Over engineered junk that was used until they ran out of them. They are just in the way. I have never used them.
FWIW, lots of junk gets stuck on these cars because some engineer right out of college thought his book education was better than learning in the field so Crap like that happens. Want another example?
The “drip tab”. What a joke. Does nothing. But they used them.
The “oil slinger”. See above.
The bolt with the hole in it for the cam retainer plate on the small block. It does absolutely positively nothing. But guys loose sleep not using it. A 5 minute study of what hole it goes in and what it does would show it’s just useless.
That’s just a few quick examples of junk that gets stuck on these cars and such because someone wanted to fix a problem that wasn’t.
If you ever get the chance, read Yunick’s engine book where he talks about moving the rings up on the pistons. A classic example of the text book and the real world clashing, and the text book lost.