[CHTA]

Does anybody recommend or has experience with Total Seal piston rings for stock to street performance rebuilt ?

[dave-r]

Waste of money.

They might have a place in very high compression/supercharged/NOS engines. But on a stock to strong street performance engine I really wouldn't bother.

[Eddie]

TS-1's, or gapless, plain iron, Ductile? I agree with Dave if he is referring to the Gapless ones. I have used at least 3 sets of Total Seal Plain Iron rings and had great results. I've never used the Gapless Rings in any build. I have NO experience with them, but havent heard to many good things about them other than what Dave said, forced induction, heavy nitrous,(I would use AC Hellfires for that), or extreme heat, abuse. The last engine we did was a 'Total Seal' build, but it was a 350 Chevy Street engine. Runs fine The current 'trend' in the service industry mirrors the performance world. A wee bit of gasses to escape actually is more beneficial than total containment of the combustion gasses which might cause ring flutter at very high speeds. Some swear by them, some at them.

[fbernard]

I looked into this issue when I built my engine 2 years ago, and most of the information I found on that subject ranged from "snake oil" to "more fragile than standard, properly gapped" rings.

[dave-r]

I assumed he meant gapless.

[Eddie]

OK Dave. Plus with gapless rings his valveguides MUST be spot on and with very little oil leakage. Or else!

[CHTA]

I meant gapless. Useful answers. Don't have to think about total seal anymore in my application (OEM 340-6).

[Eddie]

I meant gapless. Useful answers. Don't have to think about total seal anymore in my application (OEM 340-6).

If you are using the stock or stock style pistons they will have 5/64 rings and this will limit your choices to plain cast iron rings or moly filled plain cast iron rings or Ductile iron moly filled iron rings. The ductile ones are more forgiving and stronger. They are a good upgrade for minimal cost.