$200 Craigslist 454 Engine Rebuild: DIY Honing Rusty Cylinders (78 Firebird Ep.14)

I am an automotive machinist by trade and have 30 years of experience doing it. I cannot tell you how many times over the years I have done exactly what you are doing here. Most of the time the result is satisfactory. You are doing everything right imo. The naysayers are whacked with their visions of perfection. You only need perfection when perfection is the end game. perfection as I understand it is not your end game here it just needs to work. I believe it will

I've ran worse looking cylinders on motors and honestly they had no combustion or oil consumption issues whatsoever. My jeep 4.2 liter had pits,grooves and gouges. Ran a 3blade hone in and out for a a minute a cylinder lubricated with waste engine oil. End gapped my rings. Tossed a few seals and gaskets in. I put almost 80k on that engine and sold it and to this day, no complaints.

Get one of the best looking top rings off one of the pistons and sit it in each of the cylinders to check for roundness. Check at the upper part of the bores, down at the bottom end of piston travel towards BDC and in the middle of the stroke area. Use a piston to square the ring up in the bore. Shine a light up from underneath and look for light getting through on the outer land between the ring and cylinder wall. Also measure the gap of the ring to see if it varies much in the different areas.

Positive comment for the algorithm: Good luck with the build!

it's perfect .. don't worry ... in the past, on one of my car, the cap of one of piston rod get lose ,... so I replaced that cylinder (sleeve, piston, piston rod,...) the repair was done quick with cheap parts in 2 days, the crankshaft have on one side a wear witch I estimated some around 0.5mm -0.8mm... I intended a proper repair of the engine and buyed later a complete set of pistons, rods, crankshaft that never get in the engine (sold the set later with the car). So I run the engine 4 years (probably around 75000Km) with that bad crankshaft, with a piston rod with higher weight than the other tree (some around probably 50g) and no issue from the temporary quick repair done on the road. The only mention is that this was done on a car probably 20-25 years ago...

I'm glad that you're showing that a low budget rebuild can be done without a machine shop.

It’s illegal to upload this quickly! Slow down!

I wouldn’t sell this kind of build to a customer but I’ve built many engines like this in my day. There isn’t to many cylnders a old cast iron ring won’t seat on.

Makes me happy that there are still people doing this at home in their garages

I recommend 3 stone hones over ball hones ESP if you’re removing a lot. Ball hones are great for getting a quick cross hatch but 3 stones you can use to remove taper as well Also you have about 5-10 thou of over bore with stock size pistons Also you can use a piston and a ring to check for roundness and taper Use the piston to square it and light at the bottom to check round Use a feeler gauge in the gap to check relative expansion of the ring through the bore

Throw a cast ring in it and it will run like a new one. You should see how bad some of the ones I have built were with never a issue.

I love this "good enough" and "let's hope for the best" approach. As an sperger I regularly bog myself down with perfectionism and get frustrated when perfection just doesn't want to happen. This feels so much more enjoyable. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. It's an adventure either way :)

i did back in 1973 to 1978,did about 900 engines, inline 6s and v8s and we charged 750 for a overhaul this consisted of doing what you are doing and re-ringing.cleaning the pistons,grinding the heads,new rod bearings and mains,always a new oil pump and gasket set,not one of those cars came back,did a lot of rambler amc 6s,chevy's,the cylinder closest to the water pump always wore the most,because it runs cooler,made a lot of money on old style overhauls,saved a lot of peoples cars that had no money for a new one,none of them were rusted, they were off the road running vehicles,did a lot of rusted ones for myself,fired them up on a stand and left them idle for 2 hours and next they were sold,none of them came back,only had one that smoked,i used premium rings,never do that unless it is a race motor,CAST IRON RINGS WILL COVER UP A LOT OF BUG A BOOS,47 years and retired,use the worthless ball hones to reach the stains you talk about,then go with the 3 stone adjustable expanding hone, to me the ball hones are expendable,bought 4 a year,yeah we were that busy,cars without chrome bumpers are junk anyway

2 Fuzzy Dice videos in a row! Good luck with the build.

A home job like you did is fine with stock pistons and rings. Lots of guys run a .010 overbore with std. parts. Great build so far!

“ low buck “ my kind of channel right here God bless

i've gotten away with this for some 2 stroke outboards, but really not a spot to cheap out IMHO. It's fun to do for sure, and if you only want 100 hrs out of the motor nothing wrong with it . but most automotive shops only charge $50-$60 per cyl bored and finish honed. Nothing like putting a motor together with 100% confidence... priceless. thanks for the video!

This might help, place the top ring in the bore, using a piston to keep it square in the bore, measure the gap ,then push the ring down almost to bottom of the bore, measure the gap, if the diffrence is less then 3 thousandth, your okay, when you buy new rings use over size rings and file fit the ring gap for NA use ,The gap should be between 15 to 19 thousand, then check the ring gap at the bottom of the bore, if the gap is less then the top of bore, open the gap, the deal is you never want the ends of the ring to touch when the engine is hot, or they will break, and score the cylinder walls. One thing you can try is a barrel faced top ring ,if they make them for chevys, a barrel faced ring wont leave a ridge (honda), I have broken the top rings because the rod bearing was beyond the service limit and the top ring hits the ridge (plus I had a lead foot) a loose piston in the bore can rattle when cold, some times a machine shop can knurl the piston skirt, which is a band aid. Good luck.

I love these budget builds. It's how most of us do our own projects so it's cool to see the experiments. Keep it up man.

Also, the transition of the photos of the cylinder wall during the honing process belongs in a museum. That was great