Worn rings and a blast from the past

I thought I would pass this along. Doing a top end on a KZ440. Bike has less than 12K miles.
Engine had good compression but burnt oil even after it was warmed up.
Cylinders had some lite surface rust from sitting. Oil scrappers had almost no tension
and the compression rings were worn down enough to have way excessive end gap.
And while digging thru my hoard of parts I found this gasket for a late KZ400 big bore kit.


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Should we anticipate a hot rod build?

How do rings get that bad without the bore being toast?

Stock parts, just 'tuned' a little. Except for VM28s and exhaust.

Bike came out of rural Nebraska. nearest cycle shop was over 30 miles away.
Inside the engine was clean and the bearings are good. Clutch frictions and steels also.
No airbox, but has K&Ns. Maintenance was probably good, maybe just rode hard.


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I always assumed (yes, I know) that the ring material was much harder then the cylinder, but since the wear is over a much larger surface area on the cylinder, rings would still go out of spec sooner. Still, that looks like a pretty huge end gap for that mileage. Do you suppose that oil getting past the rings kept the compression readings artificially high?

No, not really, it was not smoking that bad. Just a puff of blue and black when the throttle was cracked.
I ran it with different carbs that I knew that would work but are a little rich on jetting.


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