I pulled the block out of the car on Saturday and got it to the machine shop today. The block was bored 40 over but the shop told me they are going to have to rebore the block and it will be 60 over and they will provide me with flat top hypereutectic pistons and all bearings, etc.

My concern here is if this is going to work with the configuration we are going to use. We have a ZZ4 cam and the aluminum ZZ4 heads. Will my compression be too high to use with these heads? What about pushing me into a higher octane level of fuel? Anything else I should be concerned about, like head gaskets, etc?

Thanks everyone for any help and advice/suggestions.

Pat

 

the difference in displacement is a non-issue. the standard headgaskets should be fine. It will go together just like a .040 over block. Dont sweat it, there are a lot of .060 350's out there.

 

Oh that's great news. I was also kinda concerned that it was getting to be bored too much. The machine shop said that they could be bored to 80 over before having to get a new block. That just seems like a lot to me.

Thanks for the quick reply! I just wanted to make sure they were telling me correctly and not ripping me off. They advised me that it would be better to bore it since there was a ridge at the top of the cylinder. I asked them about just honing and using a ridge reamer, and they stated that was the way in the old days and that with the performance mods I was making to the engine and such, that it would be better to bore the cylinders. Do you think they are full of it??

Thanks,

Pat

 

No, they're right. Ridge reaming and honing is what a farmer would do to get his farm truck back in service by monday sorta thing. If it's a sports car (like it is), you don't want to half a** it.

.080? I'd like to see him find pistons to fit that... That's getting dicey, i'm assuming they've sonic checked it, and that's why they're comfortable going .060" over. But if the shops been around for a while, you should be fine, if you crack a bore (i've never seen that happen), then you can always go back and say "see this??? uh huh, YOUR fault!"

 

Thanks for replying everyone, I really do appreciate it. I have to say that I do feel much better now with what they are saying. I know that boring is a good thing but I hadn't really heard that just honing and ridge-reaming was a bad idea. Glad to know this now so I don't make the same mistake sometime in the future.

Yeah, he said that with these blocks you could go to 80 over, but that he didn't really recommend that. He said he was magnafluxing everything so check for cracks and such. Here is the breakdown of what all he's doing and what he's charging:

For $650 he is doing the following:
Boiling the block, timing cover and oil pan
magnafluxing the piston rods and block
boring all 8 cylinders (60 over now)
checking the head mounting surface and planing if necessary
providing new hypereutectic pistons
providing new piston rings (chromoly)
new crank, rod, and cam bearings
installation of the cam bearings
providing a high-volume oil pump
providing a full roller timing set
providing a felpro timing cover gasket set
providing a new rear main oil seal

So all in all, I don't guess that is too terribly bad. What do you all think?

 

That's a fantastic deal.
I'm not even going to tell you what I paid to have that done...

 

Ok, well now I'm feeling really good about this place. It was recommended to me by a friend of friend. They seemed pretty decent and they did have a lot of business (especially for 8:00 am), and pretty nice equipment.

Thanks for all the words of encouragement and of course the advice! I really appreciate it!

Thanks again,

Pat