What do the corner seal plugs really do?
 

I just got done tearing down my engine to fix a few items and found that my none of my corner seals had the plugs in them. How necessary are the corner seal plugs? What exactly do they do?

The reason I ask is because if they aren't really needed I will just install the corner seals without the plugs or i'll just go ahead and order the solid ones.

what porting if any have you done to the motor?NA or turbo

large street port, TII

they are arguably worthless, si have heard of builders never using them as they just tend to harden up or fall out anyway. i believe the olny reason they are there is to keep shit out of apex seal grooves, maybe keep seals from sliding????? i cant imagine them doing a damn thing for compression, so if you are worried, go with the solid ones...

on another note, i just tore apart a 206k 12a and every corner seal plug was present with the exception of one... suprised the hell outta me.

From the SAE papers, the corner plugs are there to help prevent apex seal chatter.

Not including them is technically not "bad", but you may draw less vacuum because of it. Many builders leave them out. I have built one engine without them, though it was a bit of a different situation because it was peripheral ported. Personally I see no reason not to use them unless you have a BIG bridgeport where they could drop...

Seems to me that the papers I read stated that the corner seal openings allowed equalization of pressure between both sides of the combustion chamber and eliminated the front to rear pressure difference.

Ramses666