Building a new motor, Best Piston Rings and Lifters? Options

[RoadGlue]

Hey all,

Building a fairly mild 66 mm x 96 mm short stroke motor (heads opened up a bit, mild cam). Just looking for recommendations for rings unless whatever AA P&Cs come with are considered good enough. Also looking for good lifter recommendations too. Not going hydraulic.

Thanks!

Randy

[jcd914]

What was explained to me years ago (hopefully I don't screw up the explanation)
VW used a "Chill Cast" cam blank in the type 4 (maybe other engines, Audi used them too).
The cam blank is cast and cooled very quickly and this process hardens the whole cam blank all the way thru. There is no hardened surface to wear thru or grind thru as is the case with most heat treated or hardened parts.
So regrinding a type 4 cam, when ground properly, does not deteriorate the hardness of the cam surface. A cam grinder could grind it too fast or not cool it properly or create a bad wear surface but that is not what you will get with Elgins. I started using Elgin cams over 20 years ago and never had a problem.

The cam Elgins has reground for you, has the same surface hardness and surface roughness (there is a term for that) as an OE cam. So you want to use OE equivalent lifters, we normally source them thru WorldPac but they were a normal supplier for us. Sorry I don't recall the brand lifters I used in the past but Febi is a good brand I have used for other parts.

Most aftermarket cams are ground on a cast blank and then the surface is heat treated and may have an additional wear treatment. With these cams you need to use lifters that are specifically made to be comparable with their surface treatment. If you are using a Web Cam use their lifters, if you use Raby cam or anyone else's cam use their lifters.

You are using an OE cam (just reground) use OE lifters.

Jim