What is the downside to reusing rings after freshing the crosshatch in a cylinder? The motor has not seen a lot of use but there are some scratches in the cylinders and on the pistons (nothing that catches a nail). I'm not sure if the motor had got hot or if there wasn't enough clearance. By my bore gauge they show .005 and they are forged pistons. The top ring are dyke if that matters.

An old truck or a race engine?

How much leakage is acceptable?

Are you feeling lucky
Are the dykes top rings moly coated iron or stainless or tool steel? What about the 2nd rings resealing

I wouldn't But Murphy loves peeing on me

I bought the motor complete so I’m not sure about the ring material. Here are a few pictures of a piston and a couple of cylinders.
It is a street/strip engine but mostly strip.

That thing needs a real hone job and some rings. If the bores are round a good hone job and maybe have the pistons coated.

Use a dingle ball hone put the engine back together with old gaskets. Get a leak down tester and if 96% or better (or 4% whichever you want to say it) let er eat. (With new head gaskets of course)

That corrosion may not seal well unless you hone it out
Corrosion like that is not uncommon on motors that have sat a lot in high humidity area, it, the moisture condensation, gets into the cylinders through the exhaust valves
Let us know what you do and he results, that will help others on here also

As soon as I got it home I did a compression and leak down on it. With a Mopar 590 cam in it, I got compression readings from 135 to 150, with most being closer to the 150. The leak down was between 90-92. Both readings were with the engine ice cold sitting on the shop floor. It’s an interesting engine to say the least, it has BME 426 rods, JE pistons(sit about .007 out of the hole), Dyke rings, a Crankshaft Specialist 3.388 crank, crank studs, O-ringed block, Milodon external oiling, it looks to have all the oil mods to the block. The story I got was the guys grandfather had it built by Herb McCandless quite a few years back and wasn’t run until the last couple of years and only for a short time, then they decided to go LS Turbo. When I saw the oil mods and Crankshaft Specialist crank, I thought who knows maybe it is.

At this point my plan is to hone it 180-500. I have a Lisle 1500 rigid hone with 80/180/280/500 stones. The top ring measured .016. I am just trying to decide whether I need to go ahead and order rings and if I do what ring package do I go with.

If you run a 180 through it, I would put new rings in it. That's pretty rough, and will be like breaking in again, look at the second ring face with another break in the taper will probably be gone. Then you will get into a loss of oil control.

It really depends on what you want to do here. It really needs to be bored, honed to be put back to perfect. But if the intent is not to do that, 500 the bores and put it all back together. Anything in between that would just be a waste of time/money in my opinion.

One more thing, 500 will need considerable pressure, if using an expandable hone.

correct me on this if i'm wrong, but i always thought a dykes type ring didn't have a long lifespan? maybe there's been some material changes or something thru the years to add lifespan, i don't know? so could you be jumping thru a hoop for wore out parts? i'd ask a ring manufacturer this question.

I would rather leave it alone & run it as it is than honing it with a lisle hone, you will ruin the bores with that hone

I'd put that back together as-is and run it.

Can you post a better picture of the top ring - closer to the face and an angle shot at the gap?

I'll get some pictures tonight and post them.

I noticed when I pulled the ring that the piston is cut for the ring, so I guess you have to use a dyke ring or have the piston cut to remove the ledge in the groove.

That hone job was done by a hack, cross hatch is wayyyyyyy off and I'm sure the roundness and taper are wayyyyyyy off. The second ring pictured is near the end of it's life regardless of how much time it has on it. You're not going to fix those cylinders with a lisle or a ball hone, if you're running a steel top ring a profilometer and or a very experienced hone operator is needed to get the proper RVK. It'll run if you slap it back together but why have all the time and money you have into it and then skip on the most important part of building a good race engine. If you were closer to Pa, I could fix it for you but I'm sure you have a good race shop somewhere in your area.

Last pic, 2nd ring, says it all.

The most you would accomplish by using a hand held hone is to see if the bore etching comes out quickly. If it does, then a machine hone you will fix you right up assuming the p to wall is ok after.

Why did you tear it down? Was there a problem? You say the pistons have .005" clearance. Is that enough for those? If the piston mfg says they need more that would be good. I'm under the impression that money matters to you. If that's the case, I would find a guy with a Sunnen CK-10 (or equal) and some 220 stones, give it 20 strokes (more if you need more piston cleanance) and then 6 strokes with 400 grit for plateau. This won't get the corrosion out but it won't matter as much as you think. The present hone job is a hack. If you are on an unlimited budget I would make different recommendations.

In this situation on my CK I would use the soft 220 grit 512 stones with very light pressure and check for roundness and taper very frequently as the taper can get out of hand fast if it's not already and then the 400 818/820 as you said. With a lot of TLC it'll still be a thou bigger than it is now and you may not get all of the deep hack job out of there but it'll be much better than now.

Coat the piston skirts, have it machine honed, new set of rings. I don't think that that size ring is going to be cost prohibitive. If they were 0.8mm to 0.5mm rings, I could understand wanting to re-use them.