Oil Consumption-This might be your problem too!

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Very low mile(2500) motorcycle with high oil consumption and high blow by in the airbox

Notice what the problem might be?


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Nothing new.
My 2013 961 CR was delivered with the same problem.
Smoked like a house on fire until it warmed up, and used lots of oil.
Factory fixed it through my dealer in 2014.

 
Who the hell set those rings up?

Doesn't matter as the rings slowly rotate and why 2-stroke rings are pegged.
"The main purpose for axial clearance is to allow the ring to spin. The cross-hatch in the cylinder walls induces rotation of the rings."
 
Doesn't matter as the rings slowly rotate and why 2-stroke rings are pegged.
"The main purpose for axial clearance is to allow the ring to spin. The cross-hatch in the cylinder walls induces rotation of the rings."
Built many engines and never had rings rotate. They might shift slightly but never moved. Also the chances of all of them lining up is lottery winning.
 
Built many engines and never had rings rotate. They might shift slightly but never moved. Also the chances of all of them lining up is lottery winning.
Nevertheless, rings are known to rotate.
 
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Factory. the right cylinder bore now has a scar right where all the rings were gapped. it will hone out but still not good
Built many engines and never had rings rotate. They might shift slightly but never moved. Also the chances of all of them lining up is lottery winning.
If the ring gaps stay lined up oil consumption and blow by will be higher.
 
A Graham Bell suggested 0.7 rpm rotation (as a general rule probably not)

If that is a modern 'Norton engine and the compression and oil scrapers (three piece) were anywhere near lined up I would put my Lotto guess on a disgruntled assembler. (Or they had worked at the local chip shop before scoring a job at the factory as a technician)

Edit, I missed the 0.
 
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A Graham Bell suggested 7 rpm rotation (as a general rule probably not)

If that is a modern 'Norton engine and the compression and oil scrapers (three piece) were anywhere near lined up I would put my Lotto guess on a disgruntled assembler. (Or they had worked at the local chip shop before scoring a job at the factory as a technician)
yes 961. And they have 4 rings and we agree it was someone's bad day.
 
OK so rings rotate. So what makes them rotate in the cylinder? Out of round or tapered finish? I could see if the cylinder was way out of round the ring gap would migrate to it and possibly line up. But why don't we see this more often?
 
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OK so rings rotate. So what makes them rotate in the cylinder? Out of round or tapered finish? I could see if the cylinder was way out of round the ring gap would migrate to it and possibly line up. But why don't we see this more often?

Google suggests the cross hatch in the bore and cylinder pressure for one.
Somewhere else suggested that reduced once an engine is run in (cylinder wall finish and type perhaps)
 
Google suggests the cross hatch in the bore and cylinder pressure for one.
Somewhere else suggested that reduced once an engine is run in (cylinder wall finish and type perhaps)
yes and no. The faster the speed the less chance of movement.

The point of the post was that the motorcycle has high consumption and when disassembled we found the rings lined up. That's not "rotation" that's crappy factory work as evidenced by the worn groove in the bore as well.

Be careful of the internet. Someone is going to quote the Journal of the Korean Nuclear Society where they did a test of a single cylinder hydrogen engine at fixed rpm and pressure.
 
I'm sure that rings rotate - don't have an opinion on how fast, why, or if it is all rings (there are lots of types). I was told during my first motorcycle engine rebuild in 1968 to put the top ring at 10, the middle at 2 and the oil at 6 (oil to the rear). I've done that on every engine since no matter how many cylinders. The few that I've taken apart that I built always had the rings different from my setup and surprisingly usually still spaced about 120 degrees apart.

You would think that logic would dictate that cross-hatching, if it caused them to move at all, would make them move back and forth.

IMHO and only guessing: lining up the ring gaps should not cause more oil-related carbon on top of the pistons. The oil-control rings should still do their job. If related to the rings, I would say, gaps wrong, ring(s) upside down, bad hone, wrong rings for the pistons (groove fit), etc. Other possible causes: if oil tank and breathes into air cleaner, too much oil entering carbs, too rich (not oil carbon, gas carbon), ale guides leaking oil, blocked crankcase breather, etc.
 
I'm sure that rings rotate - don't have an opinion on how fast, why, or if it is all rings (there are lots of types). I was told during my first motorcycle engine rebuild in 1968 to put the top ring at 10, the middle at 2 and the oil at 6 (oil to the rear). I've done that on every engine since no matter how many cylinders. The few that I've taken apart that I built always had the rings different from my setup and surprisingly usually still spaced about 120 degrees apart.

You would think that logic would dictate that cross-hatching, if it caused them to move at all, would make them move back and forth.

IMHO and only guessing: lining up the ring gaps should not cause more oil-related carbon on top of the pistons. The oil-control rings should still do their job. If related to the rings, I would say, gaps wrong, ring(s) upside down, bad hone, wrong rings for the pistons (groove fit), etc. Other possible causes: if oil tank and breathes into air cleaner, too much oil entering carbs, too rich (not oil carbon, gas carbon), ale guides leaking oil, blocked crankcase breather, etc.
Greg, This is a 961 and not when the oil rings are facing the same way as we found. And this motorcycle had more than normal top end pressure as well from this issue.
 
Piston rings don’t rotate on a boxer Porsche engine. Their pinned.
Your best bet is to use total seal gapless piston rings.
We use total seal on all of our commando builds and actually are thinking about using them here to see if we can clean up some of the oil issues
 
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