How much cylinder wear before overboring

On a small block 283, how much cylinder wear is allowable before you need to overbore? 3.875 is the standard bore. The cylinders on mine measure between 3.878 to 3.879.

 

You could probably get by with a re-ring, although you're close to the edge of max wear that I'd want. More critical is the taper in the cylinder. Are your measurements top of bore, center or bottom?

 

Center and the bottom measure the same. Before ordering parts I was wondering if I am looking at going .030 over.

 

Motors sez .005 max. Just a driver Id rering it and run cast iron rings.

 

What he said. I have close to 30K on a 351C that was between .003 and .004 on all eight and no smoke, good power and good milage so I have to say it is OK.

 

283s are forgiving engines. Clean up any ridge ring and run a ball hone through it. Use soft cast iron rings and it should be good for a few more years. Have the valve guides cut for the good stem seals and it probably won't smoke at all.

 

Actually it's how much taper you have in the cylinder before you need to bore the cylinder. As a cylinder wears it will usually taper out a bit at the top and the bore will be larger just under the wear ridge than it is at the middle or bottom of the bore. How much taper seems to have slipped out of my brain at the moment.

It also depends on what you want to do with it. If it only has 10 thousandth taper you can most likely rering it and run it another 70K on the street.

 

Re ring and run it. It won't last as long as a complete rebore but unless you plan to put plenty of miles on it.


Ago

 

Consider .010 over and use .010 over rings....

 

This thread could not have come at a better time for me. I have a 42K mile 8BA (it was in a car that a tree fell on in 1956 and has been in a garage ever since). I did get the engine running, but it was really rough. 5 cylinders with 110 lbs, 3 with 0; pulled the plugs and could see stuck valves on the 3 bad cylinders. I pulled it apart and was planning on honing, re-ringing, lapping the valves, and replacing the connecting rod bearings. I measured the bores and they are .004 over with almost no taper. I have been looking on the net, and have been able to find std, .001, and .002 under bearings from Kanter (plastiguage will tell the tale).

The problem is, I can't find oversize rings. I would think that standard rings would work, since they probably have a little extra meat on them. If that's not true, how much difference could an extra .001 or .002 end gap make? (I'm 70 years old and drive these cars about 1000 miles per year.)