Piston ring positions - How critical???

[psyguy]

This is nothing religous

one has to allow that people may feel better with using one particular method over some other (be it the oil, the brake-in method, oiling the pistons or not, etc.)
the things that are definitely going to do a lot of damage to an engine are well known and you have to point those out to a novice home-mechanic
but, for the things that are ever going to make only minute unnoticeable differences (if any), on your average gs, it really doesnt matter to me

[Natron037]

The ring gaps on the compression rings are placed as such because the exhaust side is normally the thrust side (up stroke) of the piston and there is a chance of the edges of the ring scoring the cylinders, hence the reason the gaps are on the intake side (downstroke). Does it matter.. my opinion is not really. As long as compression is good.. ride it. Remember.. the opening for blow-by with the piston in the bore is only about .010" by .0015", which isn't very big at all! As far as breaking in, my dad built drag race v8's as long as i can remember and he always told me "after the cam is broken in (new install, lifters and cam lobes need to get friendly) drive it like it's stolen... if it doesn't break you put it together right". I have followed that for 10 years and have never had an engine failure. Just my 2 cents.

[juicydangershow]

Well now that you said THIS, you should pull it apart again. Install everything DRY, wipe the cylinder walls down with a clean terry cloth / WD40 and reinstall everything DRY. Also i would re-hone, but thats your choice. When you install everything all oiled up there is a very good chance the cylinder walls will glaze up.
I just thought i would mix everything up again ~Gavin

I would have liked to re-hone and put new rings in. And new pistons too! And powder coat the frame. And... haha. Unfortunately there was a cut-off point on what I can (or will) do. She likely wont run like a brand new bike, but I am sure it will be fine.

As far as installing pistons/rings/cylinders DRY or with WD40... I have never heard that. Maybe that advice is for certain gaskets.

By the time I even get it started, any excess oil I have dowsed on the pistons and cylinder walls will likely have drained back in the oil pan, leaving just a normal coating on everything.