F355 Piston Rings

Gary at S&R exotics has a complete piston/ring/sleeve kit for the 355.
HUGE savings and apparently better materials/coatings than OEM.

Are you changing pistons and sleeves?

5K on my rebuilt motor - she is running strong

 

Have you looked at Mahle or Goetze?

 

Superformance UK has them
http://www.superformance.co.uk/

 

You could send Total Seal a piston and tell them you are working with Nikasil walls. They will have something.

 

not trying to resurrect a dead thread, but i may be doing a full rebuild soon and am looking for a good replacement for the $250 per cylinder rings from Ferrari.

anyone use the superformance rings?

 

Good luck using anything but OEM.

 

The rings are the least of your problem. If the rings are worn the sleeves are dead. They have a very small wear limit and they mean it. The surface hardening is very thin and once through it the surface eats the rings. Sleeves are much more costly than rings.

 

Never sure why using the correct parts is a problem......

I am certain we will now get the usual run of Ftax/stealership/I can do better posts from the usual suspects.

 

Brian,
From what you are saying, I believe that a car that sits for years and not run would have a problem. A small amount of corrosion could permanent damage the sleeves? If this is correct, another reason to not covet a very low mileage Ferrari. Driven and properly maintained is better.

 

The day I see a rusted sleeve or any minute rust pitting on the interior surface in an assembled car I will be sure to evaluate that.

Sorry but that entire philosophy is one I rejected out of experience a very long time ago. It is a creation of people with high mileage cars trying to convince us they should be worth more.

Besides it will rust from the outside in far faster and is doing just that on many of them in operation because the wrong coolants are being used and not changed nearly often enough.

 

No end to those trying to fix that which ain't broke either.

 

I am all for cheaper solutions but pistion rings and liners for our cars would not be one of them. As other components that are similar.

 

Not advocating for anything other than oem here, but what do Porsche guys use in their nikasil applications? Considering the size of that market surely they have aftermarket solutions.

 

As others have saidyou can buy rings from aftermarket suppliers and letting them know about the nikasil liners.

I would not do that. You wont need them all done anyway. Thats just my opinion.

Unless I knew all the engineering specs i would not substitute. Probably all the years of salesman over selling and under delivering. They like to tell you it will work till theres a problem, then they blame someone or something else for the failure when they find out the repair cost.

 

No need. There are many sources for genuine Porsche parts outside of the factory supply line from the companies that supply Porsche, Mercedes, BMW etc. and there is a great deal of competition and very good prices. Not the case with Ferrari.

German car repair has such huge markups in parts, good quality parts they can nearly give the labor away. With Ferrari everyone gets bent over from the dealers on down.

 

I have used a set of Total Seal rings in a 355 before. I did send the piston to have the grooves re-machined for there gapless 2nd ring. It worked very well.

 

Can you give us some of the history since it sounds like its been a while.

Milage since
Years since
Driving and racing at track?.

Thanks Wade.

 

Car is sold and I haven't seen it again.
Probably 10 years ago.
I use Total Seal in everything. I tell them what the cylinder is and they tell me what to use. Works for me.

 

Wade so being a Ferrari mchanic you have obvoiusly used this for other ferraris, same thing they have lasted like 10 years and never had a problem after fixing acyclinder that is nikasil?

Thanks for sharing.

 

I guesss you have not seen this since???

 

total seal is owned by Mahle, the oem piston maker for ferrari. Fyi, mahle will make you a set of pistons for $2k. if you have 8 weeks to spend. Total seal will be happy to make a set of rings for you, just be aware it is best to send them a piston. remember nikosil and chrome rings are incompatible. By the way, connecting rod bearings part #166561 has been replaced with 202389.

 

Total Seal is not owned by Mahle. TOTAL SEAL, Inc.: Private Company Information - Bloomberg

Mahle bought Federal Mogul/Clevite.

 

Sorry I missed this earlier.
I have used Total Seal in old cars and new cars, Nicosil, steel sleeves, cast iron blocks. Never had an issue. I had an inspector come in to look at an old car I had rebuilt the engine and during the leak down test he asked "What kind of rings are in this thing?", then told me he was going to write down 2% because they would not believe zero.
I like them, they work well in my experience.

If I am doing an old engine, the first thing I do is find a ring package that is the size I can bore or re-hone the cylinder to. Then I have pistons made to fit the rings.