The engine on the webpage used an $800 Total Seal "Advantage" low tension gapless top ring / Napier 2nd package that was designed for SS Class cars, it used ring groove spacers with lateral gas ports. They reduce ring tension to the ragged minimum for those cars. Torque plate bore/hone. Assembled short block rotating torque was 13.3 ftlbs.
Ok, turning torque on the crank, makes sense to me now! That is a tiny number! Ring drag is something that I want to get more of a handle on. A while back i was putting together a motor with some forged pistons but it felt to me like the drag from the oil rings was excessive (by hand), but i don't have the depth of experience on that particular issue to make a call on it. I got an idea from YouTube and bought a fish-weighing scale to hook on the rod and pull the piston through the bore and measure the drag that way, but without much to compare it to I still didn't have a good feeling at the end. I never finished or ran the motor with those pistons/rings (which means it is all floating around my piles of stuff somewhere), leaving the whole experience feeling like an unresolved gaping hole in my engine-building knowledge. Thanks for the response.
