Rings are round, square, slanted and precision made. They are required to seal combustion pressure. All of the movement has to be done at a speed of 3,500 feet per minute which is a distance of about two-thirds of a mile. While this process is going on, throw in heat for the ring seal gasket can shed lubricant that comes. It is also trying to keep the lubricant out of the combustion chamber. The above process presents the piston ring’s environment and its job description.

Horsepower in an engine is directly related to facets in ring design. The top ring’s main function is to seal the combustion pressure. Yet it must fulfill this without pushing hard on the cylinder wall so as to lead to excessive wear. Low tension rings are available which can change reduced friction into power. These low-tension hydraulic seals rings will not seal properly or live long unless some very heroic measures are taken to ensure the cylinder walls round and true when the engine is running.

Piston rings perform a number of important functions. They seal the gap between the piston and cylinder wall to avoid the blowing of combustion gases into the crankcase. They stabilize the piston as it travels up and down in the bore. They help cool the piston seal by transferring heat into the engine block, and they scrape oil off the cylinder walls. That’s an order, and in recent years the theory on how to make rings best carry out these tasks has undergone revision.

Ring groove design is much more important than it may appear at first sight. Properly designed ring grooves have a small degree of vertical uplift, which makes up for uneven temperature growth as the piston reaches operating temperature. Ring groove smoothness is also extremely important. Any waviness or roughness leads to poor o-rings seal and micro welding probably which is a destructive situation where under extreme pressure the rings will momentarily attach themselves to high spots on the ring groove. There also should be a small radius where the vertical and horizontal portions of the ring grooves meet. Pistons without this radius are more prone to groove distortion and ring land breakage.