This looks like one of those people that's just gonna do whatever they're gonna do regardless of whatever anyone says or any facts warning that it isn't A Good Idea.

A dingleberry hone only works well if the cyls are straight and round. A stone hone will do a better job of fixing very slightly out-of-round and not-straight walls butt still can only do just so much. Merely impressing pretty scratch marks on twisted metal doesn't make it into a good "cylinder". That block is altogether too far gone for honing, and me personally, I'd find another core before I'd spend even the first penny on boring that POS. It's been SERIOUSLY abused, for A LONG time. It's SMOKED. Not a good core to sink money into no matter what. There's better in scrapyards just waiting to get melted down.

That motor is one of the most tore up ones I've ever seen. I've seen ALOTTA blocks with worn bores butt I've never seen one with piston grooves that deep at the bottom, or big deep grooves in the middle somewhere, or really even, that much vertical scratching like somebody threw sand in the throttles. It has LOTS of out-of-round places in the cyls as well, probably from repeated severe overheating. Even that wear up at the top, looks like what we all used to blame on the Powerglide, butt in retrospect was probably actually that old 2-bbl carb they used on everything back in the 283 day. I've NEVER seen a deep step like that in a block that had EFI on top of it. I'd expect that it'll smoke and blowby RUTHLESSLY.

Honestly, if I were in his situation, I'd just look for a car I could rent for a month or 2. Hell, just buy some hooptie from the local we-tote-the-note scammer, pay a note or 2, and sell it when he's done with it for 75% of the down payment. He's gonna spend the same amount of money that he could use that way, on this POS he's got, plus however much work, plus whatever chance that it doesn't even work at all, just to end up with ... in the best possible case and if he's lucky and his plan works the best it can ... a POS, that he's just gonna tear down and throw away all the stuff he just bought to build this "stroker" when he wins the lottery or his rich aunt dies or whatever it is that he has scheduled to make him wealthy in a month or 2. And THE BEST CASE is, the product is a POS; ALL the other possibilities are DOWNHILL from there. All the "but I've gotta get to work" in the world doesn't set aside the common sense of, I've got to find a way to get to work; I have no working car, all I have is this POS; what's the cheeeeeeepest, least labor, lowest risk way I can find to get from where I am (point A: f***ed out non-running in-pieces POS) to where I need to be (point B: on time at work), given what I have on hand, to get to work. Which messing with that steaming POS in all those pics, is most definitely NOT.

Butt, d00d doesn't want to hear it, and is gonna do what he's determined to do. In the end, it's his vehicle and his money, he can do whatever he wants with it, and he doesn't have to listen to any of us, or to common sense. It's his right of course to do it, although that doesn't make what he's doing the "right" thing to do. Best of luck to him. He's gonna be needing it. I see no point in inflicting further reality on him.

 

RB04Av, you were more blunt than I was, but I have to agree with you on most every point. Maybe because I'm an old SOB, but throwing stuff together that I know I'll have to take apart again in 2-3 months lost it's appeal 40 years ago. If it was my motor, I'd do as you suggested with the rental car, and put those pistons up for sale. Cut the losses, start the stroker now, and do it right.....

 

Indeed... I am usually the most blunt instrument possible. Sometimes I just gotta let it all out.

 

Do enlighten me on why this block is now a bad core and must go to hell. It's going to happen regardless of your warnings
I have a spare in West, Tx family storage and if I really need it I will buy one of the many on marketplace before driving out there as I was just there a month ago.

 

I finally just read most of the garbage he wrote lmao sounds like someone had a bad weekend. Are you insinuating my vehicles aren't paid off? I think he is really upset that I'm doing it for fun and just to see what happens. It wasn't smoking before so definitely won't smoke now if I had to guess. Do you want to make an online wager of how long it will last? I bet I can get 10,000 miles out of it. Although it had a slight misfire when cold it still ran like hell

 

Isn't that what I just said?

I'm not upset about anything. My truck runs fine.

If you ask for advice and don't take it, well, that's completely up to you. "Advice" is different from "cheerlead" which seems to be what you're looking for. That would not be me.

As I said, good luck. That's about the only thing on your side in this matter.

 

You didn't say good luck. You posted a whole bunch of inaccurate garbage taking low shots at family that doesn't even exist for me that had nothing to do with any of this. I do everything myself in this life and have since the day I matured from being a ward of the state. If that is how you think of other people all the time I would ask that you keep it to yourself and not be an *** for the world to see.

 

That's true. What I DID say was, "Best of luck".

See post #21

????

Not sure what any of this has to do with getting common-sensical advice against an almost certain to fail choice of options. I can't recall saying a word anywhere about family, its existence or lack thereof, matured, ward of the state, or any of the rest of that childish drivel.

Butt also as said, it's your vehicle, your money, your labor, your time, and your risk. You can do what you like, and you don't require the approval or agreement of me or anyone else. Also as said, it seems like you're looking for cheerleading, which is to say, being told against all evidence to the contrary that you're making a wise decision and your block is perfectly good and you're gonna end up with success, not facts or advice or common sense; and I'm not a cheerleader. Nor are most of the other people on here with knowledge and experience. And that's OK; we're not obligated to give you what you want, any more than you're obligated to do what we advise. You're free to ignore sound advice and plow straight ahead into disaster. Nobody is insulting you (yet), only telling you that your plan is NOT A Good Idea; and giving you all the reasons WHY. Even offering an alternative "plan" that addresses your stated goal, found here:

You don't need to shoot yourself in the foot with that POS destroyed block you have, to put that goal into effect, for ultimately a lower cost, less labor, less time, and less risk.

We have a saying... "My good judgment is the result of my experience. Unfortunately my experience is the result of my bad judgment." Looks like you're about to get some ... experience.

Have a wonderful day! ​​​​​​​ And good luck with acquiring your experience.

 

We also had a saying in the toolroom when management brought in temps/contractors for cheaper labor. IIRC, it stated "Good work ain't cheap, and cheap work ain't good," or some reasonable facsimile therof. I wish him well, too. I hope this doesn't end up in a bad way for him. When I'd screw up as a young guy, I'd say to my dad "what a stupid mistake." I stopped telling him that because the last time I did, he looked at me and asked "Have you ever seen a smart mistake?!" That ended that!!

 

I LIKE to think mistakes are an unfortunate truth we ALL must live with. They are neither stupid nor intelligent.
**** happens. Anyone saying, not to them, is lying.

 

I believe the same. Best life lessons come from mistakes more often than success. You can't learn without mistakes. I worked with a guy once who was a Hungarian. He called them "musstakes" in his heavy accent. He actually said "I never make a musstake!" I say show me someone who never makes a mistake, and I'll show you someone who doesn't do anything.....

 

I like and have heard that before. Not sure what kind of mistake I could make that would actually ruin the block to the point of no return for .030 over but if I do things are still in order for it to stay running new block or not. The rest of it is superfluous garbage he is posting I will read perhaps one day but literally have no reason to put any energy into reading irrelevant ranting.

I'm glad I got you excited enough to show your true colors
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Here's your main issue- The block can't be honed/bored enough to save it.
Iron-liner aluminum blocks like the L76 don't have enough meat in the liner to do any meaningful boring.
If you have the spare block in storage, I would go get and use it.
You would be wasting money to try to make this one usable.
If that's what you want to do, have at it, but everyone who posted here tried to tell you what I say here.
I'm not in any way insulting or ridiculing you here, just giving common sense info.

 

I wouldn’t go that far Gary. That block can go out .030 without reservation. I’ve been amazed many times to see .010 clean up an absolute mess in a cylinder. Just speaking from experience here of course.
Guy with a Chevy, I don’t fault you here in attempting this. Heck I wish more young folks would find the fortitude to attempt stuff like this, and learn as much as possible. Your doing exactly what I was doing at a young age before I jumped in headfirst and went into the business…my passion for the internal combustion engine took me a long way and I ultimately found myself involved with elite individuals doing testing and R&D for Cup teams. I must tell you sir, from much experience here, that you need to get that block to a shop to do this correctly. Experimenting with a hurt block at home, with a drill operated stone hone and a dial bore gauge is one thing, if your looking for knowledge. But if your sincerely looking to do a repair here and have a running engine, without a torque plate and the right equipment….your basically just guessing. Again, I applaud your efforts, but you’ll likely have 8 different sized cylinders with a lot of taper in them if you keep going. That radial ring in that one picture is something that won’t come out with a hone…at least not with a hand hone anyway.
At the end of the day, if you get tired of fooling with this endeavor, or if a shop tells you the block is trash, PM me. I’ll buy it from you for sleeving.

 

I stand corrected. I always thought the aluminum block liners could not be bored much.
In hindsight I'm thinking of the LS1 which has thin (tissue thin...) liners.
My apologies!

 

I was going to be happy to say that I got the truck running with lower oil pressure then when it was disassembled but consistently 20-26psi depending on temperature since driving it yesterday. It is running a lot better and got rid of the horrible misfire even with a bad piston that still has bad rings. If a P0700 transmission control problem hadn't ruined my day I would be more proud to share my short clip. The code showed up while idling outside a laundromat for 30 to 40 minutes and limped home.

Will be posting a separate thread in the engine section hoping somebody has ran into this before. I did read something about the ISS needing replacement so I checked my log for ISS speed and of course nothing. Going to try to sort out some transmission PIDS and check what else may not be working.

Fluid is still bright pink and all the connections seemed up to par. TCM fuse still intact. As for the lower oil pressure not sure where I could have went wrong besides the fact that I did reuse all the bearings and they do not crush the same the second go around. I remember removing the valley cover with one of the tower o-rings falling into the valley where I recovered it upon disassembly. I probably didn't take as much care as needed to ensure that those o-rings didn't come out of place during install I am just unsure of how that would affect oil pressure besides negatively. I plan to pull some oil this evening when it cools down to see if it looks like glitter. The clip below was made right before the code posted, no smoke.

I put spaces in this post in between my paragraphs and this site continues to take out all the breaks that's why I don't ever put much effort into writing here. Half the time it loses what I type when trying to upload really makes no sense...

 

A missing tower O-ring WILL lose oil pressure. E-Z but do it soon.

 

My P0700 was resolved when I noticed my trans cooler fan wasn't working. My fuse checking of TCM Batt showed good but the signal wire is going to the TCM-IGN and shorted it out giving no power to the solenoids.

Kinda weird considering I have had that thing running fine no issues for a few months then all of a sudden after reinstalling the engine an issue. Must check that further along with the oil pressure which can wait a day or 2.

12-1500rpm produces near 40 so I feel safe with it idling at 20psi as long as it doesn't continue to drop. It's interesting to see with HP tuners how timing affects oil pressure by a small margin. More load induced by higher timing steals a bit of pressure I assume because of the lifter pump up behavior?

 

There is a small amount of glitter but looks normal with a new cam and lifters and honed cylinders. Again the oil pressure started low upon reassembly and from what I noticed hasn't dropped further. I guess time will tell.

One more thing to add is unlike all the other people here that have honed their cylinders and disappeared to never speak again of the results I will actually tell with all honesty how things go. Definitely an interesting truck XD

 

Where should I wire this thing so that it doesn't pull the ignition signal from fuse 19 for the TCM ignition as in what circuit would be safe to pull two amps from? Or is the issue the way that I wired it without a dedicated ground for the control unit. Since it has a common ground with the relay going straight to battery I figured that would be safe.

I have it wired like number two in the diagram sort of.

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