Blown piston rings?

[StreetLegalEX]

I was wondering, what are the symptons for bad piston rings? Do they make noise? Do they make the quad hard to start? How can I tell they begin to go bad? Is it possible they only make noise without effecting power/startability?

Sorry for asking so much at the same time ;)

[Castor-426ex]

oil smoke

oil loss

loss of power


chunks of metal coming out of your exhaust

[speedy400]

smokey breather tube that comes off the crankcase....

[StreetLegalEX]

Thanks for all replies. Well this pretty much assures me that the problem lies elsewhere.

[Butters]

yeah it will smoke reak bad especially when you 1st start it up.

[Castor-426ex]

actually....if it smokes on start up and then stops.....thats valve seals

yeh its the valve seals if it smoke when u start her up because when they heat up they expand.

So what is your quad doing that you thought the rings were bad?

i think he was just curious about what would happen. but it seems like he has problems starting his quad. Try a 42 pilot jet.

[WEEZIL]

when your rings start to go bad i am sure you will be able to hear some pistion slap

[StreetLegalEX]

No it starts fine but sometimes it smokes on start (when I use the choke) but it makes a nasty sound when under load.

But I recently discovered the problem: Blown head gasket.

At this point i could choke the man who sold me this quad about 3 or 4 months ago, and rebuilt the whole thing.
Well my valvehead-gasket was gone when I had it for about 1 week, my axle bearings went out about a month ago and now my head gasket has gone to hell.

This is not the only thing, I also found my quad to be badly jetted for my Rino silencer. I put the stock silencer on and noticed significant gains througout the powerband and especially a much higher topspeed.......

I hope that I won't run into any more trouble because I really like my 400ex but a quad that has one problem after another is nothing for me......
I always hear Honda is reliable as hell so I am pretty convinced that once it has been fixed good I will get much more fun-hours out of my quad.

[Castor-426ex]

it might by chance be fuel burning off....but more than likely you are either too rich or the rings are bad..or installed incorrectly....what have you found out so far?