When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
I don't know much about ring spacers but I'd pass on them. From what I've been able gather they were intended for class racing with piston size rules. Seems like a crutch.
I agree with the above statements...........and here is the reason why. After time......a bore, even one that "mics" out....can have considerable taper, hourglass, or bulging from top to bottom. It can also have a loss of concentricity.....and the number ONE concern of power making. This can only be correctly repaired by boring and honing, with an experienced hone operator. Do not play around here. Here is some old school pistons from Speed Pro at $384.....these will be very close to the weight of your stock L-82 stuff...........https://www.summitracing.com/parts/SLP-L2304F/
Kick *** ring and valve seal will always make for a good running unit........
In the late 80's when I was still a teen.....a lot of my friends had 225hp 5.0l Mustangs.......they were everywhere and all the rage, and we were outside the Motor City......but if you drove 5 of them, 2 would stand out for running very well and the others kinda made noise.......fast forward to 1991....Ford lowers the horsepower rating of the 5.0l GT to 205hp. No other changes were made to the engine. The reason for the drop was the HORRIBLE machine honing tolerances at the Romeo engine plant.......there could be 20-25 horsepower difference between two engine on the same assembly line due to....you got it.....ring seal. I...of course had a 350 IROC and could spank any of them LOL.....but I also remember my TPI 350 was smooth as silk and torque out the ballzonia.....I measure compression in it once and got 160-165 on ALL cylinders......the motor was tight and that to me was the key.
Fact is......you welch on the bet here and Vinnie will break your legs later.......
Oh......be sure to have the machine shop spell out EXACTLY what they are doing......so there are no he said she said stuff later on.....
Just a word of advice. Check the oil pan behind baffles and/or the windage screen- a lot of crud can hide there. Also thoroughly clean the oil pickup screen and tube. Good Luck
You're right....those late 80's/early 90's 5.0's were built with forged pistons and low tension rings. Only way that worked was good/round cylinders. I bought one new in '88 and it has 200K+ on it now. In fact...drove it the other day with my daughter who wanted to go bang some gears. She was the first to ride in home from the dealership and claims it as hers. The bottom end has never been touched...but I did port the heads when it had about 10K miles on it.
Had to make sure I could keep spanking those 350 IROC's!!
The glove box is still full of ET slips from Wed night racing and of course lots of street action!
You're right....those late 80's/early 90's 5.0's were built with forged pistons and low tension rings. Only way that worked was good/round cylinders. I bought one new in '88 and it has 200K+ on it now. In fact...drove it the other day with my daughter who wanted to go bang some gears. She was the first to ride in home from the dealership and claims it as hers. The bottom end has never been touched...but I did port the heads when it had about 10K miles on it.
Had to make sure I could keep spanking those 350 IROC's!!
The glove box is still full of ET slips from Wed night racing and of course lots of street action!
JIM
Jim,
I had my 94 Mustang GT convertible 5.0 out today and it runs great as well. I also had a Mustang LX 5.0 5 speed that I bought new in 1988 and it was a blast. Sold it in 1992! Great Motor. My experience has been pretty much the same as you..those 80/90's 5.0 V8's run forever with little maintenance. My 88 5.0 used zero oil and my 94 which I still have but with little mileage (33,000 miles) also uses zero oil..............
Well... I got everything from the machine shop on Friday and, I'm not happy but I feel like it's probably because I had unfair expectations, but the machine shop was definitely extremely poor at communicating, setting expectations, and just insanely disorganized.
-I'd love some feedback on what's just me being ignorant or a pain-in-the-***, vs. where the machine shop might've gone wrong.
I was quoted $300 to have the block, crank, and pistons inspected and get all the important measurements from them, get the block hot tanked and painted, and get the old cam bearings removed and my new ones I already purchased installed. (I was pretty happy with that.)
I got the block back- no paint, rusty every where some of the old paint still on it, honing residue in all the cylinders. -I said "I think you guys forgot the paint (I mentioned it on the phone AND when I got there with my stuff)" the kid doing the machine said it wasn't on his list of things to do, the owner said that he must've never heard it and didn't write it on the sheet and told me to just "Buy some VHT engine paint". (I thought I was getting a newly honed, cleaned, and painted block that would be clean and ready for me to assemble; instead, I'm two weekends behind from where I would've been.) ---Wouldn't be the end of the world, except I was still being charged $300 for the original work, but without the block being fully cleaned and painted... (Should I pay less given that less was done??)
-I had also COMPLETELY cleaned my pistons before I dropped them off (immaculate) but they charged me $40 for "Clean and Inspect" Pistons. (Maybe all the labor is in the "inspect" part and them not having to clean them doesn't reduce the amount of labor enough to charge me less??)
-I asked them to machine the block for a roller chain for me $20 -Happy to pay it!
I asked them to cleanup my old heads, (which I gave them bare) so that they looked good to get them ready for sale and get rid of all the carbon -$40 for both- They hot tanked them which took off the oil but just made them freakishly rusty and honestly got rid of none of the carbon. (I probably had unrealistic expectations, but if they would've just said that hot tanking them isn't going to make them look nice or get rid of carbon and it's just going to remove the oil, I would've said "Never mind"; if it won't make them look read-to-sell then forget about it.
I also asked them to cleaup my old intake so it looks good and is ready for sale and get rid of the carbon deposits- they "Jet Washed" it- It did absolutely nothing. Looked like it was just sitting on the shelf since I dropped it off. They didn't even remove the goose neck so I'm not sure how they were going to get it clean. $18 -I got home and sprayed $5 of gasket remover on it and let it sit over night and it looks 3X better than when it came from the machine shop. -Paying something for nothing.
I was rushed to drop off the block and I couldn't get the last two freeze plugs out in time and asked them if they could remove them for me before they hot tanked the block--- I put it back on the engine stand Saturday morning and the freeze plugs were still there- not sure how it's supposed to get clean with freeze plugs on it...
When I picked up my stuff, they tried to give me someone else's 882 heads with the springs on them and press-in studs; they brought out another set of heads that they said were the only factory-style heads and must be mine (super organized).
I called and REMINDED them that I really wanted all the measurements to order bearings and that Total Seal wanted to know what stone they used and what RPM / how many passes or the finish on the walls. They had NO measurements for me except "4.5 thousands piston-to-wall clearance." -No breakout per-piston or bore; no piston size or bore size measurements. The owner said "oh yea I forgot to mic the crank for you and went and mic one journal and one rod journal and wrote down two sets of two measurements: "2.4482 / 2.4488" and 2.0985/2.0990" and he said those are slightly outside of the large end of the spec for standard sized bearings. <--Should I have gotten more measurements than this? -I feel like each piston, bore, and journal should have a measurement coming with it. I feel like I need to go out and drop like $200 on some mics to measure all this myself even after I supposedly paid someone for this information.
For the cylinder bores they said they used an 818 Sunnen Stone and that's all they'd give me and they said if Total Seal knows what they're doing that's good enough.
Price wise, not huge issues: whatever they did to the intake did NOT provide any value or really do anything, charging me for something that says "clean pistons" when they were already cleaned is weird, and really the thing that most pissed me off was paying the same price and not getting the block painted when they said it was going to be painted for that. It's a lot of labor to mask everything off and wire brush all the rust off everywhere and paint the block; it's easy, I can do it and have already started but I don't see how there's not a price reduction for that big piece of labor missing...
-Where am I just a dumbass and am paying "stupid tax" vs. where should I be legitimately unhappy and talking to the machine shop?
Oh......be sure to have the machine shop spell out EXACTLY what they are doing......so there are no he said she said stuff later on.....
Jebby
I tried to do that. They REALLY didn't want to give me anything in writing; wouldn't even give me a receipt showing all the stuff I dropped off to them. I asked "umm aren't I supposed to get some sort of paper saying what you're going to do and what I gave you? -No, we've got everything we need." -Only reason I left was because I had etched my initials into every part before I dropped it all off.
Sorry to hear this....it just sounds like a shop that doesn't take pride in what they do. They are pushing through quicky work that most folks don't notice or care about it seems.
I would have expected block main bore measurements and individual cylinder measurements as well as deck height. Not sure if you asked them to ck line bore but it would have been part of checking all block measurements. How do you know it's all good if you don't check it? These are all important especially if you're trying to assemble it without ensuring everything is re-machined like in blueprinting. You need to know if it's "close enough" to be OK for a mild rebuild.
Not sure what method of cleaning they did. If they used a jet wash machine with heat it should be pretty clean. If it's an older style vat style where it dipped in a tank and just sits there...it could get pretty clean too. The rust is probably just light surface rust from getting to bare/clean metal. Putting some oil on it...especially the machined surfaces would prevent that...but anywhere else is going to hurt getting paint to stick. Either way, I always use my pressure washer to clean my stuff at home with spray degreaser. Their wash got off the big stuff.....and as you said would have been nice to get it painted before all the rust got on there....but shouldn't be a big deal. I know you were expecting to get a block back that looked like one of the reconditioned ones from Summit.
Same with the heads. Unless someone really gets in there, hard carbon doesn't always come off. Not that they couldn't but sounds like they just put them in the cleaner and hosed them off afterwards.
On the crank...it's obvious he isn't going to put much into this stuff. He's lazy and I wouldn't trust him to rebuild a lawnmower. If he doesn't measure every journal he has no idea if somewhere along the line someone spun a bearing and decided to just turn one journal. Don't laugh...it's very common in the warranty engines from OEM's and some aftermarket rebuilds. I've seen .070" overbores on just one hole while rest were standard and cranks turned .050" on one journal. I would have expected it to get a runout check also to make sure it's not bent.
Pistons? Does it look like they glass beaded them? How did they measure/inspect ring grooves? How did you clean them? As mentioned...where did they come up with that .0045" dimension if they didn't measure them all and their bores?
Did they measure rod big ends? Change rod bolts?
All that said...I'd say there was a big lack of communication and expectations. Unless you deal with a shop all the time and you know THEY know what you expect...always get it in writing. That said...$300 doesn't buy a lot of time and detail. Time is money and they just used your stuff to fill the vat and help overhead revenue. Didn't provide much value.
For what you're doing, I'd still want to get some bearing clearance measurements. You could probably stick it together with std bearings but you mentioned something about the rear main I think and I'd want to investigate that a little further. It was running when you took it apart so it will run again. You've just honed the cylinders...so hopefully they are more round than previously. There's been a gazillion engines put together without TQ plate honing...so it can work...but don't expect perfection. Stock blocks (in fact most all blocks) will "pull in" when you TQ the heads and create low/high spots in bore. Those spots around the top of the bore aren't going to seal perfectly...but it will probably be OK. You're not building a high end race engine or a mega detailed street toy. We're doing a basic rebuild with used pistons, crank, rods with a cylinder freshening. We're adding some heads and cam to it for more power. Again...I wouldn't waste money on high $$ ring packages for this.
Clean it up.....put in the brass freezeplugs. Test fit your cam in those new cam bearings before installing the crank just in case they goofed them up.
I agree with Jim. Sorry, Adam, that your project is stalled now due to dealing with a sloppy machine shop. I think you are right to be unhappy and unfortunately some of these shops (just like car repair) are professional and organized, while others are dirty and disorganized and don't care about the guy coming in once in a while with some basic work.
For what you asked for, $300 isn't an out-of-line price. That said, if you asked for them to mic everything out, it should have been done. If they supposedly checked pistons/rods, ask them what was checked and what the results were. I typically haven't gotten bore measurements back from the shop I use, but pistons are numbered and everything honed to fit, and he will always tell me if there was variation or if they were all virtually the same. The bearing clearances for you are most critical as you're trying to fit bearings, so you need the journal sizes and the rods and mains should be torqued WITH BEARINGS IN and then measured to get the bore sizes. Do the math between those and the crank journals to get your clearances. Adjust bearings as needed.
Rust and some left over paint in a few spots isn't uncommon after tanking the block, but it and the bores should have been DRY and CLEAN with the bore's sprayed or wiped with something to avoid rust, and my block always comes out of the shop wrapped in shrink like it's Christmas... he doesn't want that final cleaning getting messed up. ALL of the plugs should have come out of the block and you should have gotten it back with minimum new frost plugs and rear cam and galley plugs.
Don't worry about the paint - you're better off masking off the decks, valley, timing chain area and the oil pan area and painting it yourself. Who knows what mess you'd get back from them. Screw some scrap bolts or roll masking tape to fill your bolt holes for motor mounts, etc. and get a neat job out of the paint.
I'd be going back to have a conversation, but that's me... Depends on how patient you are.
I have had similar experience in the past with my local machine shop that came well recommended.
they tried to upsell me left and right and I just wanted a basic rebuild that was stock. they have their big customers and don't have time for the one off customer bringing in a small block chevy for just checking.
they were glad to be rid of you.
on the other hand they should have written down all the specs, taper, out of round, mic readings and clearances that they took and given you the doc.
unless you are looking for increased durability, increased HP over stock, what you are doing is fine.
if you want a really tight build, that is when tighter clearances, deck specs, part quality above factory quality come into play.
When I drop stuff off to get machined, I provide them a detailed parts list and explanation of exactly what I want done and have it attached to the shop ticket. Most 2nd rate shops don’t write down a damn thing and try to do it from memory- That’s how customers get disappointed. If everything on my list isn’t completed to my satisfaction, I don’t take it home.
Also most of these 2nd rate shops hire “machinists” for next to nothing that often have minimal education on what they are doing so it’s hard to expect truly quality work vs a more upscale operation. As always, you get what you pay for.
You’re not out a lot of money so I would say lesson learned and find another shop for any future work.
Just my .02
Elm
Suggestion on paint, since it looks like you get to do it yourself-- Get a rattle can of epoxy appliance paint- I used black- it flowed out very nice and seems to be pretty tough. I used gloss black..
You said when you got the block back it was kind of rusty, that's OK on the outside, but not inside. And when you said there was honing residue in the cylinders? That's the whole reason for cleaning the block after honing and before installing the cam bearings. It should have been spotless before they installed the cam bearings. You shouldn't accept sloppy work like that, it's an unacceptable condition.
Also, theres some small oil galley plugs that need to be installed, make sure they do them or it wont have oil pressure.
You said when you got the block back it was kind of rusty, that's OK on the outside, but not inside. And when you said there was honing residue in the cylinders? That's the whole reason for cleaning the block after honing and before installing the cam bearings. It should have been spotless before they installed the cam bearings. You shouldn't accept sloppy work like that, it's an unacceptable condition.
Also, theres some small oil galley plugs that need to be installed, make sure they do them or it wont have oil pressure.
The oil galleys should be scrubbed clean after the plugs are removed. ALL of them- even the ones between the mains and the cam, and around the OD of the cam bearings before the bearings were installed.
11-03-2018, 01:41 PM
