[Cliff R]

I set all of our street engine builds at .018"/.018" and have had zero issues in that area. The "trend" in the last decade or so has been to have the bottom ring gap a little wider than we used to set them back in the day.

Before we had all this file fit stuff it wasn't uncommon to see bottom rings come it around .014" or so, and I never once opened any of them up.

These days since we use custom forged pistons and modern ring packs, all of them are file-fit. In most cases we use Total Seal standard type, not the gapless versions. In all the years we built one engine with the gapless variety and it spit out two oil pan gaskets on the top end of the track due to excessive crankcase pressure. That engine dyno'd just fine and made great torque numbers, and no issues on the dyno with excessive pressure, but in actual use it didn't make the grade. We put traditional file fit rings in it and no more issues anyplace.....FWIW.

Good advice on checking the oil rings, Total Seal let quite a few sets get out there where they butted together tight in the bores and required some work. We saw this for a while, but the last couple of engines we've done including the one we just finished they were fine........Cliff