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351W Rebuild Questions - Cylinder Hone

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ny_nautique View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote ny_nautique Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: 351W Rebuild Questions - Cylinder Hone
    Posted: April-23-2014 at 5:49pm
Well I'm in the "put back together" stage for the engine on my 84 SN, and want to clarify a few things.

I have a bunch of new parts to bolt on: new heads coming, Weiand 8023 Intake, oil pickup, oil pump, starter, timing chain, fuel pump, etc...

I have all the correct gaskets and I will be finishing my carb rebuild this weekend.

My only question is the block and honing the cylinder walls. When I took the engine apart, it had good compression and the walls are in good shape and all pretty much exactly at 4.00". Can I leave the pistons and rings as is and hone/crosshatch the walls? Suggested tools/methods?

Thanks.
- Jeff
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Gary S View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Gary S Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April-23-2014 at 5:57pm
I would not reuse rings besides they are not that expensive. Get yourself one of those dingle berry hones,I think they are called ball hones run that thru and go from there. Or if you don't want to spend the money on a hone you might never use again take the block to an engine shop and have them do it and have them get the rings for you also.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote JoeinNY Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April-23-2014 at 6:11pm
Measure the pistons, measure the walls, determine piston to wall clearance. If it is within spec then like Gary says there should be no ridge along the top and you should easily be able to run a hone up and down the cylinders (you can get one at napa or the like) buy some new rings and slap it back together.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote baitkiller Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April-23-2014 at 6:14pm
Fresh ring set for sure and take your time measuring the gaps. I use a bar hone personally, not that expensive and gives me a very consistent cut and really nice hatch pattern. I have had that hone sitting in my shop for eons and use it every few years, or decades, but it sure is handy when I need it. Come on over, I'll let you borrow it. Remember the hone needs lubricant. I use diesel fuel.
Oh yeah, BTW. take an old ring and break it in half. It works great for cleaning the slots in the pistons.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote cadunkle Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April-27-2014 at 11:59am
You need to inspect and measure what you have to determine if you can just hone and rering or if you need to bore and get new pistons.

Inspect the pistons and bores, they should not have any excessive scuffing. You'll see some scuff marks or light scratches but you should not be able to catch your fingernail on any.

Measure the bore taper. I believe up to .010" is allowable as per Ford but that's way loose and you're have a smoker bleeding some compression. .05" is about the most I'd run with and I'd try to go a little heavy on the hone towards the bottom to even out the taper. If your taper is towards the high side, new pistons and bore or you'll wear out your rings quickly. Also feel for a ridge at the top, if you feel a ridge that catches your fingernail that's a sign of a lot of bore wear.

Measure piston to wall clearance. Towards bottom of bore. Unless you know your pistons require measurement elsewhere you typically measure across the skirt perpendicular to the pin. Higher or parallel with the pin will be smaller at room temp as the pistons expand to become round at temp. .015"-.002" is typical for automotice and marine will often spec up to .04".

If you have more than a few thousandths taper I'd bore it and use new forged pistons, I'm guessing budget is not crazy tight since you've have the budget for new heads. Don't skimp on the bottom end, the top end is faster and easier to service or upgrade later on without pulling the engine. If you only have a few thousandths taper and the pistons and bores look and measure good, then use a 3 stone hone working up and down the bores just enough to remove the ring witness marks at the top of the bore. Use new rings unless they have been replaced recently.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote MrMcD Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April-27-2014 at 5:08pm
Jeff, I worked for Sealed Power in the Engine division for many years, one of my friends is considered one of the best Piston Ring men in the world today. He is still active, I am not. I can share a few things that I hope will help. My knowledge is limited as I have not worked full time in this area since 2004.
Our Ring Engineers beg you to never use dingle ball hones for anything other than mixing paint. No offense to anyone that posted previously but this is backed up by the teams that run 26 engine dyno's full time doing piston ring development for ALL of the major OEM's. From Chevrolet and Ford to Toyota, Cummins, Detroit and Rolls Royce.
They work full time to reduce the amount of oil burned in an engine.
The goal today is one quart of oil consumed per 20-30,000 miles of driving. In the old days one quart per 1,500 miles was acceptable.
This is why today you can drive your car 8,500 miles before an oil change and never add oil. The new technology is far better than it used to be. Today if you have oil consumption it is usually related to the valve train and not the piston rings.
In the days of dingle berry hones everyone ran cast iron top piston rings. Those old rings needed a rough cylinder to seat.
Modern rings are Moly based top rings and need a smooth cylinder to seat and they seat within 5 minutes of initial start up. Today GM and Ford will tell you not to hone at all if you have a good cylinder wall and are replacing rings only. The previous rings would leave you a perfect finish for the new rings providing you did not have any issues with dirt in the oil or dirt in the air causing cylinder wear. Modern Moly rings even after 1,000 hours should not have a ridge build up from cylinder wear. Your 1984 engine is on the bubble, it may have had Moly Top Rings or Cast Top rings, if they were cast you will have a significant ridge. A ridge would need to be honed or bored.   Most manufacturers converted to Moly by 1986, Ford started well before that time but I can't say what was in your 1984 Engine.
I would highly recommend replacing with Moly Rings, either Sealed Power, Mahle or Hastings. ( of course I like Sealed Power the best ).
Be careful to determine if your ridge is carbon build up or cylinder wear. Carbon will come off and reveal your cylinder wall below, wear will remain after cleaning and you can catch a finger nail at the top where the top ring travel stops in the cylinder.
If you need to hone the procedure for proper oil control is important.
The cross hatch angle in the cylinder will work best with a 45 degree angle of the cross hatch, the speed of the hone dictates this angle.
Modern rings will seat perfectly on a 280 grit hone, 625 Sunnen stone or equivalent. This needs to be done in a Machine Shop using a modern cylinder hone or if using an older piece of equipment with a well trained operator. A new hone can be put in your old block and only take out .0003 to .0005 in material. Yes 3-5/10,000 material.
Proper cross hatch will keep the rings rotating at a slow steady pace while your engine runs, this rotation keeps the rings sealing, too steep of a cross hatch makes the rings spin at high speed while running and you loose some sealing, to flat and the rings don't seal well, they need to rotate slow while the engine runs. 45 degree is the standard that works.
If you have excessive taper or wear the only real fix is to bore it oversize and start with new pistons and rings.
After a hone or bore, whichever way you go the block will need a wash with warm water with dish soap in it. Dawn or equiv soap. The warm dish soap wash removes the metal from the bore and hone operation, micro particles of metal that can ruin your new rings and bearings if not removed. A toilet brush works well to clean the cylinders with warm soapy water. All the oil passages should be washed and cleaned at this same time. It will need to be dried quickly to avoid rust and you can wipe it down with a lint free rag and oil to make sure it does not rust prior to your build.
Machine work in the block and on the crankshaft creates magnetism that holds the micro machining material to your block, warm soapy water has proven to be the best remover of this material. After cleaning spray a white lint free rag with WD40 and take that and wipe your cylinder wall. If it stays white you are ready to assemble, if it turns Grey wash it again, the Grey is micro metal dust still in your cylinder finish. This stuff will sandpaper your new rings if not removed.
Moly rings will last the life of an engine typically, Cast rings were best when new and wear from day one till they need replacing.
Engines used to need new rings at mid life, now that never happens, run Moly rings. I do know that fuel injection helped this piston ring life but Moly is a far better material and now Moly is in its 8th generation of improvement and is a great product. Sealed Power part E251K is Moly, E251X is cast iron. I shared all of this in hopes that you understand the reason why to use Moly and how important a proper cross hatch is to ring performance. If you are staying with a stock engine the E251K is a good choice if you up your compression you need to upgrade the top ring to a Ductile Iron top ring, they can handle more pressure without breaking.
For 40 years the accepted top ring gap has been .004 per inch of bore. For your 4 inch bore that would be .016 top ring gap. Today we know it is safe to go .012 if that helps. Out of the box stock rings in a marine application may have a much larger gap as a marine cylinder is typically .001 loose compared to automotive applications. You may be at .020 out of the box in your marine engine. Ring gaps increase by the multiple of PIE with every .001 increase in bore size equal to .003784 increase in ring gap. A loose bore will have huge ring gaps unless you buy file to fit rings.
The second ring gap today should be set a .024 to .026. This is new since 1999, we know the second ring can run as tight as .008 with no issue but modern tech has taught us a wider second ring gap helps the top ring seal better by allowing any blow by to escape easier.
No change in Oil ring gapping.
I hope this is not late getting to you. Anything stated here can be verified with tech articles available today. Good luck with your build.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote 8122pbrainard Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April-27-2014 at 6:38pm
Mark,
Very interesting and sounds like you are a pro ring expert. I did use a "dingle ball" hone on my last rebuild. It was on my 1927 Universal Flexifour. I did have problems even finding rings for it. The original top rings were 3/16 wide and I ended up having to double up 3/32 wide rings. Should I be worried? Keep in mind this is a 2500 RPM max engine but a pretty decent stroke.No super sucker needed


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote MustangMadness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April-27-2014 at 8:55pm
If there is any taper at all above .05" and defects in the walls, go .010 over and use .010 over rings with stock pistons. I believe these are still available...
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote MrMcD Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April-27-2014 at 10:39pm
"Very interesting and sounds like you are a pro ring expert. I did use a "dingle ball" hone on my last rebuild. It was on my 1927 Universal Flexifour. I did have problems even finding rings for it. The original top rings were 3/16 wide and I ended up having to double up 3/32 wide rings. Should I be worried? Keep in mind this is a 2500 RPM max engine but a pretty decent stroke.No super sucker needed"

The old engines came with Cast iron rings, the really old ones were not even taper faced. If you used cast iron rings they may work but they would have worked much better with the 45 degree cross hatch. The slow rotation of the piston rings helps the ring seal to the cyl wall and on the ring lands in the piston. Too much angle on the cross hatch gets the rings spinning too fast and wears out the ring and the piston while hurting ring seal. Too slow and you give up ring seal.
This is true with Cast iron, Moly or Chrome faced rings. Also with the new Diamond faced rings. Yes there are engines running with Diamond dust in the barrel face of the ring today.
There is a lot of magic in getting rings to function at a high level.

As far as your double stack, I have no idea how that will work. I suspect they will be at least as good as they were in 1927 so enjoy and don't worry about it.

Many backyard overhauls run for years just fine but technology is there to give you more than 10,000 miles per quart of oil used and have less drag on the cylinder walls. Sorry, I offered way to many words on this subject.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote ny_nautique Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April-28-2014 at 12:53am
Thank you Mark (and others) for your comments. This is all new to me and I've heard a lot of different opinions. I will say, my uncle who took a look at my block last weekend told me about being able to feel a ridge with your fingernail, which we could not. They are pretty smooth and the carbon seems to clean up pretty good. I also watched a bunch of videos the other day. What do you think about this one?

- Jeff
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote gun-driver Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April-28-2014 at 12:54am
Mark
Thanks for your expertise that was a great read.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote MrMcD Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April-28-2014 at 4:58am
Thanks for the kind words, unfortunately the expertise is narrow. The experts here have helped me many times explaining the nuance of a Ski Nautique.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote uk1979 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April-28-2014 at 1:46pm
Mark, Great info on honing... have scan in the info sheet out of my Sunnen hone, sorry its got a bit oily over the years

May be of help to others.

Lets have a go
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote MrMcD Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April-28-2014 at 11:10pm
UK1979, it looks like you may be in the business, I still have a honing manual from Sealed Power I could ship to you if needed. Again, it is pre 2004 and does not address the newer Electronic hones but it is good for the CK10,CV616 or CK21 and the general information is very accurate.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote uk1979 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April-29-2014 at 7:04am
Mark, Thanks for the kind offer...but I think it would be a waste of info on me as I am only a weekend tinkerer.

Thanks Roger.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote malibud Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April-30-2014 at 9:59am
Some good reading for sure. So Forged pistons for marine use ?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Gary S Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April-30-2014 at 10:28am
Depends what your going to do, how many Commanders,PCM's,Indmar's,Interceptor's and HM's do you think left the factory with them?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote malibud Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April-30-2014 at 10:57am
So did they all come from the factory with cast pistons? I really just want to go with factory specs.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote JoeinNY Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April-30-2014 at 3:50pm
I havent taken apart a stock 351W marine engine with anything other than cast pistons in them, Of course not all cast pistons are created equal, and the factory ones are certainly among the best available. A quality cast piston should do the job for any stockish build.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote MrMcD Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April-30-2014 at 7:39pm
Cast pistons were the industry standard up till the mid 90's when most switched to hypereutectic pistons. Either stock cast or hypereutectic will work fine for your application. Forged are at least double the price. For a stock engine the hper is a nice upgrade. You can run them tight in the bore and that helps with great ring sealing and long life.
Get your pistons first and then have the finish hone done to size unless you think it will need to be bored oversize.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote 8122pbrainard Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April-30-2014 at 9:01pm
Mark,
For the benefit of many here, please explain what a "hypereutectic" piston is.


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote gun-driver Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May-03-2014 at 12:36am
Hypereutectic piston
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A hypereutectic piston is an internal combustion engine piston cast using a hypereutectic alloy–that is, a metallic alloy which has a composition beyond the eutectic point. Hypereutectic pistons are made of an aluminum alloy which has much more silicon present than is soluble in aluminum at the operating temperature. Hypereutectic aluminum has a lower coefficient of thermal expansion, which allows engine designers to specify much tighter tolerances.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote MrMcD Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May-03-2014 at 4:52pm
They Hypereutectic pistons do have several features that are desirable and one that is not. They are very strong, long lasting, and reflect heat better into the head chamber. All good. Hyper pistons are more brittle, so they are very strong unless hit by a broken valve or a nut dropped down the carb, in those cases they can break where a Forged piston would dent. Broken valves and nuts down the carb are not supposed to happen so most OEM's went to Hypereutectic pistons as the OEM design. On the very high horsepower applications many OEM's still use forged pistons. Like the Corvette 505 HP engine or the top of the line Ford Mustang Engines. Hyper's are in many 400 HP factory engines.
Sorry not to respond to the video, I have not taken time to watch it yet.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Waterdog Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May-03-2014 at 6:47pm
Hypereutectic pistons are between cast and forged as far as tolerances go. 3000 series are silicon alloys. BMW has been casting high silicon engine blocks and cylinder heads for several decades (way ahead of us Yanks). 3000 series aluminium casts really nice parts.   
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