273 302 318 340 build

I just put the gaps at the four 45 degree angle points; never had any issues.

The rings are free to move around anyway, so I don't see the fal-de-rah over exact alignments as long as they start out on different points of the compass; there is nothing to stop the gaps from moving around and lining up for a while at some point in the future. Maybe a serious drag engine that gets torn down every few passes might never see the rings align, but I would not think that to be the case for a street engine driven thousands of miles.

Plain motor oil has worked fine for me for rings/pistons. I make sure some gets in the rings grooves and then rotate each ring around to spread the oil all around the grooves. Any excess oil will drain off in a matter of minutes or an hour at most.