Yes, I done had already seen'st it. *Since FE dudes want to fist fight over things like: whether or not drip tins are needed, how accurate the gonkulator is, whether or not your aluminum carb spacer was cast at a foundry in Korea, etc... let me just point out that I didn't bother to orient the rings correctly or as removed... I threw a pile of pieces into a circle and snapped this pic with my phone years ago, to send to a friend.* And, what those drain back holes in the head do underneath that valve cover are their own dang business. Well... used to be. THANKS JAY.
This engine was assembled probably around 99-2000, using total seal gapless 2nd/file to fit on some regular cast pistons, almost identical to yours. Basically a "410". I found two holes like this, on tear down... 2nd ring was between .024 and .026 on all - I assembled/filed them myself. Nevermind I was ~14 at the time... I did "roll" the rings into place though - which is something I've not had a problem with yet. I know it's the internet and anyone can make stupid silly claims, so I won't. Most of you wouldn't believe me anyway... but I've assembled my fair share. If the motor wasn't serious enough for me to take the time to lap the rings, I usually don't bother using a spreader. Small bore stuff is an exception here (real small, like... a chainsaw)
I know for sure that I rattled the balls off that FE trying to learn how to curve a distributor/other things tuning related. Mild pinging, but plenty of it. Definitely a possibility... It also sat up for a good 6 or 7 years - I noticed that one of the cylinder walls where a broken ring was found, was apparently parked with the intake valve open, because there were obvious signs of moisture intrusion and "puddling". Cylinders 7 and 8 actually, which... coincidentally have the potential for both of their intake valves to be open at the same time, so I chalked that up to storm water. Found signs water made its way down firewall, past air cleaner (Hurricane Rita, Ike, Humberto etc... no choice.). My conclusion could be complete garbage - I didn't care enough to dig further because I had no intention of using any sort of similar setup on the rebuild, as far as rings and pistons.
I've never been a fan of total seal - not to be an ass, but because... well, experience. I used total seal ONE other time, several engines later in another fun project... I pulled that motor after less than 5K miles in favor of Akerly and childs hellfire... never looked back. In that case, nothing was visibly wrong. Wear patterns looked great... but the number one cylinder (SBF in this case) suddenly jumped up to around 9% leakage while the other seven cylinders were still putting up post break-in numbers. After the re-ring, didn't change the combo other than spraying it nearly twice as much... never had another problem. Usually when I worked on SBF's with hurt cylinders, it was always number 4, or especially 7 anyway.
