Hi has anyone experienced any issues with the Manley platinum sport pistons in relation to the oil rings.

Built car with some 86.5 bore 4g64 LR stroker pistons, pistons bought around 2015. rotated rings according to the instructions , everything was fine. car drove great, used no oil and quiet. tuned car for 36 psi and car felt good. at the end of the tuning session on the way home car starts puffing oil smoke. babied the car home and dissassembled engine to find the support ring rotated to the wrist pin gap, as a result the bottom rail also rotated and ended up there causing the wavey oil rail to overlap. reclocked them this time taking extra care to place everything opposite and as far from the wristpin as possible. put car back together did a drag event and had car parked for a few weeks. started car and went for a short pull down the highway to recharge the battery and at the end of a part throttle maybe 20 psi the most pull its smoking again. car sounds fine except for the same oil smoking issue so im back to the same issue again. spoke to a few friends who had a similar issue and even sent pics with the exact issue with the oil rings and support rail. is this an issue that i can fix by buying a new set of rings and using the oil rings and rail packs out of them with the hopes that manley fixed this issue or am i overlooking something?

one of my friends with the issues stated he corrected his by using a later model oil ring spacer that manley or total seal probably revised for the issue. Any help appreciated since racing is in a few weeks and i would like to attend. thank you. P.S. this results with the affected cylinder filling with oil and eventually fouling the plug.

this was the issue before rotating the first time


2nd pic is friend's piston when he had the issue.

 

@matt1937 Descriptive post. I totally get what you're showing. My first thought was a clocking issue but you addressed that. Was wondering if this could be a PTW clearance issue?

There are certainly some experienced engine build guys out here & would like to hear what they have to say

 

i was thinking that but the ptw was around 3.6 thou. when the oil ring was put back into place car is quiet and no oil consumption or smoke. pistons also show normal wear consistent with good ptw clearance (very little wear).

 

@matt1937 Looks like you may have installed the groove lock spacer ring incorrectly. The little nub on the underside of the spacer must stick out into the open land above the wrist pin. This stops the spacer from rotating and prevents the ends of your oil rings from dropping down into the cutout for the pin.

See......... ......for a visual on how to install them right!

 

Hey, thanks for the response, unfortunately the manley platinums dont use the dimple to locate the rail. It uses what they call a radial tension design. Where they machine the oil ring land to allow the rail without needing the dimple.

 

I guess the best way to solve this is to call them to ask how to stop their "radial tension" support rings from rotating and causing the failure you are seeing. Let us know how you go!

 

ye im dreading the call and the charges it will attract as im not in the us. But i will have to bite the bullet. Here is the info on the rtd

 

Pulled the pistons and number 4 oil rail has rotated like in the pics above.

Cyl 1 is good and 2 and 3 are on the edge if being to the wrist pin rotated.

do you think new oil ring packs and oil rail support would solve this ? Willing to throw easy replaceable parts at it while its out

 

@matt1937 Do your Manley pistons have the “receiver groove” machined at the base of the oil ring groove where the RTD groove lock spacers snap into place? If not, then your groove lock spacers cannot support the oil rail across the wrist pin gap and will fail just like your pictures show. If you are going to throw parts at it, double check the Manley piston part numbers you are using to make sure they are indeed the RTD style and then select the correct ring packs and new groove lock spacers. The groove lock spacers have to be tight so they don't rotate.

 

indeed the pistons have the groove machined in and everything appears normal as far as the eye can see, i was "playing with no. 4 piston today and took out the oil rings and only installed the rail support. it installed easily and i was able to rotate it a bit by hand with effort. felt like the same effort it took to turn a set of 87mm pistons of the same brand i had a few years ago as i had them to compare. tomorrow i will double check my top and second ring gap. is it possible too wide a gap could be unsettling down to the oil ring and causing the rail to flutter and move out of position?

 

Hi. What did you end up doing? Currently I disassembled 2.3 stroker engine and old oil support ring had a little nub so the rings did not spin and everything was fine, but when I ordered new set of rings, the oil support ring does not have this little nub. I think I will re use old oil support ring. Thanks!