I'm measuring the bores in my 440 block. I'm coming up with less than .008" wear after a light hone.

At what point would you guys bore the block?

I'll keep going and look for any oval wear or other widening of the holes.


Keep in mind that I'm building a CRUISER and road trip car, NOT a race engine.

Thanks.

make sure you cut the upper ring ridge out so not to break your new top rings. quite honestly .008 is over max wear, but if you're on a budget, it's still okay, as long as the cylinder aren't too badly out of round. egg shape cylinders will never allow new rings to seat 100% no matter how decent the hone job. it'll still run fifty or sixty thousand miles which may take the rest of your life to rack-up. if adding a quart of oil every 500 miles doesn't bother you, re-ring it and go enjoy your car! you'll want to change oil every spring anyway. up here in Minnesota, most of our cars are parked 7 months of the year

You could get by with that much IF you're using a forged piston like an older TRW 11.5. Even then you will need to let the engine warm up before hammering on it. If using a cast piston, you better look to getting it bored. I usually bore using a cast piston when it gets over .005".

Bore it. I'd just drop the $400 on some hypers for it after taking it .020 over in your case.

Oddly enough, I saw this and thought of Feets.

https://sanangelo.craigslist.org/pts/6082388912.html

I surprised he doesn't already have one

Why drop $6500 on something I don't have room for when a friend has one?

Okay, I went back out there and went after it with my inside micrometers. I could not pull 4.323" through any of the cylinders at any point in the bore. I confirmed the readings with two different inside mics and measured them with outside mics. Same readings on all three instruments.

I guess I screwed up when using the telescoping gauges.

My friend put a light hone on the cylinders and there is less than .002" ridge at the top of the bores.

This really strikes me as odd. Wouldn't you expect more than .002" bore wear in 72,000 miles of pushing that monster Imperial around?

The block has the correct VIN and a reasonable casting date so I assume it's original.

Maybe there really is something to that "high nickel" claim.

Since it's Texas you should have ample room.

Also figured you'd have a buddy with one.

What was the gear ratio?

It has a 3.23 gear and wore L81-15 tires. It had to work to push the car around the city streets.

On the up side, it came from LA and likely didn't see too many seriously cold starts that would wash down the cylinders.

The hardest part on driving any motor is the first twenty miles when it is cold and not warmed up above 160 F, being a SO CA car maybe it wasn't driven for 5 or 10 miles and then shut off for several hours before running again
Either way thanks for measuring twice or more before deciding on what to do

Thats cool, and semi ironic, I checked a 318 block last night and its less then .0025 out and I was shocked.

I re ringed a pontiac one time that was .011 out and ran it for 50k without issue.

So like you, im just gonna hone this jinkie 318 and toss in a $80 set of oem new slugs/rings and forget about it.

Since the header asked how much wear before "you" (meaning me) would bore, I once did a down-n-dirty overhaul on a daily driver 440 with .013" taper. I figured the oil it might use was cheaper than a bore and pistons.

If the hood was open you could hear a little rattle when first started and the oil consumption wasn't all that bad.

The last re-ring 440 I did, I believe the FSM said .010 max taper, and IIRC out of round was something like .003 or .004. I had about .006 taper and around .002 out of round at the time, and the re-ring worked out fine. I think you'll probably be OK.

Telescoping gauges require a highly practiced feel to have any chance at accuracy. A dial bore gauge, even a 60 dollar imported one, is far more user friendly to someone with a good general feel for mechanics, but does not use those tools everyday.

I was taught that too much taper made the rings work too much which caused most problems with oil comsumption ( with too much taper)??

I generally do well with the telescoping gauges but it is rare for me to measure a bore that deep. However, most of the work I do is on my lathe, not an engine block on the stand with the bores at an uncomfortable angle and height.