Aftermarket Piston Rings?

Question

Does anyone sell aftermarket piston rings for older bikes? I'm having a local machine shop doing the honing for my 1985 Honda Shadow VT700C, but they don't have a source for rings. I'm seeing about $50/set online from Honda.

A) Which rings do I need? The std, the 0.25, or the 0.5?

B) I assume "set" means the rings for one piston, but I don't see anything to confirm that. Any chance it means "for your entire engine"?

C) Any cheaper sources? I've tried 3 or 4 sites that are all around $50/set. Wiseco & the like only seem to do high performance new bikes.

Thanks!

- Jon

Answer 1

Power Sports Pro also has them for your bike.  About $52 + shipping per set.

If the cylinder is only honed, you should use std. rings.  When a cylinder is honed, all that is done is the cylinder walls are cleaned up some and the cross hatch pattern is re-established.  This is done when the cylinder walls are still in relatively good condition.

If the cylinder walls are in relatively poor condition, the cylinders are bored.  This removes more metal to remove deeper defects.  With your engine, this is done in .25 increments which means the cylinders can be bored twice, .25 over and a second time to .50 over.  The cylinders would also be honed after they are bored to establish the correct cross hatch finish on the cylinder walls.

Any defects that would require the cylinders to be bored more than this would require the cylinders to be replaced because this would leave the cylinder walls too thin and the engine would run to hot or the cylinders could fail.

To use .25 and .50 oversize rings you would also need to use oversize pistons to match.