Do I need to hone for new rings?

[BigBlockBabe]

I'm considering doing a re-ring job, but I'm not sure if I need to hone the cylinders. This months Car craft claims that Speed-Pro considers honing a complete waste of time and that it shouldn't be done for a re-ring.

What do you guys think? Has anyone not honed?

[Christopher]

My personal opinion is that if you are going to replace the rings,it's a good idea to at least run a porcupine (also known as a dingle ball) hone down the cylinders.This gives the cylinder walls a "nap" that will seat a set of moly rings almost instantly.Plus doing this,removes any glaze that is on the cylinder walls.

[tsteiner61]

I think it really depends how smooth the cylinders are to begin with. If I remember correctly, using moly rings reduces the amount of 'roughness' you need to get a good seal, but you still need some degree of crosshatching if you want your new rings to do any good.

I would get the hone. Even out here in Cali it's cheap. I was going to get my old 360 honed until I found a chip in one of the cylinder walls. The price I was quoted was only $11/cyl. $88 total. And if you're really broke, do as Christopher suggested. I think those things can be had for $35.

[bigiron]

I have never used a dingle ball but I would never re-ring an engine without at least useing something to remove the glaze in the cyl. I personally use a hone type device called a glazebreaker. The biggest thing to consider when making the decision is what shape the engine in, in the first place. Just because an engine looks good does not mean it does not need machine work.

But what do I know????

[Mills]

Like bigiron said, if the block is wore, you are just wasting your money. You can get "satisfactory" results from a re-ring, but if your cylinders have more then .008-.010 taper, or more then .04 ring side clearance in the lands, you are doing a band-aid fix. If this is the case and you still can't afford a bore and new pistons, make sure you buy oversized rings and file fit each ring for it's cylinder. Don't worry too much, my 400 I re-ringed when I was young and out of money only had 80-85 psi in each cylinder and still ran high 13's.

But what do I know???? Besides, I think my numbers above are wrong.

Mills

[dl79]

Just built my 318, and the machine shop bored and honed my block for $8 a hole. I personally would not re-ring an engine without honing. I have read and heard it doesn't HAVE to be done when using moly rings. On the other hand consider the cost of tearing the engine down and doing it over again. I would have that bore checked, and go oversize if you can. Like the last post said (sorry I forgot the name), just reringing without honing or anything is just a band-aid fix, and you could be using oil again in notime. Good luck!

[BigBlockBabe]

Just to clear things up, the reason I'm doing a rering is because the rear main seal is leaking and once I get the oil pan of I thought I should do a little to renew the engine. I'm putting in headers and a cam and want the engine to be up to the additional rpms.

As far as I know the engine has never been rebuilt but it doesn't burn oil, and the vacuum does what the chilton's book says it should do if the rings are good. Which is not to say that I won't check the taper, but I don't want to buy pistons if I don't have to.

I was just curious what the concensus was, even Car Craft went ahead and honed the block they were working on.

Thanks for the help!

[Karl43]

Big Block Babe: I did just what you are talking about. This summer I rounded the cam on my 318 (over 200,000 miles) and while I was replacing the cam could not get the gear unstuck. After wrestling it for 1 1/2 hours, I decided to pull the engine and put it on the engine stand. The gear came out no problem. Then like you it snowballed!

While I'm down there might as well put in a new rear main seal and one of the MP high volume high pressure oil pumps I had in my basement. Well the main bearings were good, but the rods were in the copper. Well Mancini Racing sells rering kits with main bearings, rod bearings, rings, and Sealed Power teardown gasket for only $130.00. I have two weeks to make Mopar Nats, Blown the motor in my other 340 Cuda and no wheels to drive to work - no time to have machine work done to block and crank (they were in good shape anyway). We used stock cast iron rings so they would seat quickly on the cylinders. This engine has about 270,000 on the original stock bore and can still see the factory hone. My compression ring gaps were a little wide at .025 should be .010 - .020. Got the thing together and into the car on Tuesday and drove 3.5 hours to the Nats on Thursday night. Two days to spare!

The car runs fine and does not smoke or burn oil. It is better than if I didn't replace the rings and bearings which was not my problem in the first place. It sounds like you could get away with this also. By the way if you run the home quick hone through it who will you make sure that none of the chips get into the engine if you do not hot tank it/steam clean it afterwards.

Go for it. Call Mancini and get the re-ring kit with the cast iron rings. Be sure to plactic gage all of your rod and main bearings also. .001-.003" is what you need. Mine all fell into the .0015" clearance and with MP high volume high pressure oil pump I get a little over 100 psi cold start and 80 psi on the highway warm with 10w40 oil.

If you have the time/money to have all of the work done, then go for the complete rebuild. If not a refresh should work out for you-it did for me. I have about 6000 miles on it now and so far so good.

[Christopher]

If all of your vacuum and compression readings were well within specs,and depending if this is a low milage engine(under 100K) I'd leave it alone.

[BigBlockBabe]

Leave it alone! that wouldn't be much fun Christopher.

Anyway, its not a low milage engine, and I'm dying to find out how it is inside.

[Locomotion]

The higher mileage it is, the better chance there is of having a wear-ridge at the top of each bore! So you may have to bore, hone and get new pistons!

If it gets to that point and you are picky about the work done to it, find a machine shop that can bore and hone with a torque plate for rounder cylinders, better seal and longer ring life.

Myron

[ScottPuddintane]

Just my $.02,

If I had the cash I'd rebuild the whole thing, pistons & all.

But, if I was broke I would just replace the rear main seal, do a compression check, and if the valves are sealing and no oil on the plugs I'd just put on new valve springs (via air line in spark plug hole) and leave the heads on.

A bent rod or blown head gasket is enough to re-do the whole thing, but a rear main seal?

[BigBlockBabe]

In short, turns out I'm putting in a '69 block that has a lot less wear than the original engine in the car. Ends up when I pulled one of the heads there was some major white deposit on the valves (bad rebuild, the valves were even heat damaged) and even some on the pistons. In the '69, the taper is about .002 with the ring and feeler method, and there is still cross hatching on the walls. The original engine had a noticable ridge, while the '69 has hardly a none. NOW I'm seriously considering using moly rings since the bore is so staight.

Thanks again and stay tuned, you'll hear from me soon on the build up I'm planning. Teaser--It has something to do with 1.74 valve 516 heads.