke to a nobody.....or their knowledge base is lacking (which I doubt).

The person I spoke to simply noted that a hone of 220-280 grit with a hatch angle of 45° is all that is necessary. I asked about plateau finish and he said no....not needed. I asked for surface profile #s and he said they probably have some but he has no idea :?

So....through further research and going through my notes....I found that Jake Raby told me about 5-6 years that Deves rings work very well with a 280 grit primary and a reverse pass with a 400-600 grit for plateau finish with killer cleaning efforts. Or else...it will smoke like a train.

I also found an awesome article from engine builder magazine that not only backed that up almost to a tee.....but provided not only ideal and manufactures aurface profile suggestions but honing details for a wide variety of ring types.

On the more complex side I found a disertation from a Volvo engineer with some awesome background. I will publish links to both in the am. Ray

Thu Oct 30, 2014 2:47 pm

Here are the articles I found. The one with the most immediate useful information is this one from Engine Builder magazine.

http://www.enginebuildermag.com/2000/09/cylinder-bore-surface-finishes/

If you scroll down, it gives honing suggestions for various cylinder material types as well as surface profilometer #'s.

This article is fairly deep and more about actually understanding and analyzing the date to build an automated process for factory work for Volvo truck facility. Its good information to wade through and has a lot of info on plateau finish.

http://www.bth.se/fou/cuppsats.nsf/all/3ede3ed577c...D05_SE.pdf

This one is also from Volvo....but talks about # of strokes during plateau finish as well. Interesting stuff

http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:238129/FULLTEXT01.pdf

Im not suggesting that to do these correctly....that anyone has to go out and buy a profilometer. I happen to own one.....so I am going to use it.

What you can do is use the baseline suggestions that have come from several sources including DEVES.

220-280 grit starting one direction
600 Grit Plateau in the opposite direction
Like the Engine Builder article states....you can get what they call "fax paper"...which is a pressure sensitive checking paper for surface texture patterns. We use it in my industry for checking patterns smaller than the cross hatching on ceramic pattern rollers and anilox rollers.

Just put it on and burnish it down. It will help to identify if the surface is too sharp still, too bald/smooth or if the cross hatch angle is incorrect.

I am going to use all of the best habits that I can and take measurements. I will see if I can confirm if any of these methods are workable. It may be January before I repost to this thread.
Ray