How many piston rings?

[Max4music]

Hello peeps

As the title suggests, I'm interested in how many piston rings people run in their race bikes. The kit manual talks about a single ring, which would presumably give a touch more power through less fiction, but at what cost? Anyone have experience of this? Cheers

[mick41zxr]

Ran Single compression ring year before last. Bike ran well, but not noticeably better, found that I didn't quite get a season (about 6 race meets & 6 practice days) before oil consumption began to increase. No drop off in power just using more oil (usually a sign that rings are on their last legs). Went back to a full pack of rings last year & will prob stay that way. May be a benefit if you are running to 16k rpm & rebuild the top end twice a season.
Regards,
Michael

[Max4music]

Cheers for the feedback, think I'll stay safe and build the full ring setup. Dont fancy all the extra rebuilds!

[Fatspanner #44]

I build all my engines with one ring and have seen improvement on Dyno although only slight, but improvement is improvement Not had any issues with reliability and as the rings do not wear very quickly I would be surprised if your oil consumption increased after as few as 6 races although Michael obviously had this issue. We ran 2 bikes with single rings last year and both had no reliability or oil burning issues. We only refresh the engines every 2 seasons.

Cheers