What are you guys doing for piston ring fitting? I am installing a take off set of stock 88 cylinders with five miles on them. I plan on honing them and installing a set of new rings. The set of rings that came with the stock pistons, gap at .018. the manual calls for .10- .020.
I am asking because this is the second set of new take offs piston/Jugs that I am installing, the set that is on the bike has 30,000 miles and I am getting piston slap and blow by already. This old set I used the old rings which had five miles on them and the gap was .020
For factory take offs, I feel this gap is way too large and don’t know if I should buy stock rings or +.005 and file to fit.
Anyone with knowledge about this?

 

well in all my time building motors in dealerships and at home for my toys i always buy new rings when i install pistons no if ands or buts about it and on my own projects i use file fit rings and a file to install and gap all mine and never had a problem with blo by or piston slap now granted there are the few rare over rev having fun occasions that i bed push rods but thats not the point lol. i would replace the rings with file fit closer to the bottom end of your gap range but its entirely up to you since your rings are still in spec

 

Elemental thanks, that is the advice that I was looking for, just wanted to have someone tell me I had to do it;-)
I don’t believe HD sells fill to fit stock rings, would you go with +005 over HD or go to a aftermarket set like Wiseco?

 

Bump........