Shot in the dark here, but I'm thinking if you pulled the rods to the side and down there'd be enough clearance(from crankshaft) to have the expander rings exposed through the bottom of the engine, or perhaps take of the rod pin from the piston(idk how that goes though). Haven't had a good look at an engine pic to see but figured maybe I'll get lucky???

 

im not too sure what your asking but i kno you cant remove the pistons through the bottom. you gotta remove the head then push them through the top to get to the piston rings.

 

I'm not looking to remove the piston, but pull the piston down the cylinder enough to get the expander rings exposed and replace just those.

 

If your going to replace those might as well replace them all. I dont think there is enough room, does the 2.0L come with piston sprayers like the SRT 2.4L does? If they do have them no way you can then.

 

Well the rings are only 5700 miles old so I didn't think much of doing all the rings but I guess I'll just give this a try when I decide to replace them, and if not then I'll take the head off. The only concern is the timing stuff and Balancer are a pain to do.

 

the timing isnt that hard, just get a puller designed for a mistu. that what my friend has and Ive used it a few times getting my lower puller off, just need a 3 prong puller that hooks to the other side

 

from my experiences i used the special puller designed for these balancer cause they can break easy

 

O yes they can, lol. 2 so far. How did you get them off after that?
When I was taking apart my block I broke it and my friend, who doesn't know front to back, had the bright idea of cutting the arms off and pulling it from there. If it wasn't for the balancer I wouldn't mind jumping on this, but its makes me scared of breaking it and going into the whole mess of dealing with it. I've been seeing [[a lot less, but still some] oil in #2 and #3 so I'm just going with all new rings instead of the #1 only.