Piston rings

[new to this]

I need to buy a set of piston rings,when gaping the rings what would you use to trim them,is there a ball park for adjustment e.g. 3-4 thou ok and say 6-8 thou to big ?
What would be best to buy original rings,or use a modern set of rings,reason I thought about modern rings was the oil ring you can get as one unit instead of the original three,for the other rings you can get a chrome ring where the original was steel,what do you think ?

Dave

[Motorsport Micky]

The piston ring gaps aren't that critical, aim for about 15thou between the ends, and if it ends up at 18 thou no big deal, I always do mine with a needle file and finish with a carborundum stone. The labyrinth trap between the three sets of rings works well and the gas can't push the compression through fast enough to make much difference.

Piston Rings.docx

I've read about the newer ring designs but given the hassle you'd have needing to pull heads to refit or repair if they didn't perform as sold I'd prefer to fit original piston ring sets and let somebody else guinea pig it...it could be you.

Micky

[mike@thenook]

The last time I built a spare block I used a set of Cords rings which used to be around the best you could get - like 'hens teeth' now I believe......

[new to this]

Micky

Thanks for advice,that did make interesting reading,you may be right about letting someone else be the guinea pig using modern rings

Dave