How bad did I #$&% my piston up?

JohnnyRingo said
I have KB 232's in a .030 over bore. Now I'm starting to get confused, most likely because I'm reading too much into this. So I was told to use the formula of 4x4.000 for a standard four inch bore, or for my situation, 4 x 4.030 to determine the desired ring gap as the top ring sits inside the bore.

When I place that ring inside the bore, it sits at .0020, if I remember correctly. I can certainly go back and check all of those rings, too, though. So if I read this chart on Keith Black's webpage, anything from .0015" - .0020" for a normally asiprated engine with a bore size up to 4.100" is what you're going for, right?

It certainly doesn't seem like I want to file down or grind down the ends of the ring by any means because it'll just increase that size past .0020"?

Woah, woah, woah! You need to step back and VERY CAREFULLY read the web page that was posted.

You are confusing piston to cylinder wall clearance with top ring end gap.

Piston to cylinder wall clearance should be around .0015" to .002" for a normally aspirated street engine.

As far as end gap goes, the top ring needs to have .0065" (that's six and a half thousandths) of end gap PER INCH of cylinder bore. That's 4.030 x .0065 which equals about .026" (twenty-six thousandths).