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MAHLE’s new product: HV385 performance rings designed to permit the sportsman racing and performance market to take advantage of new, thinner piston ring technology that’s now been adopted by the OE manufacturers, with dimensions of 1.0mm/1.0mm/2.0mm in contrast to older, thicker designs. The side-by-side cutaway in the above picture shows the difference between a stock 1.5/1.5/3.0mm ring set on the left, and a 1.0/1.0/2.0 ring set on the right. Look at the difference in the oil ring land thickness at the bottom of the piston. Also in the above picture is the side view of the 1.0/1.0/2.0mm piston ring pack which is not intersecting the pin. This is a good thing, both from an oil control and rotating assembly weight perspective.
“In the past, with thicker rings, piston manufacturers were forced to make the piston pin intersect the oil ring for many applications, which caused the final product to be heavier and add more cost, along with more effort in terms of installation of the piston rings,” says McFarland.
“A thinner package actually works better in nearly every situation. We’ve been using them in OE applications for some time, and before that in upper-level racing series – Formula 1, NASCAR, IndyCar, Pro Stock, they’re all running skinny rings. The only people who haven’t been are the sportsman and lower-level professional-level racer, and it’s largely due to cost,” he explains. MAHLE has developed proprietary equipment built in-house to allow them to produce these in higher volumes at a much more reasonable cost. “We’ve also developed manufacturing processes that have allowed us to cut production costs, which makes up for the higher cost in the steel material,” says McFarland.
The HV385 rings offer lighter weight and lower drag as obvious features, but there are other, less-visible benefits to be found as well. According to McFarland, the skinnier ring design is also much more conformable to bore irregularities, bore distortion, piston groove deformation, and will behave more consistently in tough situations. This improvement in conformability allows the ring to seal the cylinder and control oil more consistently with less ring tension – which results in the aforementioned low drag characteristics. The HV385 ring package consists of 9254 steel on the top and second rings, which McFarland says is a much stronger, harder material that has a much higher fatigue strength than traditional cast or ductile rings.
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