Hello all,

How important is the shape of the end of the side seal to effective sealing and the longevity of the engine?

A bit of context; I clearanced my side seals a looooong while ago, and never paid much attention to the end shape (because I’m dumb). Now I’m looking to finally put my short block together, and I wanna make sure the seals aren’t nuked before I bolt everything together. I rechecked my clearance, all .002-.003”, but some (not all) of the clearanced ends look questionable. Should I just get a new set of seals or could I potentially make it work? Any and all advice appreciated.

Thanks,
Andrew

 

I make them angled but still a flat cut. (I use a diamond wheel type piston ring filer, VERY fast!) Some people even more **** retentive than me will make a jig out of a Dremel and a dead rotor to put the curve in.

The trailing side of the seal (bottom when viewing the ports side) always digs into the corner seal and opens up the gap a thousandth or two shortly after you fire it. If this is the edge you clearanced, this will happen to a greater degree as the parts wear into each other. So I make sure to only clearance the leading edge.

 

this is how i did them before. The picture is before I cleaned the burr.