Hey guys. I probably know the answer, just hoping for something better.

So, pulled the heads on my 327 and could see the prior hone work and it looked good. Today after moving things around and checking again, I noticed that there are some wear marks/lines in some cylinders. I can "see" them but I can't "feel" them. Until tonight.

So, the rule of thumb here - if you can see them but not feel them - a hone would work to freshen things up?

But I have some now that I can see and "feel" but barely. There are no major grooves warn into the walls - but I can just feel some lines on a few cylinders.

What am I looking at here? Can I get away with a .010 over bore? Or am I looking at just doing the .030 over bore and get new pistons?

Man oh Man. I was hoping to just keep the flat tops and move on. Now I'm wondering if I should go the next step and get a small dome and go for it? I have the base 327 at 210 and was just going to do the top end with double humps & intake & carb - shooting for the 295-310 hp ... but now ... the Edlebrock RPM stuff in a 350 is good for 420 hp - so in a 327 and I looking at 375?

As always - thanks guys. Wife doesn't care and the son is into other things.

 

Small journal or large journal. The 327 is still a 4 inch bore so if its a large journal crank just through in a 350 crank rods and pistons. I would not spend the money to have it bored with such little wear in the cylinders. Save the money for the 350 kit.

 

how many miles, could just be normal wear, if its low miles and scarring up and down you will want to take piston out and have a look at what is causing it. could have busted ring or ring thats just not happy.

 

Yep, it's an early small journal block. The PO had or rebuilt the Powerglide tranny least July. The top end was fresh. So fresh some of the bolts weren't as tight as they should be. I thought he just did the top end until I could still see a good fresh cross hatch pattern and maybe it was just normal wear, so I will pull it a part and measure the cylinders to see if I can just hone & re-ring job and re-freshen it up? As long as it's all good.

Thanks guys

 

Got the motor a part and it's all brand new. The prior owner must have just done a lousy assembly job. Loose nuts & bolts. 1 rod on the crank I could move 1/4" before I even loosened it up. I was told the tranny was rebuilt 2k miles before I got it, but it's dated 7/11/16 and I bought the car on 8/06/16? At Hot August Nights in Reno. So there couldn't have been that many miles on it. I think he was thinking the "motor" had 2k miles on it. It's a cheap rebuild kit from like Speedway or someone else as I saw the pistons in one of those kits. Oh well. I'll switch a few things and put it back on the road. I need some tools. Pistons are standard, which is surprising since it's a recent build.
You can't see me .... but I'm going a Happy Dance as I type this. I actually tried to add a photo to my signature, but don't think it worked.


DARN IT! The photo didn't come over on my signature. I guess I'm going to have to do some reading to make this work.

 

cool. lol, yep it took me quite a while to figure out some of the things on the site.

 

Did you measure the bores? I would still recommend that. I had a friends who bought a car that the engine was "just rebuilt". He had an issue with smoke in the morning and under heavy load. We tried a couple of things and final tore it down. There was a lot of new parts but one of the cylinders was out of round .014".

An aftermaket ring can handle about .005" out of round and will be fine after break in. Also keep in mind 90% of the wear is in the part of the cylinder that is covered by the piston. Each time the piston fires it rocks and lower part of the piston and that is the highest wear point. Wear is also hard to predict, I have seen 70k miles motors that needs .030" bore to clean up and I have seen 150k miles motors that were fine. I think the original factory clearance and how the engine was used and maintained are bigger factors in cylinder wear then miles.

 

Yep, took it to a local machine shop around here. They've built some pretty awesome motors and do a lot of race motors for the sprint cars up here.
Well, sloppy cylinders is being kind. They were all round and nice, but I think the prior owner bought a $350-$400 rebuilt motor kit and just honed the cylinders and built the motor. Gaps from .006 to .012 in a couple of cylinders. So I took it down to a bare block, removed the freeze plugs and dropped if off Wednesday night. It's been in the hot tank today and he will check, mic and drill it tomorrow (to rough size) and let me know if .030 over was enough. I'll order another set of flat tops? and with the 64cc camel humps I bought, he seemed to think it would be in the 9.75-10.25 range depending on what's been done to the motor already (decking, heads being decked, etc.)
So anyway, screw the budget and the 468 on the garage floor. I'll just build a nice 331ci and shoot for the 360-375 hp range and call it a day. I'll be pulling out the old (newly rebuilt) power glide and installing the T350 I picked up. I'm going to install a shift kit in it if I can find one along with a nice high stall converter.
SOOOO the wife was looking at my pics & plans for the car and said "didn't you say there was a guy up here doing mini tubs for a good price?" Ha, I said yes of course. She said "well you don't want to go through all of this trouble and not put those big tires you want on the car do you?" Man I love that girl.
So, local performance shop offering DSE mini tub kits installed for $2800 and then I need to relocate my shocks for another $300 - I don't need to do the offset leaf spring thing do I?

 

Coming up on the final things to be the motor back in my hands. Cam choices is the latest question. I like the Performer RPM cam since I've run it before in a 358ci motor and have one for my 468 big block. Now it comes down to what's really out there. One of the main reasons I like this cam is because it works between the 1500-6500 range from the start. I don't really want to wait until 2500-3500 for the power to start since it's a street car. I love the sound of the motor spinning 6500 so the smaller cam ranges of 1800-5400 don't really spark my interest.
Of course, it's a 3000 lb car with a T350 and 2400 stall converter with a 8.5" 10 bolt just built (pick it up in a few days) with a posi & 3.42s and the car is mainly a weekend car to drive with the wife and hit up whatever local shows are around.


any other choices you guys like?

 

Wow, picked up the motor and was very pleasantly surprised. My machinist didn't do quite as much as I asked him to do or what he said he would do, but that motor sure looks pretty. Time for a final cleaning, chase out the thread holes and paint the block. Install the freeze plugs, cam & gear drive and get ready for some action.


I tried to email Edelbrock some cam questions, but you have to call I guess. Can't really call out at work, so I'll have to see what I can come up with regarding my cam choice.


So, after decking the block and having the heads done, my machine shop thinks I'm just over the 10.0-1 mark. Hard choice since the RPM cam likes 9.5? and had I thought about it longer I might have gone with the L79 pistons. But 11.5 is hard on todays gas. 91 octane where I'm at. Even with an additive it doesn't get much better and rocket 100-110 fuel is way too much to drive it anywhere. I guess a 50-50 mix of 91 & 110 would be like 101?
Anyway, going to start working on the motor this weekend. Need to take a trip to my 2 favorite speed shops and hopefully they will have most of what I need to get to the next step.
Just a giant toy I tell ya.