Hi Steve !
Yes, the SS rings take longer to seat and more important on how it is seated than
other ICE's
It has to do with the metal movement from the hills and not cover
the valleys. To form plateau's as landings for the rings and the
valley's to hold oil that will be swept up by the rings to the plateau's
Key is to NOT shear the hill tops off, but to mush them flat...
Wondering if my 7.4L has SS rings? It does NOT consume engine oil...even now at
+164K miles of extremely hard driving as a 'car' and towing a +8.5K boat
Only consumes engine oil when the oil has been beat up and losing it's film
tension rating. That is when I know it is past time to change oil/filter...when
the dash oil gauge fluctuates and drops a bit in PSI
As for the muffler, I'm not looking too for my 7.4L and will check out the maker
you guys are looking at. Made a mistake taking out the OEM and replacing it with
a Magnaflow (2 in, 2 out but with a common chamber...therefore Cal SMOG says a
single).
Actually lost a bit off idle. Almost a stumble. Lost was the low end scavenging
High end is significantly better than OEM...but also lost was stealth via silence
A trick I've been using since the 70's was taught to me by old man Sanderson
when he taught me HOW2 make my own headers
Get a few bottles of aluminumize anti-seize and 'paint all the bare metal seams
and even galvanized portions
The heat will burn off the oil carrier and plate the metal with aluminum
The muffler shops that guarantee life time muffler make their money in replacing
the rotted out tubing...even aluminumized...the welded seam isn't plated with
anything and will rot from that to the rest of the tubing