If your piston is completly black your oil problem may be sucking oil through the valve guides. Sounds like crap but here is a rule when dealing with a Harley motor (motors are designed on same principle) If the outer edge of piston is clean yet center is oil burnt then you are sucking oul past the rings. It the entire piston is carboned/oil up then you are getting oil from the HG or head. Now the concept of the total seal is to creat a higher vacuum during the intake and higher seal when compressing. If the bottom end is new and the Head was not fully rebuild many people believe youi will begine to break the weak link which is to suck oil past the valve guides.....same philosophy goes for new head old bottom. Not saying this is the case just food for thought.

Why would this not happen with conventional rings........in a perfect world the total seal rings are less tolerant to leakage than the conventional.

As for the Harley piston surface idea.....that is widely used among many harley v-twin builders so i am not sure i would write it off as BS completely.

This is a lot of Info that there isnt really a way to prove or argue in such a short time, just a concept to throw around. I cant say i can document names that have had success with total seal rings since i dont log my findings like a sociologist.


Terry