I have a NA 446 ci mostly street, some strip with Ross flat tops. The bore is 4.350. What sould I gap the 1st and 2nd ring at. Lot's of choices these days with the 2nd ring. Some people say to gap the 2nd ring larger. What do you guys do

Anyone else

Can`t give you the "scientific" reason for it but, I know of several builders motors(including mine)that have the second gap .004-.006 wider than the first.

Whose rings? If std Speed Pro's 1/16th or stock type moly that are file to fit I use .004/1" of bore for top and .005 for 2nd. So it ends up with .018 top, .022 second.

As far as ring end gap and a lot of other clearances in a motor that you can control the clearances it is far better to have them all a little looser, .002 to .003, than .0001 to tight. that being said I would run .020 on the top and .024 on the second

engine bldrs. are strange creatures. the info. we give will work fine, but when we-they actually do it, we-they do it differently . however,in this case,i think cab gave you pretty good info

See what ross says on their website for your application. That's what I did when I gapped my rings with KB pistons. They have all kinds of different gapping options for different applications and combinations there and I wouldn't think that ross would be any different.

WOW if you are running NA...NO nitrous why would you gap the second larger??? I am shooting 3-400 of nitrous and my current short block is gapped less on the second, not larger. Im freshening the short block now and im going to gap them the same. I have never heard of gapping it so large on the second when running NA. The reason for that is that if fuel gets trapped in the lands it has somewhere to go and avoid lifting the ring lands. IF this is a typical street strip combo, id follow the instrustions with the rings and gap them as per...

Just food for thought, not advise. we took all the second rings out of a motor one time to see what would come or go on the dyno. The motor made the same power. I don't personally get too worked up over second ring gaps as long as they can't butt.

dthemi, I removed all the second rings from my first NHRA Hemi stocker motor half way thru the season. the car didn't go any faster or quicker but the car smoked from then on until I rering the motor. That was with a set of file to fit Speed Pro moly low tension oil ring set that Speed Pro furnish us thru thier racer program. The next set of rings was a Total Seal set that they recommended installing the total seal ring on the top, they now want the two piece ring installed in the second ring location. I don't use or recommend the Total Seal ring combinations anymore due to no increase in power or performance. Lots of tricks and rumors out there, some work and some don't

Darren, I'm sure you have checked the ring gap on
a engine after its been dyno'd, what king of increase
did you see after(we will say 10-15 pulls)