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To re-ring or not to re-ring

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96Formula6spd

10+ Year Contributor
245
22
Nov 17, 2009
Greenville, South_Carolina
Figure I would ask around. So I am putting a 6 bolt back together. Engine had 12k or so on it. It blew a head gasket in 2009 and has been sitting since. Anyways at this point the crankshaft is out of the car and at the machine shop as the engine needed new bearings and the old crankshaft was trash. Guy was running no harmonic balancer.

So at this point the head gasket job has almost turned into a full rebuild. The engine was built by slow boy racing and the work has been pretty bad. I have thought of blowing the budget and pulling the pistons out and putting new piston rings in with a fresh hone. I did find that this has some 85.5mm Wiseco pistons, so I guess that is a plus. Here is a picture of the bores today. Would you guys run these or just go ahead and rebuild it all?

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Needs a hone and new rings, which is only a couple hundred bucks. I would more importantly check the pistons for cracks. The old regular wiseco pistons are notorious for cracking where the skirt meets the pin boss.
 
Needs a hone and new rings, which is only a couple hundred bucks. I would more importantly check the pistons for cracks. The old regular wiseco pistons are notorious for cracking where the skirt meets the pin boss.

Will be checking the pistons over with a fine tooth. Figure these receipts were from 2005 on the rebuild. Looks like time for a home and re-ring. Time to blow the budget even if it's only a couple hundred bucks.
 
those bores are ruined. re-ring wont help. this is common for early wiseco pistons. top of piston above rings expands too much and contacts bores. needs a proper rebore and fresh slugs to fix it.
 
those bores are ruined. re-ring wont help. this is common for early wiseco pistons. top of piston above rings expands too much and contacts bores. needs a proper rebore and fresh slugs to fix it.
While I think honing .002" off the bores would clean them up and get them to the kind of spec that would keep a piston from scuffing them so bad again, my money is on the pistons being cracked anyway.
 
if they are cracked call wiseco, they are a good company to deal with and they might replace them or at least offer you a good deal on the revised style.
heck even if they are not cracked call wiseco and tell them what you are seeing, i have had good luck dealing with them even when i was not the original purchaser of the pistons.
 
Yay, sounds like the pistons are coming out Monday. Out of town till then. Just as I thought I could actually get this car running again it comes back to bite me, again and again and again.

To bad it's 85.5mm bore. Otherwise I would just find a stock set to throw in. I will be calling Wiseco but a new set from them is out of the budget. Doubt they will replace them. Might get a cheaper replacement set, but again out of budget. Doubt there are cheap replacements.

Stock 6 bolt were forged pistons correct? I bet the cheaper kits are cast.

Man and I was staring down some cheap 2.4 6 bolt blocks and cranks but said be smart keep the 2.0.
 
Well good thing I pulled these pistons. They are trash. No cracking that I can find but major scoring. Also rings were almost lined up. Not even a 1/4 turn between the #1 and #2 rings. Tops are chewed up and line up with some of the big scoring marks. This engine was not happy. Took some pictures. The skirts are very worn on one side. Lots of pictures below

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Cylinder #1

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Cylinder #2

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Cylinder #3

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Cylinder #4

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Top of pistons look like this. And this was not even the bad one. You can also see loads of blow by. I have been in 170k motors that were way better than these.

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Big scratches. So can't tell if this is a Wiseco problem or something else. All I know is these pistons are trash. Skirts are extremely worn. I think this engine was vibrating to death. Cylinders are looking pretty bad as well. Chances are its going to need a bore to at least 86mm or .030 over. So much for a 12k mile slow boy engine.
 
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Did you compression test his motor before it was pulled? I had vertical marks on my cylinder walls as well but I could not catch my fingernail on them. I also run Wiseco's the 1400HDs so I am wondering if this is why I have those marks. It would be interesting to know the compression these pistons were creating.
 
Did you compression test his motor before it was pulled? I had vertical marks on my cylinder walls as well but I could not catch my fingernail on them. I also run Wiseco's the 1400HDs so I am wondering if this is why I have those marks. It would be interesting to know the compression these pistons were creating.

Since my camshafts were made of rust no. I did not turn anything till the cylinder head was off the engine. Then I put oil on the cylinders before turning the crankshaft at all. Car has never ran since I have owned it. Was bought as a project car but even now I'm rethinking that.
 
Flip them upside down and look at the area where the skirt meets the pin boss, I bet they are cracked.

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That's crappy bro. I sorry to hear that news that NOBODY EVER wants to hear. :cry: I feel for ya!

Yep it sucks. Got to decide on what to do with this car. Have debated a part out before and or selling it. I just decided to fix it. Now this has shown up. What to do, what to do.

Flip them upside down and look at the area where the skirt meets the pin boss, I bet they are cracked.

Checked all four when they came out. None had cracking. Lots of scoring but no cracks.
 
That's odd. Usually the pistons that get installed to tight also have the cracks. Part of the problem is that wiseco spec'd those pistons for .0025" clearance. I've always had them installed to looser specs.

The newer hd pistons have an extreme barrel shape to prevent the crown from swelling.
 
That's odd. Usually the pistons that get installed to tight also have the cracks. Part of the problem is that wiseco spec'd those pistons for .0025" clearance. I've always had them installed to looser specs.

The newer hd pistons have an extreme barrel shape to prevent the crown from swelling.

I was waiting for it but never saw anything. I went out a while back and double checked. Granted these are still garbage. Started looking at other engine options but man have these engines shot up in value on the used market. Even a jdm engine these days is around 1500 for a cheap one. 6 bolts are over 2k if you can find them. That is way out of budget.
 
You should be able to find a 6 bolt short block for a few hundred dollars. Try one of our supporting vendors like miller import.

Have been watching his posts. I have debated a doing the used engine option. I know his 6 bolt selection is low. At least complete bottom ends. Heck a lot of parts I needed for this 6 bolt came from him. Everything was good minus the rack and pinion( I could have exchanged it but gas would cost more than the parts to rebuild it).

Clean them up really good, file the burrs off, have them recoated. have a machine shop hone the cylinders .001-.002 and put it back together with new rings.

Could do this, but the coating part will be out of budget. At least right now. Going to look around at options. Right now I will pick the crankshaft up and go from there. Probably means the car is going to sit for another few months or more.
 
You could probably get away with smoothing them up with some 400grit wet/dry sand paper. If you sent them to me clean and ready to go I could coat them for $75. It's a tough call weather it's worth it.
 
You could probably get away with smoothing them up with some 400grit wet/dry sand paper. If you sent them to me clean and ready to go I could coat them for $75. It's a tough call weather it's worth it.

Not a bad idea. I looked again and there are 2 pistons with multiple deep groves straight to the top ring. These will not buff out. From a machine shop I trust means these pistons are junk. If you were on a super budget maybe or needed it back together today. But he says scratches to the top ring give exhaust gases a place to hit that ring. Add in boost and you put even more pressure on that scratch. But for something that was planning on being a DD these pistons will not be going back into any of my engines. Especially with the known problems. You could get lucky with coating but at this point its not worth it to me.
 
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