2.8L M20 build - Now with 2.7L!

[Myster-E]

Just use a ball hone to clean up the cylinder walls. For the deck surface of the block I always use a premium sharpening stone from (most hardware stores). I spray the stone and block with WD40 "rub" the stone in a circular motion. This makes the surface nice and flat.

[acolella76]

I may end up doing that. The guy who will probably be doing my machine work won't let me get away without having everything balanced, polished, etc. Gonna be spending big bucks. :|

[LJ851]

I have not measured... Don't have a bore gauge. I was planning on leaving that up to the machine shop. I can't really find a shop in GA who will do what I need though... A lot of them are saying that I don't need to resurface the block, in fact one shop told me it would just be a waste. Hopefully Jordan from Technica will point me in the right direction.

Any competent machine shop will be able to tell you if you need to surface (deck) the block. They will need to measure the block in person to assess that.

A ball hone would be my second choice to a machine hone. A ball hone creates a lot rougher surface than a proper machine hone and brushes and will wear your rings out faster.

Eagle machine in Auburn used to be one of the best, haven't used them in a few years. I know a competent machine shop in Acworth as well, PM me if you are interested.

[MR 325]

I may end up doing that. The guy who will probably be doing my machine work won't let me get away without having everything balanced, polished, etc. Gonna be spending big bucks. :|

Didn't we go over this already in this thread? Balancing is NOT expensive, neither is having a crank micropolished.

[acolella76]

Got my pistons, rods, and crank back from the machine shop today :D Still have to take the block somewhere to get deglazed and honed though.





I had them remove some material from the pistons so they wouldn't have to take as much off of the crank



Still need to buy new rod/main bolts but it's looking like this will be done pretty soon! :D

Also had the machine shop make a front oil seal spacer.. this looks like it should be good, no?

[red_e30]

nice man looks good

[Myster-E]

Dam your machinist should have taken off more material off the crank instead of the cutting down the pistons. Looks good either way.

[MR 325]

Looks like they did good work, glad to see you making progress on this!

Are you going to run ARP hardware?

[acolella76]

Cutting the material off of the piston didn't hurt their structural integrity at all, and by taking as much off the piston as possible, they didn't have to take as much off of the crank. So I am happy with that

Looks like they did good work, glad to see you making progress on this!

Are you going to run ARP hardware?

I am going to run ARP main bolts since they are like $10 more than stock haha, I think it's worth it. I would like to run ARP head studs but I don't know if I can squeeze an extra $225 out of the budget, so I may have to install those later on.

[acolella76]

Started assembling stuff today... installed the crank, got the wrist pings/pistons/snap rings and rods together, etc. Just waiting on the new rod bolts to get in the mail so I can finish this up.



This is the color of the block. It will definitely need some touching up... haha



How we heated up the pistons to install the wrist pins and rods haha



The assembly lube is kind of sticky which I thought was weird. Also it takes a bit of effort to move the pistons/rods. It's perfectly fine when warm but while cold it is kind of hard to move them. Is this going to be a problem?

[The Humjet]

Looking good.
Very interesting thread. I'm a first year apprentice as an engine reconditioner so all this stuff looks familiar to me.
I'd definitely get the block deglazed at shop, I've also used the 3 stone honing tool that attaches to a drill it wasn't that successful for me, I couldn't get that nice crosshatch like you get on the machine no matter how fast my strokes were.
We mainly rebuild old American v8's and we always deck the block a fair bit to bring the cr up. Can we do the same thing to the m20 or will it start messing up the timing belt tension if you machine to much off?

[clarkson]

If you machine too much off the block or head you will have piston to head clearance problems, and you need an adjustable cam pulley. Can be done but you just need to be careful.

[acolella76]

Looking good.
Very interesting thread. I'm a first year apprentice as an engine reconditioner so all this stuff looks familiar to me.
I'd definitely get the block deglazed at shop, I've also used the 3 stone honing tool that attaches to a drill it wasn't that successful for me, I couldn't get that nice crosshatch like you get on the machine no matter how fast my strokes were.
We mainly rebuild old American v8's and we always deck the block a fair bit to bring the cr up. Can we do the same thing to the m20 or will it start messing up the timing belt tension if you machine to much off?

I had the cylinder walls deglazed already :) They look nice and beautiful.

Yes you can mill the head or block to bump up the CR but if you take too much off, like the poster above me said, you will start to run into some clearance problems.

[MR 325]

You're definitely the first person I've seen heat up the pistons to install rods...

What kind of assembly lube did you use?

[acolella76]

Really? I've seen it done more than once before.

I used Lucas Oil Semi-synthetic.