A "GEX" story... the horror.

[I Ride Sand]

[Dstolan83]

I am not following, can you explain what you mean by “ gap on center main web”? I did check the clearances of the split bearing and crank , well in the middle of the Tolerances . I actually did it twice , with a “naked” crankshaft and the other time was after I installed all the crap on the nose of the crank, cam gear , brass distributor gear, spacer, C clip, snap ring and everything else.

[67rustavenger]

[Dstolan83]

All good on the main bearing webs . I got super super lucky, apparently, The machine work on the block has been pretty good just having to deal with a little chatter from their Mill not being taken care of . I don’t have a set a V Blocks that I trust to take these types of measurements so to check the Crankshaft And cam I used the block and Bearing ( the one’s GEX installed) and oiled everything up and to my surprise I no run out that I could speak of with my dial indicator

[Dstolan83]

Going through the piston rings and they are all over . You guys recommend going with a gap or
Top ring 0.016
Second ring 0.02
Oil control rings 0.011 - 0.012

Top ring has been anyway from no gap to .020
Second ring has been all about 0.020
And my oil control are crazy have gotten as big as 0.020
Pretty sure that my rings are from Grant
So new rings are in my future AA pistons are out of stock , is there a better ring or what else do you recommend

[Clatter]

Here, read this thread. Very informative.
[url] https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=677232[/url]

I think ring end gap info if buried in there.
IIRC, your ring gaps are in spec or smaller
So all you have to do os file the ends gaps on a few of them.
_________________
Bus Motor Build

What’s That Noise?!?

[Dstolan83]

Thanks for the link . My head hurts now ! Lots of back and forth about surface finish of the cylinder and matching the ring to the hone and manufacturing materials of the rings . My AA cylinders and pistons for 1776 (90.5) are just the basic AA package not Mahle (still spelling that wrong lol). To be honest not having those jugs is what made me open the GEX motor up and start down these path . The gaps in the linked post are the same that I was suggested to use . I was able to get AA pistons to respond to and email about some other issues I was having. Hopefully they will respond to my question about rings. Yes the ring pack I have are Grant with the
Blue phosphorus coding. I will be interested to see if the rings were supposed to be pregapped and GEX assumed that the gapping was right or just said fuck it and sent out a ungaped . The rings show no signs or ever being Touched by any tool

[vwracerdave]

You are way overthinking all of this. You have gotten to the point of being laughable. For gosh sakes, your not building a Formula 1 racing engine to set National records or win a World Championship. You're only building a little 1776 street driver that might see 85 HP. Stop listening to the rocket scientist and build it. Your Grant rings will be fine. The AA P/C's will be fine.
_________________
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2010 Sportsman ET Champion - Mid-America Dragway - Arkansas City, KS
1997 Sportsman ET Champion - Thunder Valley Raceway Park - Noble ,OK
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Watch my racing video's http://www.youtube.com/user/okvwracer/videos

[evanfrucht]

Dont worry, be glad you are at least over thinking things and inspecting parts. It would have felt worse to have done nothing and chance it blowing up for some unknown reason.

But yes dont worry about the ring gaps too much etc. The rings and pistons/cylinders you have will work fine. Only gap them if they are way off.
_________________
1967 Bug ( the daily rod )
1964 Fury Wagon ( the pavement shredder )

[Dstolan83]

They would have been fine tell I let my son try to gap one ! He got a little excited with ring grinder and now I have a gap in one the of the rings that is about 1/8 of an inch . And to the guy that his Avatar is a grumpy old man stay the hell off my thread if all you want to do bitch and put me down . I am not made of money and can’t just slap it together to have it brake . I know I am being anal , but you don’t have to be an ass . I am teaching my son at the same time, not only on how to put a motor together but also when you start a task you see it through and that it is not OKAY to settle for “ It’s good enough “.
TANGENT TIME
WE all complain that there are not any tradesmen left or professional that have pride in their own work . Well it because Society has let it get that way and don’t hold people accountable . Instead we just say OH well. People are not willing to teach. We need to tell kids that they don’t need a College education and debt to make a living.
I entered an apprenticeship I have zero debt for my education and make six figures instead we let these kids grow up and think that everyone should get a trophy or metal and that it’s okay to pay video games all day .

[67rustavenger]

I'm confused. Go figure!

Are you saying that AA stated that their pistons come with Grant rings?
Or did you buy a set to replace the AA stock rings?
_________________
I have learned over the years.
Cheap parts are gonna disappoint you.
Buy Once, Cry Once!

There's never enough time to do it right the first time. But there's always enough time to do it thrice.
GFY's Xevin and VW_Jimbo!

[Dstolan83]

So back story , I bought a GEX 1776 “performance “ rebuilding so some where down the line between suppliers, GEX and then me I ended up with Grant rings.
I called AA pistons and the person I talked with told me the it is an option they offer to add Grant rings to their Cylinder and Pistons package. If that helps ! But because my son and I messed up a ring super bad I am planning on replay the ring with Deves ring

[67rustavenger]

Thank you for the reply.
I looked around on the interwebs and couldn't find a single ring set for ya to buy. ACN has some broken sets of pistons, cylinders and stuff like that. But no Grant rings, or any other single ring sets.

I'm kinda bummed for ya. But this is a learning experience for you and your son.
Small mistakes, are often remembered far into the future.

I hand file rings to set the gap. I have never used the ring file machine.
I run the file over the end of the ring wrapped in a shop rag and gently clamped on a small vice. And then place it into the barrel. I use the piston to make sure it's level in the barrel and then measure.
It takes time but works out in the end.
_________________
I have learned over the years.
Cheap parts are gonna disappoint you.
Buy Once, Cry Once!

There's never enough time to do it right the first time. But there's always enough time to do it thrice.
GFY's Xevin and VW_Jimbo!

[Busstom]

Here's a little tip that doesn't involve "overthinking": if you measure something with imperial units (e.g. inches, or fractions thereof written as decimals), just multiply by 25.4 to convert it to metric. If you have a metric value, just DIVIDE it by 25.4 to convert it to imperial.

What I'm getting at is, you don't need "metric" measuring tools if your caliper or mic only read in inches

Example: a 19mm socket works perfectly on a 3/4" lug nut, because 19 ÷ 25.4 = 0.748, or essentially 3/4's of an inch (0.75)

[Dstolan83]

Finally got to a point to measure my Deck height 0.066 with no shims. When I cc my head I got 52 . So JBugs have an engine calculator, plugged my specs in and ended with a compression ratio of 8.1 . There was 1 shim on the engine 0.020 which brought the compression ratio to about 8.5: 1 . From the thing I have read I have seen compression from 7:1 to 8:5 for a motor , what I your guys thoughts and suggestions

[raydog]

Not sure I am following you correctly. Adding a base shim at .020, will drop compression to about 7.7

[mark tucker]

eye wood go with a .040 deck .or zero and a .040 coppper head gasket.( preferred). I wont build lower than 9:1 cr unless it's forced induction.

[Dstolan83]

Will recheck the math and my measurements when I get off work

[Dstolan83]

Stupid nubbiest question probably: So on my slant six one way to get better compression ratio is to mill/ deck the head or the expensive way , which I did , its to get domed pistons. In the VW world you remove shims and or machine work? What is the purpose of the copper head gasket?

[Dstolan83]

Just plugged the numbers in to JBugs Calculator and it is saying to get 9:1 I need a deck hight of 0.021 . We will see what happens when I re check things