Dingle berry honing (or whatever it is called)

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greymouser7

greymouser7

Vagrant Vagabond “Veni Vidi Vici”
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Does it matter how fast you go up and down?
I thought I remembered a video where they said to hone the bores at a steady slow speed, but someone told me to do it fast.
thank you!
 
Up and down stroke speed has to match the rpm of the hone. You want about 40 degrees of cross hatch, and don't do it much. It's easy to trash an otherwise serviceable bore and rings by honing too much with those things.
 
Yes, the goal is to reach a certain angle, not in n out speed.

The in n out speed is a function of the rotational speed of the hone. 45* was always what I aimed for.

All you're trying to do is scuff the cylinder and add itty bitty grooves to the surface to aid in oil retention.

You are NOT trying to remove material.
 
I hone from top back to top in about one full second. Has always worked good for me.
 
Everyone has a different answer, imagine that.

Id tell you...but then someone would counter what i tell you.....I'd ask a machine shop if i were you, i bet they would know more about that than those who told you 40 or 45 and so on...lol
 
MOPAROFFICIAL said:
Everyone has a different answer, imagine that.

Id tell you...but then someone would counter what i tell you.....I'd ask a machine shop if i were you, i bet they would know more about that than those who told you 40 or 45 and so on...lol
Click to expand...
The only machine shop with torque plates for a mall block is Dvorak machine, and Mr. Dvorak takes awhile to get blocks machined because he has so many blocks waiting in line.

The best i can get local is a bore, deck, and align hone. Everybody has the stuff for sbc, LS, or whatever, but SBM. If I remember correctly the deck-bore-align hone should be corrulated by a specific angle (90 degrees?) -it probably doesn't matter at the power level of the crane 693901, but the next motor i build with Rusty's 693801 cam might need some of this specific machining
 
greymouser7 said:
The only machine shop with torque plates for a mall block is Dvorak machine, and Mr. Dvorak takes awhile to get blocks machined because he has so many blocks waiting in line.

The best i can get local is a bore, deck, and align hone. Everybody has the stuff for sbc, LS, or whatever, but SBM. If I remember correctly the deck-bore-align hone should be corrulated by a specific angle (90 degrees?) -it probably doesn't matter at the power level of the crane 693901, but the next motor i build with Rusty's 693801 cam might need some of this specific machining
Click to expand...
Yeah it's rough out there still, should be standard practice with plates for all makes. I done quite a few with no plate that did just fine, but I too if given the choice rather a tq plate be used in the finish hone.
 
Right on! Torque plate from start to finish! Bore to hone!
 
I've always read 60° as the optimal cross hatch pattern.......but it really depends on ring material and facing.
 
I've seen guys decrease the cross hatch so far that the engine hummed like a tuning fork. It was an amazing thing to see. After about the 5-6th pull on the dyno most of it went away. After 10 runs at the track it was junk.

Took several tries to figure out what they were doing.
 
I would suggest you do more research if you think what was given for info was incorrect. There's certainly some BS going on with these responses.
 
moper said:
I would suggest you do more research if you think what was given for info was incorrect. There's certainly some BS going on with these responses.
Click to expand...
if ur running an average 3/8" elec. drill wide open, go up and down as fast as u can , has always worked for me.
 
greymouser7 said:
The only machine shop with torque plates
Click to expand...

I've been thinking about this on and off all day long............I can't imagine why you would plate hone with a flex hone????? I consider myself pretty imaginative but it don't make sense. Rigid stone hone absolutely no argument there......but a FLEXHONE???? The operative word there is flex.....a 3/8inch dia or there about's glob of abrasive on a flexible stalk, it's point of contact is minimal, given radius of the glob and the cylinder wall. You are not honing for stock removal, if you are honing for stock removal then you need to then use a different hone.

I hone 30 seconds a cylinder, when I use my flexhone.

In my opinion don't worry about finding a plate if you are using a flexhone, it's a waste of time and energy.
 
Call it a hone if you want but it really is more of a glaze breaker. It just scratches the surface and doesn't remove material.
 
I sometimes will steepin the cross hatch a hair on some 4" stroke stuff along with a slightly rougher finish, for oil film to hang on, not pump, and to keep scuffing to a zilch with hyper pistons. I mentioned that a couple months back in a thread.....now it's an echo here. Shrug.
It'll run matter what 40-70 degree if ya want, but depending on which way you go about it... you may have oil diluted mixture that makes it prone to pre detonation, or blowby and oil pumping aka some oil consumption ....or it runs fine and you drive off into the sunset.
 
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toolmanmike said:
Call it a hone if you want but it really is more of a glaze breaker. It just scratches the surface and doesn't remove material.
Click to expand...
So does a stone, it scratches the surface.

It's called a hone, "flex hone" by most in the industry but also carries the "ball hone" name for about as long because of how it looks, it just makes you want to say "ball hone" and that quickly differentiates between the styles of hones so you know what the other guy is referring to.

It will remove material of you hone or "scratch" with it long enough...lol jk @toolmanmike , just like a scratch removes skin from your arm.
 
I've honed a few hundred blocks with ball hones and here's what I did....use a reversible drill (are any these days not reversible??) and using standard rotation run it wide open and just scuff up the cylinder for a few seconds then reverse it and get the crosshatch you want. Use plenty of oil, I used a lot of WD40 and LPS because the spray was easier. The balls will wear down and won't give a good crosshatch but if you reverse it you're using a new portion of the ball and you'll get a nice crosshatch. Regardless if which method you use be sure you clean it extremely well with hot water and soap, I use a small fingernail brush to scrub the cylinders.
 
The OP may find this helpful: Untitled Document

And this: Engine Hone, Flex Hones, Cylinder Hones

The OP also needs to understand that the honing angle will vary with both the up and down speed AND the drill speed. I would recommend a slower speed like 500 RPM +/- so that you can move up and down more slowly and thus better control the angle. The video at the end of the 2nd link above can give you an idea of how fast to move up and down; what they show closely matches the 1 second top-to-bottom-to-top cycle time mentioned by RRR.
 
Well how bout that? He was moving it about a second from top back to top again. duhhhhh.
 
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