Moly rings but not torque plate honed

krazykuda said
Yes, the cylinders need to be round.

I don't buy that the only way to hone is with a torque plate. Many engines have been made with blocks machined without torque plates that have lasted hundreds of thousands of miles. ie. the car companies do not bore and hone with torque plates and their cars go thousands of miles....

It is how good the machine work is done. If the bores are machined properly, they will hold up. Unless the block has become so weak that torquing the heads will distort the bores too much, in that case the block was no good to begin with.

Boring and honing with torque plates is a great idea. But is good to do if you have the money and need, but is not necessary for a street driven engine... For a race engine, yes...

Who is to say that the 413 in the picture was machined properly. How good was the machinist? And what condition was the machine in?

moper said
I'm one to use plates. So much so that years ago I bought my own because nobody around me had them. But lets be honest - for the first 40 years these engines were built they didn't use plates. That oil use issue looks more to be from the wrong finish (too rough) than out of round. At least looking at the amount of material removed from the scraping edge of that 2nd ring, and the fact that with 5 bolts around the bore on a 413, there would be a high spot of the wall, and a corresponding mark on the ring, exactly facing the camera in that pic if what you were thinking was true. Too rough is a much more of a common problem from the engines I've seen, and depending on the owner, it may have fixed itself if given enough time to finish seating. The older engines might have needed 500 to a few K miles on them before they'd "tighten up".

I don't know how many different blocks you two have honed but I haven't seen a single domestic V8 block that doesnt move when you torque down head bolts with a plate. Small and big Chevy, Chryslers, Fords, Buicks, Olds, Pontiacs...they ALL move, some more than others. Even the aftermarket blocks move around. 4 bolt blocks like the Fords and Pontiacs are even worse than the typical 5 bolt deals. I just finished a Dart SHP based 363ci SBF and that block moved an easy .0025".

And the reasoning that its been done that way for 40 years makes it ok doesnt make any sense, especially when you see how bad those same engines that are 40 years old with thick 5/64" rings are so worn out in 100k miles you have to bore them .030" or more just to clean them up. Personally 1/16" rings are the biggest I will use and I won't use a piston with a 5/64" ring. All my street engines use a 1.5mm ring pack, even the basic restoration deals that won't see anything for rpm or abuse. So in my book the only "correct way" to finish hone a block is with a plate, gasket, and the same hardware used in the final build. If you want to "buy" that line of thought is up to you, for me the machine work for a "street" engine has to be just as good as a "race" engine.

Maybe you guys are unaware of all the modern vehicles that have constant oil burning issues because the bores aren't round. The nice thing about the new vehicles at least is with the lighter metric ring packs they dont wear out the bores as bad as they use too. I just pulled down a 150k 6.0L LS that will clean up with a .005" hone job.

As far as the piston pictured above..it was done at a shop that won in their class in the early Engine Masters contest, and the finish was fine. For whatever reason this didn't get honed with a plate and it's pretty obvious where the oil was coming from in that photo.