CYLINDER MACHINING QUESTION

Charrlie_S said

I disagree. I do a lot of budget rebuilds, without reboring, just honing. A hone is not for enlarging the cyl bore, it is for putting the proper finish on the bore. A hone is not designed to remove thousandths of an inch, but less than one thousandth.
If you want to do it right, bore and new pistons, and rings. Have it honed to get the proper finish for the rings used.
If you want cheap, just hone it (to break the glaze), and put it together with a cheap set of rings. It will work, but won't last as many miles, or seal as well as the good job.
You need to balance money vs results.

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Sorry, done this too many times and know it works. I have a Sunnen hone. If you have a block with little wear, and they don't wear even, you can straighten the taper and get them round with a good hone. I'm not talking dingle berry hone or cheap straight stone hone. How much do you think they leave after a bore to hone the final size and finish in a cylinder? Nothing wrong with new pistons, bore and hone. It is just time and money and yes, you should have a tighter fit. But I'm here to tell you I have, and have built engines for others, that run out fine with a short block that had .004 to .005 clearance, reusing pistons, and Speed Pro file to fit rings. I have three such short blocks I will be rebuilding this way. A 273, a 340 and a 318 magnum because they each have such little wear in the block. My engines have plenty of power and have yet to have one not run very good or last at least 200,000 miles. As a matter of fact, I've never had one die. I usually am swapping engines because I want to try something else or gas octane took a nose dive and I had to lower compression.