Looking for a thread that had a youtube video of different honing tools & which one worked better, like a ball hone versus a 3 finger hone.

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pittsburghracer said:
So I betting 90-95 percent of people building engines are street engines, test n tuners, street strip, or bracket cars. I could spend a ton of money to run 5.95 or budget build an engine to run 6.0 every weekend and have money in my pocket to race every week and buy a burger at the track. That’s the choice I make because I watch builds every week built with the best of parts that never hit the track before they are up for sale. Again the choice is yours. These aren’t heads up engines as they probably fall in the 3% group or less.
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I agree in a sense . But when do you start paying for the short cuts? Like is it more economical to replace parts every year that could last several years if only you would have spent a little more money and time doing it right the first time.

I do agree that it is cheaper to do what ever you can when cost are an issue. But there are items that if not done correctly cost you more if needed to be done more often. Rings last longer, Gaskets and materials add up if you need to buy them more often. Performance is not the only reason, It is durability.

We learned the hard way when my son was young and racing. We would be tearing the engine down every 4 weeks until we found a shop that knew what they were doing. The engine lasted a whole season and only freshened because we wanted to not because we had to.
 
I think the 3 stone hone was all there was for glaze breaking until the bead hone came out.
 
toolmanmike said:
I think the 3 stone hone was all there was for glaze breaking until the bead hone came out.
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Well.. i saw a guy on youtube... he went out in his yard and found a tree branch close to the right diameter.. wrapped it in emery and spun it around in the cyls for awhile... good enough :)
 
Icetech said:
Well.. i saw a guy on youtube... he went out in his yard and found a tree branch close to the right diameter.. wrapped it in emery and spun it around in the cyls for awhile... good enough :)
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:lol: :lol: Red Green?
 
Oldmanmopar said:
I agree in a sense . But when do you start paying for the short cuts? Like is it more economical to replace parts every year that could last several years if only you would have spent a little more money and time doing it right the first time.

I do agree that it is cheaper to do what ever you can when cost are an issue. But there are items that if not done correctly cost you more if needed to be done more often. Rings last longer, Gaskets and materials add up if you need to buy them more often. Performance is not the only reason, It is durability.

We learned the hard way when my son was young and racing. We would be tearing the engine down every 4 weeks until we found a shop that knew what they were doing. The engine lasted a whole season and only freshened because we wanted to not because we had to.
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Four weeks come on now. What the heck was that a pro stock engine. My 422 went five years and ran 6.0’s the first and last time out. I understand owning a business you want to drum up business but let’s not tell crazy tales. Lol.
 
I don't have a dog in this fight, but I have my own engine dyno, and you can tell on the blow-by meter which engines have been honed with a deck plate or not. IMHO when you go to a machine shop you need to ask 2 questions "do you have a deck plate" and do you have a "Profilometer"? If the answer is "no" to either of these question, go to a shop that is not stuck in the 1990s.

I have a set of deck plates for my own use, on a filled 4.375 bore 400 block, the cylinder distorts .00075. Now that doesn't seem like much, but in fact it produces 10 spaces (the head studs distort the block) where the tension on the piston ring is lighter and blow by will occur.

Joe
 
I can't count the number of over-fender over-hauls I did on customer and fleet vehicles that ran 10's and 100's of thousands of miles just fine.
Being a plug-reader, I was very aware of any oil consumption issues, and those engine ran fine.
Some of the ambulances/dump trucks put on 300k+ miles ! !
My current 2 yr championship racecar engine hasn't been apart in 3 years, leakdown says it staying together another year.
All done with a handheld 3 stone glaze breaker ! !

Ideally, the engine should be machine shop done , - but wasn't practical in many cases, and over fender overhauls were the norm for a daily driver.
Valve grinds happened at about 80 k miles, and re-ringing at about 120k .
Cheers .
 
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I suppose there's the do it at home way and then the machine shop way...a do it at home guy has to know when to stop an take it to the machine shop though...:)
 
Sr4440 said:
I don't have a dog in this fight, but I have my own engine dyno, and you can tell on the blow-by meter which engines have been honed with a deck plate or not. IMHO when you go to a machine shop you need to ask 2 questions "do you have a deck plate" and do you have a "Profilometer"? If the answer is "no" to either of these question, go to a shop that is not stuck in the 1990s.

I have a set of deck plates for my own use, on a filled 4.375 bore 400 block, the cylinder distorts .00075. Now that doesn't seem like much, but in fact it produces 10 spaces (the head studs distort the block) where the tension on the piston ring is lighter and blow by will occur.

Joe
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EXACTLY. And the two stone, two guide shoe rocker arm hone is quickly becoming obsolete.

Diamond abrasives, water based coolants and stone holders with 6, 8 or 12 stones (IIRC) makes every other method of cylinder honing obsolete.

There is no possible way a two stone a guide shoe hone can get anywhere near the straight and roundness a new hone can and it’s not close. And you can’t measure the out of round with a bore gauge.

Not using a profilometer is a crap shoot at best.

To get the correct surface geometry of the type of ring, type of fuel (yes, the fuel you use matters) and even the materiel that being honed you NEED a profilometer or you are just guessing.

Honing in the last 10-12 years has gotten exponentially better, and that allows the end user to get a ring other than ductile iron moly (also obsolete and has been since the early 2000’s at the latest) that will seal better, last longer and make more power than ever before.

Now, saying all that I can say you can still get it done with other equipment. I’ve honed thousands of holes and I was very good at it. But compared to a new machine I’m a hack. No human with a rocker arm hone can get close to the new hones.

That isn’t to say you can’t use a three fingers flex hone or even a berry hone to clean up the bores for a quick freshen up with moly or plain cast rings. And it will work fine.

I‘d never do that with any steel ring.
 
pittsburghracer said:
Four weeks come on now. What the heck was that a pro stock engine. My 422 went five years and ran 6.0’s the first and last time out. I understand owning a business you want to drum up business but let’s not tell crazy tales. Lol.
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Alcohol nitro mixed. We raced all over the USA

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pittsburghracer said:
You guys play a whole different game playing in dirt, injected alcohol, and circle track. Also you are running how many cylinders.
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Up to 10 cylinders, Steve also helped Dave built the Hemi hunter. The Vega Time Bomb engine is in the shop now . He has max wedges here and big cube bracket cars. He don't only build singles. He learned from building the singles and street bikes at a very young age. Then he moved up. He has built some wild Diesels for some customers. I can't think of anything he didn't build. Flat heads, old hemis. foreign and domestic . Harleys, or pulling tractors. Everyone brings him their work. Me I just like watching and learning . there are somethings I help him with but alot of what he does is way out of my league.
He is on this site every night. We laugh at some of the spats . And at times he tells me what to write





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Oldmanmopar said:
Up to 10 cylinders, Steve also helped Dave built the Hemi hunter. The Vega Time Bomb engine is in the shop now . He has max wedges here and big cube bracket cars. He don't only build singles. He learned from building the singles and street bikes at a very young age. Then he moved up. He has built some wild Diesels for some customers. I can't think of anything he didn't build. Flat heads, old hemis. foreign and domestic . Harleys, or pulling tractors. Everyone brings him their work. Me I just like watching and learning . there are somethings I help him with but alot of what he does is way out of my league.
He is on this site every night. We laugh at some of the spats . And at times he tells me what to write





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Nice program. I was born and raised 7 miles from Lernerville Dirt track in Sarver Pa. As the bird flies since 1984 I’m 4-5 miles as the bird flies. I’ve had one sponsor back in the 1970’s into the 1980’s and a local bar gave me money to letter my duster and put an ad on for them. So since then I’ve paid for and support my own race program. My local dirt track friends had 5-7 guys on their teams, sponsors like you wouldn’t believe. I take pride in doing the work myself and on my budget. Most of my dirt track friends quit years ago and several go into drugs. Pretty hard to watch. It would probably be nice to have a belt drive but not 1200-1400.00 nice. I turned down a chance to buy a very nice torque plate. Most of my alcohol friends runs a vacuum pump and even some on race gas. I’m not in the top 50% in wins now but I used to finish points in the top 10. Honestly how many years do I have at almost 67 years old as sooner or later I won’t be able to do my maintenance on the floor. But I sure do have FUN. I would love to see your shop sometime but I rarely go that direction.
 
pittsburghracer said:
Nice program. I was born and raised 7 miles from Lernerville Dirt track in Sarver Pa. As the bird flies since 1984 I’m 4-5 miles as the bird flies. I’ve had one sponsor back in the 1970’s into the 1980’s and a local bar gave me money to letter my duster and put an ad on for them. So since then I’ve paid for and support my own race program. My local dirt track friends had 5-7 guys on their teams, sponsors like you wouldn’t believe. I take pride in doing the work myself and on my budget. Most of my dirt track friends quit years ago and several go into drugs. Pretty hard to watch. It would probably be nice to have a belt drive but not 1200-1400.00 nice. I turned down a chance to buy a very nice torque plate. Most of my alcohol friends runs a vacuum pump and even some on race gas. I’m not in the top 50% in wins now but I used to finish points in the top 10. Honestly how many years do I have at almost 67 years old as sooner or later I won’t be able to do my maintenance on the floor. But I sure do have FUN. I would love to see your shop sometime but I rarely go that direction.
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Well some people DO, and other people BRAG... I'd say at 67 with what you have done, and more importantly, the actual HELPFUL information you post, puts you sir, in the "done it" category!
 
replicaracer43 said:
Well some people DO, and other people BRAG... I'd say at 67 with what you have done, and more importantly, the actual HELPFUL information you post, puts you sir, in the "done it" category!
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When you got it, you got it. It goes both way's.
Sometimes it's hard to be humble when you're soo proud of someone in the family.
 
pittsburghracer said:
So I betting 90-95 percent of people building engines are street engines, test n tuners, street strip, or bracket cars. I could spend a ton of money to run 5.95 or budget build an engine to run 6.0 every weekend and have money in my pocket to race every week and buy a burger at the track. That’s the choice I make because I watch builds every week built with the best of parts that never hit the track before they are up for sale. Again the choice is yours. These aren’t heads up engines as they probably fall in the 3% group or less.
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John,
you will enjoy this. When me and my buddy were about 14 our Dads agreed to us buying a junker car and building it with the provision we did not drive it before we got our driver license. We crashed it long before we were 16 hah! Anyway we trailered home a old cougar. During our rebuild process we knew we had to clean the cylinders. Two enterprising 15 year olds once again pooled our money and rented a dingleberry hone from auto parts store. We knew the cylinders had to be same diameter but we had no way to measure. Yet another story, but Dads precision tools were off limits at the time! So we chucked it up in the 1/2 Milwaukee drill and proceeded to drive the drill up and down in the cylinder. Our method was to alternate running the drill as neither of us weighed ninety pounds so we were pooped out after one cylinder! and then we timed each other and so in our minds we made the cylinders the same diameter by running the hone the same amount of time in each cylinder. Hah! Foot note she did run when we were done!
 
pittsburghracer said:
Nice program. I was born and raised 7 miles from Lernerville Dirt track in Sarver Pa. As the bird flies since 1984 I’m 4-5 miles as the bird flies. I’ve had one sponsor back in the 1970’s into the 1980’s and a local bar gave me money to letter my duster and put an ad on for them. So since then I’ve paid for and support my own race program. My local dirt track friends had 5-7 guys on their teams, sponsors like you wouldn’t believe. I take pride in doing the work myself and on my budget. Most of my dirt track friends quit years ago and several go into drugs. Pretty hard to watch. It would probably be nice to have a belt drive but not 1200-1400.00 nice. I turned down a chance to buy a very nice torque plate. Most of my alcohol friends runs a vacuum pump and even some on race gas. I’m not in the top 50% in wins now but I used to finish points in the top 10. Honestly how many years do I have at almost 67 years old as sooner or later I won’t be able to do my maintenance on the floor. But I sure do have FUN. I would love to see your shop sometime but I rarely go that direction.
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His shop now is in my garage and it is packed. I use the garage next door and many race trailers and sheds to store parts.. Nothing impressive here right now except the equipment. he uses.

He bought an old mopar salvage yard property and is trying to get the house livable. The junk and cars are finally all cleaned up . the shop is getting a heated floor.

There are many machines there that he bought that he cannot use at this time because they don't fit in my garage. He is Hoping to be in his place this year. Right now we are constantly moving jobs to and from the other place.

I can't wait to get my garage back so I can play with my projects with no interference. Many of my projects have been put on the back burner until he gets in the new place. . Here is the new place after we cleaned up. There are probably still tires and car parts buried int the woods. The trees, overgrowth and cars surrounded the place when he bought it there were hundreds of tires.

He gutted the house and has been working on it, Last picture is my place where the shop is now. Just a garage I built many years ago.

I am proud of what my son can do and has become with hard work. If any of you think that's bragging then to bad. He don't have purple hair , He ain't growing tits or thinking of having is dick cut off like some of the W-k- mob children I see some of you have .

I have a son that I am not afraid to leave what I have when I'm gone or worry about who will look after my wife. And we have fun together while I'm here.

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Good luck with your new adventure. I kicked around getting some purple highlights a couple years ago but my hairs to short.
 
pittsburghracer said:
Good luck with your new adventure. I kicked around getting some purple highlights a couple years ago but my hairs to short.
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They make wigs for that. I say go for it. I’d pay to see you with purple hair. And some tats. and a nice big nose ring.

That would be bad assed!!!
 
Rat Bastid said:
They make wigs for that. I say go for it. I’d pay to see you with purple hair. And some tats. and a nice big nose ring.

That would be bad assed!!!
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I
Laughed so hard when I read this because I bought a wig on Amazon and was going to trim it down so I had a mullet and add the purple highlights. That was going to be my Halloween costume at Keystones Halloween race. I still have it so it’s still in the plans. Lol
 
Rat Bastid said:
They make wigs for that. I say go for it. I’d pay to see you with purple hair. And some tats. and a nice big nose ring.

That would be bad assed!!!
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Bad assed ? lol more like the rest of the fruit loops running around.
He'd look much better shaving his head and having a flame tattoo on it. and no nostrol rings. no no no
 
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