if they are round and not ovaled i would install new std bearings looks like u have ur .002 clearances that are needed

easy way to tell would be to grab a new rod bearing and a plastigauge assemble it spin the motor over measure the plastigauge and see what the actualy rod pic to bearing clearance is

but if its only .002 under sized if ur mic and measurements are accurate u are good to go, as long as the rod pics are smooth and show no scoring

Ok, another question.

Those pistons come in .std. 20 30 40 over. Ok now I know that those cylinders dont seem to be too trashed hopefully. most places are closed tommorow so on monday I have a few numbers to call thanks to Joe and another thirdgen V8 guy out by me.

One question is, if I only have to bore it out .20 over to get it right will that leave me with plenty of cylinder wall left as I know to bore it to 3.4L or more is just pushing it or can be.

And also im going to call these places and dont have a clue on a competitive price to bore/hone those 6 cylinders out and have the block cleaned up. Any tip and any ideas of a good compared to a bad price at a machine shop?

Thanks

last time i had a sbc 350 bored and honed it was 100 bucks.
get .030 over pistons the cyl walls are plenty thick.
talk to a few of ur local racing guys and see who they recomend for a knowledgable machine shop in ur area

To check if the rings butted look at the ends of them. If they are shiny then the gap closed up. When the top ring does this it usually removes a piece of the ring land between it and the top of the piston.

As for the gaps, 0.030" is quite large for a 3.5" bore. A 0.020" top ring gap and a 0.022" second ring gap is more then enough. This is for forged pistons.

If you use hypers, which I wouldn't, need to go by the manufacturers recommendation. And add to that because of the extra heat from the boost.

Be sure to add some additional piston clearance when honed.

RBob.

The more I look into the crank and the bearings the more I worrie.

Heres some more pictures so you can see what im seeing.

Crank.. theres some spots you can feel the wear and also see that lil diviot on this picture??



I can feel that wear line down the middle. Crank once again.


Better picture of the diviot on the Crank


Another line down the crank that I can feel.


Basically all the crank bearings look about like this.

I just have a bad feeling that my crank is skidded up too much.. I had a buddy look at some of the groves on the crank and didnt like what he saw...

Look at this cheep 3.1L low miles and I can do comp test and such on it before hand, I can actaully fo out and drive it arround before I decide on it....toss my parts on it, cam it, work the rings and be off.

EDIT:: http://flint.craigslist.org/pts/3136662440.html Actually just talked to this guy. He said 104K miles on the odometer, he just got the car a while back for the body only and is taking the V6 out for a V8. Said I could drive it arround and do any test on the engine I want. Also said the running issue is because some idiot tried to make a EGR block off plate and didnt get it sealed up well..lol This might be the answer seeing that if I dont have to machine it out I would have 200 bucks or so into the engine and trans here, then the extra stuff to get it where I want. I could easily be in under 500 bucks to have another motor ready to drop in. May sound dumb but guys if my crank is crap, my cylinders, and such thats alot of $$. This "may be the answer"

hyper pistons require a larger ring gap then forged .030 on a 3.5 inch bore is slightly less then what kb recomends with there pistons.

there is nothing wrong with using hyper pistons for this application look at the grandnationals they cam with hyper pistons stock and thos shortblocks get pushed well into the 10's


additional clearance is only needed with forged pistions, the advanatage to a hyper piston is that it dosent expand as much from heat so u can run a tighter piston to wall clerance for better piston stability and ring seal

calm down fast

first buying another engine will require the same prep work or ur going to have the same issues .

that crank is not bad and any crank u pull out of any engine is going to look like that

if u buy the othe rmotor and swap the rings its had to be at minumum honed so ur still tearing down the motor.

the motor didnt knock it had good oil presure, have the block bored n honed get the new pistons and have the machine shop install them on the rods

get that stuff back from the machine shop and install new bearings and the shortblock is done


man i prolly shouldnt tell u to do this but if ur very carefull u can take 1000 grit paper and wrap it around the journal to polish off anything that is really sharp.

u have to be very carefull not to oval or make the journal out of round , in ur case id use 1,500 grit as u have never done it


thjos ebearings look fine they didnt wear in to the copper


take a penny and runb it gently across the journals and see if any of the copper flakes off if it does u know the scratches are to bad to be used again without a proper mpolish job or having the crank cut .010 under



save money up over the winter and do it right with what u have,buying a stock egine will lead u to the same issues possibly even worse

it would probably be better to use crocus cloth to polish the journels of the crank. those scratches arent that bad either.

on a side note, the buick LC2 did have hyper pistons but had additional supports cast into the underside. its not unusual to see the short block make enough power to propel that car into the 10's tho. if prepped right and tuned correctly the 3.1 will handle some power. take a look at some of the junkyard genIII 660's out there making well into the 400's(WHP) and holding up just fine.

I understand, but I can get my fingernail into one of the journal. Its pretty deep, and whats that notch on the other journal? Is that something from factory or is it suppose to be there? every one of them looks rough at least the jornals and not nessasary the bearings. The more I took off the worse it looked so I just stoped taking it apart earlier as it was irritating.

I dont know guys mabey i messed up and all of those close calls where i washed down the cylinders, fuel pump died at 13psi of WOT boost, blew head gaskets and milked up the oil, the time i hit 20psi on accident(first time with the log headers fast fast boost), all of those things just caught up to me I think.

I now know why you told me dave like 2 years ago when I first put down a thread, not to turbo a fresh $$ invested engine as this was a learning experience.

i dont understand why the 2.8 pistons got the steel reinforcement and the 3.1 pistons didnt the 2.8 piston even has a much thicker piston crown so u would think the 3.1 piston would need it more then the 2.8.

either way we know the stock 3.1 and 3.4 pistons can handle the abuse if properly tuned and setup

if it were me and those scratches arent sharp enough to catch the bearing id leave it as is. my crank looked slightly worse then that so i put the crank in a lathe and used a real crank polisher to polish off the journals. for me it didnt matter as i wanted the rod and main journals extra loose


iirc a machine shop gets around 50 bucks to polish a crank, would i do it in fasts case maybe since the crank looks like it really dont need it and thats 50 bucks that could be put wards the bore and hone or other parts

that divot is from the factory somone dinged the crank, that wont hurt it .
if there is a deep gouuge in the crank its cause a piece of dirt got embeded in the bearing

its very comone for a crank to look like that specially if it gets assembled and has dirt in it, the most important thing while assembling an engine is making sure everything including urr hands are as clean as can be.

i wear white gloves when assebling my engines, when i see them picking up dirt or getting dirty i change them

yup thats why i tell everyone who is turbocharging for the first time to do it on a stock or used engine, cause eventually u are going to hurt it. in ur case though if the top ring gap was looser u wouldnt have the engine torn down right now

btw order ur rod and main bearings from these guys
http://www.kingbearings.com/

best bearings u can buy hands down
we use these in top fuel engines alky engines down to stock rebuilds in our shop, hell even our forklift engine when it got rebuilt got king bearings

X2 Dave, some dirt probably got bypassed around the oil pump and ended up in the bearings. also a good point on keeping clean during assembly. Mark in the pictures above i can see bits of fibers from the rag you used to wipe the crank off. stuff like that....

Wow didnt think about it being so delicate in there. Yea thats me that wiped the rag.

Another thing look at theses.

This was before I ever tuboed it so theres some more wear im sure. But see how the bearing is offset. The factory did that? Just another thing that ticks me off about my block. Because im sure those need replacement now forsure.

yeah its not unusual to see that. you can have it tanked and new cam bearings and freeze plugs installed.

typical gm production line stuff lol, yeah when u have the block cleaned they usually include installing new cam bearings and freeze plugs with that

And about that time the pistons crack in half. The issue I have with hypers is that they are brittle. Rattle the engine just a hair and they are gone.

RBob.

Wow, all of this arguing and we don't even know the condition of the rolling assembly before the turbo even went on, only the tops of the pistons were observed when the heads were first pulled off and ported. In my humble opinion, it appears that the bearings were already on their way out due to mileage, and the scratches on the journals were the inevitable outcome. The broken piston and ring could have been the byproduct from a flaw when the engine was put together, as the engine shows no signs of detonation elsewhere, and it could have been weak before the turbo even went on, then succumbed to the pressure. There are so many variables as to what really happened that it is useless to even argue about, but the fact remains that either he needs a rebuild or a replacement, and since she is down for the winter, build it the right way. Looking back Mark, you will now see why I was arguing about the $58 and $59 mask in the other thread, and why I argued in favor of the $58 because I just couldn't see the engine running more than 15-psi. Although the Grand Nationals were built with cast parts from the factory too, they are just as prone when under higher boost pressures, and this is the outcome from running twenty plus pounds of boost with a factory Grand National setup in time...

Dont worrie im not gonna run 16-18psi again. Im gunshy to even floor the car even when its back together. Its gonna take some really good tuning and perfection this time arround. And sometime I think about my plans with this car. I cant afford to build a 11 second car, I really cant which suxs. I Just bought a house and you know how that can be. But yet I want that camaro to run even if I have to be content with it being a 13 second car. Decisions are hard to make. But looking back I shouldnt have pushed it as hard as I did a few times at the end when I was having 2.20 60ft times and running mid 13's just becasue I jacked the boost to over come the drivetrain issues. Young and dumb sometimes...

All those close calls ive had tuning the thing, I had the stock fuel pump die at 13 psi WOT. Had a 48lbs injector stay wide open and flooded badly(about 1/2 gal of gas in the oil), Had that drivers side head gasket blow back in the spring when I was WOT and milked up the oil, let alone the overboosting here and there(once t0 20psi), and that first few months when I was running 160+ degree intake temps at the track before the alky.

I was almost getting hard headed, that my lil engine could take it but this was a reality that I sure wish I wouldnt of found this way. BUT it was a good reality check. I guess its just part of learning and tuning. I may have blew up my engine but I will say it was a fun time and much was learned.

And Rob....those are some wild pictures. Also I do believe it was a defect and not me persay causing it, but pushing that 17psi on that last run down the track, shifting at 6k definitly didnt help its cause. Just brought out the flaws faster then in a N/A app or lower boost for that matter.

noone was arguing , and those bearings in his engine are nowere near close to being shot

the facts are top ring gap was seriously to tight for any boost, at 100k miles the ring gap should have been much looser then it was
#2 fast forgot to tell us that on one run at high boost while he was tuned for alky he forgot to turn it on till about half way down the track ( 170+ degree air temps + 23* of timing deff equaled detonation on that pass)
#3 the turbo was undersized and pushed to its limits, causing massive heat and backpresure

all leading to the death of a piston

Yea I did forget to mention that one pass, which was about a week before the disaster pass where it totally died. Its not something i like to tell everyone..lol "hey I was a idiot and forgot to turn the alky of for the first time and got to the 1/8 mile when I relized my alky light wasent on and I was at 12.5 afr"

well up untill i saw that post i figured there wa sno way the thing detonated.

well marty is right on the other forum , it detonated and broke the ringland.
it took some time before the busted ringland wa sable to break the ring and wear out the top ring

btw this is why u wire up the alky to be armed anytime the key is on

I know I should have wired it that way. To be honest I had my routine down so well where I always turned it on at the moment i started the car. I was in a rush when wireing up the alky and thats dumb thing to do.

Could explain the ittermitten smoking that I was dealing with. BUT Remember all the times I said it was blowing oil out here and there but I actual never caught it? The reason I didnt think that caused the problem on that one bad pass was because it was smoking before that here and there. Basically since the day I put the log headers on and started it up. I never even boosted the car after I put those headers on and it was smoking oil from the first minuet. BUT it was intermittant here and there. Actually for about 1 full week it never was smoking oil even if I raced it which I did. Still I have questions on when this happend.

You remember all those oil issues dont ya?

You guys were right one lil hickup and there she blows.

lmao, the facts ehh? You have no idea what the rolling assembly looked like prior to the turbo, yet your ready to state the facts on the engine? Unfortunately, no, the bearing does look shot, and it is shot, meaning it isn't reusable. The groove in the bearing lines up with the groove in the crank journal, and if his fingernail is getting caught in the journal when going over it then yes, the crank needs to be turned too. Every fact you stated is speculative. Bottom line is the 3.1 is not setup for boost from the factory, unlike the LC2, the pistons are different, and the crank is different, the LC2 pieces are reinforced. You essentially told Mark that is was okay for him to run 20 psi on an engine that simply wasn't designed to do so, and the engine finally gave into the pressure, regardless of the reason because nobody can confirm the actual cause. Maybe that injector was clogged, maybe the ring was bad to begin with, it could have been anything. If you want your engine to last using cast parts Mark, keep it at 15-psi and make sure your air and exhaust temps are low. Hearing stories about Marty, this guy, that guy, etc, does nothing because every engine is different, not to mention not everybody admits when the engine breaks down so they would have you thinking it lasts forever. Take the advice like a grain of salt, you had a sweet 13 second car but you pushed it too hard because of the pressure from this forum. Take it from me, ten and eleven second cars require lots of maintenance when you drive them hard, and every post in this thread encouraged you to push it until it finally broke...

this is what abad bearing looks like

fast i found pics of the pistons i used

its hard to se ein thes epics but its the best i have, this is what my bearings and crank looked liek in my 40k mile 3.1 they were much worse then what urs look like i.e scratche dup and threw the copper. but that exact crank is what went into my 3.1

we polished off the crank by hand and stuck her in

cam bearings




tgo resizses the images so u might have to right click then click view image to see them full size

You also learned a whole lot with the set up & tuning. Yes, the engine gave up, but you really didn't have a lot of money in it either. My last 2-cents, can do a quick & dirty junkyard rebuilt, or spend some real money and build it strong.

Having been in the position you are currently in, the junkyard rebuild is the way to go. Best would be to find a decent 3.4l short block and use it. If you can find a inexpensive set of pistons for the 3.1l, can also go that way.

But the idea of more cubes makes the 3.4l a better deal. More power with less effort.

A quick bottle brush hone, new rings with the proper gap, polish the crank, new bearings. Then use the cam, heads, and other stuff from your current engine. Quick and dirty but it works.

RBob.

same advice me and a few other ppl just gave him as well.
i just linke dhim to a set of fuell std bore 3.1 pistons for 36$'s
bottle brush hone so the new rings seat , though i wouldnt touch the crank just reinstall the old bearings they were fine the car had no knocks and perfect oil presure

save the full build for when he has the time/money to do it right

thats the nice thing about the 60* v6 stock they can take whatever u throw at them if the tune is on and im pretty sure his mishap happened form forgetting to turn the alky on


if i knew the wieght of the stock pistion i could get him a single piston for 8bucks but id still feel better replacing all 6 just incase any of the others got weakened and may have started to crack

My not turning on the alky that one time didnt kill her I know that. Gotta remember all the times that it was ittermittenly blowing out smoke/oil from the pcv and the dip stick, when I was complaining about it. That was weeks before this the alky mishap and over a month before the engine finally died.

truth is u will never narrow down exactly when it happened since it wasnt a catastrophic failure

did u check out that link to that piston set i sent u? dont just buy thm though cause im not for sure if those are for aluminum or iron heads, though im pretty sure that part number is for iron heads.

just email the guy and ask him if the dish depth is listed on the box aluminum head pistons will be a .265 dish iirc

i can also x refrence that part number in a federal mougal catalog for ya

i also found single badger pistons for 8 bucks a pop but i wouldnt change just one piston out

did the gt3582 show up ?

but that set is cheaper then i got my kb pistons and i would trust the federal mougul pistons just as much as i trust my kb's

I did get the link, I will look at it asap. The turbo should be arriving at any minute. Thats what im doing right now.. wating for it, dont want some neighbor kid picking it up..lmao

I just got it..lol damm man it is bigger thats for sure. But is this one liquid cooled too. Theres 2 ports on the sides.. My camera just died so give it a few minuets and ill take some pics because my phone one just suxs.

yes its water and oil cooled , since its a journal bearing turbo u dont really have to hook up the water lines.

but its an ebay turbo so i would

Yea Ill hook them up no problem there, but run them off of what the coolent lines??

Heres some pics.

Old and new









Just measured the comp side and the numbers are close enough to what they adertised. I got 62.1mm on the minor insted of 61.2mm which is what I think they advertised.

yep the coolant lines u can use the line on the waterpump and the one thats on the manifold

very nice man that turbo should make around 320-330 wheel hp at 9 psi

Thats what i like to hear, less psi and the same power roughtly. Looking at this one the other one looks tiny.

Ok on the coolent lines, that sounds easy enough.

when boost comes on its going to be more like a light switch compared to the old turbo

Cant wait!

just watch it in the corners the sudden power hit makes for an unpredictable car. i spun out my rs a few times when i first got my 61mm

btw i think theres only 2 days on those pistons so u might want to check them out and mail the guy asap

Ok Ill message him and see if there good for the iron by spec or not.

I just cross referenced the item # and it says the compression distance is 1.442" is that correct for iron?

H561P std
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sealed-Power...-/330694879190

Also read this: The Gen2 3.1 piston is a Sealed Power H561P:
Std-.50-.75-1.00-1.50MM; VIN Code "T"; Exc. Camaro & Firebird; Use w/E605K or E605X ring set; 2-1.50mm, 1-4.00mm Ring Grooves; 1.442 CD; .9055 Pin Dia. Recessed head .265" deep x 3.000" dia.. DurOshield« skirt coated piston.; They are $15.48 each at Advance.

Also this: http://www.rockauto.com/info/SealedPower/H561P.html

Look it over if you can dave, But I think those are correct.

Any special hone?? Ive used one on a drill before on a small dirt bike 250cc cylinder before...lol

those are aluminum head pistons so no good.

il find u a cheap set of iron head ones

btw stock compression hieght is 1.446 or 1.447 rebuilders pistons raise the pin up by .004 or cut .004 off the tops of the piston so they dont raise compresison on a block or heads that have been machined

the ideal fix is to have the block decked the same amount but since ur not spending any money on the block, have the heads cut .005 -.010

this is the right part number for sealpower/federal mougal
SEALED POWER Part # H562CP {#H562P} Size: Standard
Hypereutectic; 2 - 1.50mm Groove, 1 - 4.00mm Groove, 1.442 CD, Recessed Head .105 deep x 2.913 dia.; DUROSHIELD® skirt coated piston, 0.9055" Pin Dia.

iron head pistons have a .105 dish

on rockauto they are 33 bucks each so just over 200 for the set ouch

ill find u some cheap ones sometime tongiht, right now im trying to get these videos i took playing around with the tt iroc today off my phone

Man, if I can snag a piston/ring set for a decent price, hone out the block lightly. And call it a day Id be happy to do that. And just domp the dough into the trans/rear.

just any bottle brush hone for a 3.5 inch bore

there are cheap sets out there i paid 45 bucks for my kiethblacks ,and before that i paid 25 for a set of sealedpowers that i ended up selling off since i was going to do a topend swap and they were fwd pistons but then i changed my mind


i know i can get badger pistons for 8 bucks a pop + shipping i think it worked out to around 13 bucks each, but that would be my last choice though from what i hear they are as of good quality as the stockers

i personally would trust the engine tech , kb , or speedpros more though

this is the cheapest i can find on ebay right now 113 bucks still not a bad price , but not one of the crackhead deals u can find from time to time works out to roughly 19 bucks a piston
http://www.ebay.com/itm/88-94-Chevro...c91136&vxp=mtr

scratch that this is a much better deal
includes the moly rings for an extra 25 bucks
http://www.ebay.com/itm/88-94-Chevy-...item3f138ad5b5

Are those any good>

Is a bottle hone one of those that have all those ***** on it?? I know I used a stone one before that has the 3 stones on it... I hate those badly!!

Do I need to look into a certain size hone?? 3.5 inches?

pfft 9 psi is just a start. 15 at least!