Here is a meatball answer to my question on psi compression test vs compression ratio.  This is an empirically derived range from car folks who do a lot of piston swapping.  It assumes good ring seat and enough oil on the cylinder wall to create a good compression seal.

8:1 - > 102.9 psi
8.5:1 - 102.9 > 110.25 psi
9:1 - 110.25 > 117.6 psi
9.5:1 - 117.6 > 124.95 psi
10:1 - 124.95 > 132.3 psi
10.5:1 - 132.3 > 139.65 psi
11:1 - 139.65 > 147 psi
11.5:1 - 147 > 154.35 psi
12:1 - 154.35 > 161.7 p

Do we know the expected PSI range on a stock Savage engine for a cold compression test (or a hot one for that matter)?

What PSI range indicates shot rings, valve seat issues, etc for the Savage?

Or, do we just keep running it until oil consumption gets bothersome or we have our piston skirt come a'knocking at us?

From the "I hear you knockin' "thread...

verslagen1 wrote on 12/27/08 at 14:40:03:


So I don't think those numbers are right for us.

yup, that VW engine rebuild page is great!
*what I think they mean with that "prime the oil pump" thing
is trying to get all that "contaminated" oil out of there as much
as possible before pouring fresh oil in, not sure, gotta re-read.

|| STIMPY'S NEW RINGS BREAK-IN METHOD ||

1st OF ALL: it worked!  over 2k miles w/new rings and not a drop
of oil on the floor, not a drop of oil missing IN the bike and not
a black puff of smoke to speak of and all that torque is still there, yay!

anyway ...after putting the bike back together in the garage where I
kinda work (I'm their webmaster, page designer, PR guy, etc so they
lent me the space & tools to work there)

I) ... basically (after warming it) I ran home like a bat out of hell trying
to rev the engine/gears/speed up & down as much as possible, specially
down shifting a lot, I immediately drained that nasty jet black, scorched,
boiling hot oil outta there, this run was about 6 city + 4 highway miles,
engine ran fine but it got hot, REALLY hot cause of all that friction!

II) then filled it with 2qt of good fresh semi-synth oil and took a short
roadtrip on the weekend w/friends (70mi total w/3hr pause in middle),
did the reving/gear thing again and did not go over 65mph, then
drained the oil again; oil was in bad shape but not as bad as the
previous run, this time I changed oil filter too; there were a lot fewer
metal shavings this time but bike did get really hot that day as well
(think friction, but this is a GOOD thing).

III) Then rid the bike normally (85+mph at times) for about 300mi
and then dropped the oil again; this "4th oil " was in there for over
1k miles before I dropped it with no problems at all and lasted a good
deal of time nice and brown and eventually got black after about 500mi.
After all this it's back to normal w/regular oil changes twice a year,
5w40 for winter and 10w50 for summer

So that's the story, hope it helps  

Let it fully warm up, ride slow for about 5 miles then in 3rd gear nail it then let up hard until you get slow again, then nail it hard.
Do this for about 5 min and go home and change the oil.
You have now seated the rings !

But you cant just put in new rings, you need to resurface the bore.

And to the prime the oil pump..... thats to get oil all in the motor before it first fire up after a rebuild... or total oil drain.

The question about whether to replace the rings or not comes down to one question. How much is your time worth to you? If you have to replace them later and spend 6 hours doing it for a $40 savings now, your time is worth $6.66 per hour!!  

Pennies seems to be the key word.

Wipe your cast iron & pizza pans with a light coat of olive oil. Theyll stop rusting. My cast iron never sees any dish soap. I get it hot, if its nasty, & hit it with water & wipe it out. Soap screws it up.

Hey burn, the method has been posted on the site a couple of times by a few people.  And it recounted many times on the web.  What mike said maybe abit abreviated but esentially correct.  search for mick's ninja post for the full procedure or search the internet.  the truth is out there.