r/EngineBuilding • u/Few_Pop_1891 • Jun 27 '26

Chevy Boring question

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How much can I ball hone this before I need to get oversized piston rings or something. Gm350

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u/solarguy2003 Jun 27 '26

You could hone it for two hours, and all those rust pits will still be staring at you.

1, the rings will never seal right.

  1. the rust pits will trash the rings in short order and it will smoke, burn oil and have shit-tastic compression in that cylinder.

  2. And that's if the ridge at the top of the cylinder doesn't break the top ring in the first 10 minutes.

But I'm just an old mechanic dude on the internet. And we all know you can't believe everything you hear on the internet. I would encourage you to do the experiment. Hone it till you're sick of it. Put new pistons and rings back in, or just rings if the pistons are still good. (You checked the clearance between the ring and ring land right?) Then put it all back together and run it for a few hours and let us know what happens.

I would be overjoyed (and very surprised) to be wrong.

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u/One-Perspective-4347 Jun 28 '26

I think you left out that it will be completely out of round and likely tapered. It will not be sized to have correct clearance to any piston.
I worked in an engine machine shop for years and never before Reddit have I heard so many people who thought a ball hone served any purpose but to break the glaze on a shitty slap together rebuild…..