evo462

iTrader: (27)

This is a 5.3L iron block motor I plan to turbo and swap into my Camaro. I'm by far not an expert on internal engine type stuff, but I thought maybe if I took some decent pictures of the cylinders someone with a trained eye may be able to say how "worn out" (or hopefully lack thereof) it looks. Maybe it's impossible to tell by pictures, I dunno

I was told it had ~100k on it.

Thanks!

4.6TurboCoupe

iTrader: (1)

I'm not an expert either, but those cyl walls look really good. I just picked up a 90K mile 6.0 with a warantee that I just voided by pulling my heads, and it looks about like that. It had 170-180 psi on mine in all cylinders.
Have you cleaned up the pistons? If thats how they look without cleanup that's a really clean motor. Can you feel that vertical scrape in the bottom pic with a fingernail?

evo462

iTrader: (27)

No, I didn't clean up the pistons, but I'd have to assume someone prior to me did...I wouldn't expect them to be that carbon free with 100k miles. Haven't tried the scrape, I'll go check it out (also, this is only 3-4 of the cylinders, I didn't take a pic of them all due to being at TDC or dusty).

evo462

iTrader: (27)

no texture to that line that I could detect

brian_rs/ss

looks fresh as a dasiy to me.

Isolde

iTrader: (4)

Looks good, but good enough or not depends on your plans. If you just want to put heads on and run it, go ahead. But if you're considering going past 6000, then do the fingernail test at the top of every cylinder. If it catches , then the ring ridge is too much, and more rpm risks killing rings, pistons, and bearings.
If the ring ridge catches the tip of your fingernail, either keep it under 6000 rpm, or take it apart for machining.

O2Form

Are you all kidding? Those cylinders look glazed, that needs at least a ball honing to break the glaze and some rings. I would check all the bearing etc. I would check the piston clearance too.

jim ravencraft

Hi,
i would agree with the last two post. It will be easier to freshen things up now,,,,,,,,, check side to side play on pistons along with ridge lip on the walls.
I believe that i would invest the extra thousand dollars and have a fresh engine. Most people hate to do things twice(no pun intended).i wish you the best with your project. Always use safety and caution to avoid serious injury.
May god bless you and your family this christmas season..........
Jim

evo462

iTrader: (27)

Well, the thing is, if it ends up costing $1000 to "do it right", I'll just leave my lower mileage LS1 in there and turbo it instead, as it would be a wash after selling the LS1 just to fund a 5.3l refresh. My original plan was to just drop a "good" running 5.3L, turbo it, and run the **** out of it for a couple years and build something bigger/better down the road.

For what it's worth, I'm taking it to a shop in town sometime this week to have a pro look it over and give me the run down - I just hoped for good news ahead of time from some pics

evo462

iTrader: (27)

Well I dont have the longest fingernails in the world, but I didnt feel any sort of ridge at the top of the cylinder. Used a credit card too, same result. Smooth as silk

Isolde

iTrader: (4)

I suggest you send a PM to tirefryins10. He pulled a junkyard 5.3, did a baby cam, added a T76, and broke into the 9s.
The cylinder walls still show some cross hatch that you can't feel, but using a bottle brush hone, also called a dingle ball hone, not only requires the rings to re-set, but puts more metal into the oil, which hurts bearings. And until the rings do take a set, the rough cylinder walls will be adding wear to the pistons.
And have you ever compared the bores after 1500 miles to a 100,000+ mile engine? Both are far slicker than a freshly honed cylinder, even with plateau honing. I ran an older, fully manual Sunnen CK10 for years. Cylinder wall finish is something I do know fairly well.
You can buy plateau hones for drills, to follow up the de-glazing, and it helps, but really, either it's good enough as is, or it's not.
In this case, a compression test and a leakdown test before disassembly would have been best, but since it passed the ring ridge check, I'd feel safe putting it back together. I'd still do the compression and leakdown tests, but only the compression test would decide me on turbo or not. Leakdown results are a great indicator of how long the engine might live, assuming no detonation.

SF 1HOTLS1

iTrader: (24)

lol that's your best bet bro. have a machinist look at it and tell you what he thinks.

evo462

iTrader: (27)

Yeah, probably...but I bought it that way so no dice. I have the heads that came off it so maybe I can just throw those back on there for testing.