Ring gap tollerances

First time rebuild of old project car. 98 NB ALH.

New ring gaps are measuring slightly larger than new ring spec in my Bently manual. Manual says max new ring gap for top two rings is 0.0157 in. Mine run bigger. 0.016 to 0.020 in.

The thing is, the manual also says max wear limit is 0.039
Seems like I'm well within a reasonable tollerance.
Plus boxes and packaging for rings is now all oily and written on.
So, I'm strongly inclined to just drop them in as is.

Question?
Is this negligible, small, medium or "My God man Noooo!"
Also, bore diameters are still within wear limits for standard.

Thank you

PS Oil ring gaps are within spec for new.

I'm no expert on this subject, but if I were in your position, I'd figure that cylinder wear will be the thing to worry about. Since ring gap is good, then the other thing you want to know is whether the cylinder is round or oval. If it is oval, you need to bore it.

There will be other instructions on how to measure for this type wear, so I'll leave it to you to look it up. The simple explanation is to measure the bore longitudinally (in line with the crank) and across the crank. The assumption is that the piston will be pivoting on the wrist pin, so you'll get more wear across the crank than along the crank.

Anyway, since new rings won't like the ovalness of a worn cylinder, the ring gap won't tell the whole story. Probably. And I have no idea what the tolerance of ovalness would be, but it is probably very small.

Sorry I can't be of more exacting help. Maybe if you send an email to franko6. But search first to see if it has already been explained.

Cheers,

PH

Did it have good compression before the build? If not, you need to measure the bores.
igauging makes a nice affordable digital bore gauge. Oval and taper of the cylinder must be no more than half of the tolerance of bore diameter to be considered ok for rings to set in properly.

Check the ring in several places in the bore. Should be no more than a thou or two of difference. That will tell you if the bores are tapered or not.