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Original Message
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| RE: Depends on $, not miles and oil changes |
| By John - 09/07/2001 5:37:53 PM; IP 142.177.104.52 |
OK. I have done both...the $$ way and the cheapo way. Many, many times for both. And each have their merits. Forget "out-of-roundness" unless inspection shows obvious damage vs wear. Check taper. Taper causes the new rings to expand and contract as they go up and down causing premature ring failure (no, not breeakage, just that the rings lose their "springiness"). Therefore, the compression will go down more quickly in an engine merely "honed" vs one overbored with new oversize pistons. Therefore...less mileage before the really expensive rebuild. So what do you want? If you are restoring an antique T-Bird and will only put about 20 miles on it on warm sunny Sundays...go ahead and hone. Hey, I did a 289 for $500(Canadian...about $300 USD at that time)that include new timing chain and gears, new rings, bearings, new oil pump, heads and block hot-tanked, new gaskets, engine painted, and it was fine. It was in my 66 Mustang and yes, I added about 1 qt of oil per summer, and the woman that bought it still thinks the engine works great at about 30,000 miles after the rebuild, with still only about 1 qt added per summer. Oh, ...I must admit, I was on the cheap, so I dismantled and cleaned all the hyd lifters one by one...very time consuming...I also did a valve job myself...how I did it is another story...ask and I shall tell...chuckle. Even performance doesn't suffer much from an econo rebuild. It's longevity that suffers. Now...here's the "tech" poop...the 289 for example had 0.003" of taper. Max accordng to Ford. I agree...max. The engine had 150K on it, but it was my wife's grandmother's car, and I guess she was easy on it. The pistons appeared "loose", but worked fine with no noise. Oh...also...before honing, you must remove the ridge. This is not as easy as the "books" tell you, but don't worry, cause mistakes are above the top ring travel line and won't affect much of anything. So..I appear to be touting the econo rebuild. Not so..it has it's place in old antiques not expected to get much mileage, plus it leaves material in the block and crank for later rebuilds if and when required by a hopefully future generation. I personally like a full blown machined shop worked on block and crank. I put the engine together myself to:
1/ have fun;
2/ achieve personal satisfaction; and,
3/ if there is a mistake, it is my fault and I can get on with fixing it, not waste time arguing with the hired rebuilder.
So...to sumarize...a seldom driven antique can get the econo job. So too can the ultra high performance engine as it won't last anyway, but the street engine that you want to last a long time...spend the money. You get what you pay for...well...er...most of the time. |
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