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.
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
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.
