Alusil re-ring crapshoot
 

Hi guys,

Thought I'd update you on my my recent experience with re-ringing my sc. Decided to re-ring as cyclinders were within spec, ordered new rings (geotze) from our host, cleaned everything really well etc etc.

Prior to the rebuild dyno'd the car as part of the top end flowed the heads reseated the valves etc. We end up making an extra 10kw od power post rebuild but the amount of smoke the sucker put out was unbelievable. Smoke on start up, smoke under power, SMOKE SMOKE & more BLOODY SMOKE.

The rings did not bed in at all. have now stripped the motor as i cannot sell the car in that state. Examining my options at the moment including purchasing a set of nikasils off a pelicanite from a euro motor.

I find out today that a local machine shop is one of two shops in Oz that can hone alusils and i believe use a process to recoat the bore.

Cost is pretty attractive - wish I had know that the first time.

So the question to you all is what to do next- nikasils or crapshoot mkII.

Regards

Jim

Wow, bummer! That scares me since I did the same thing, but I haven`t started my motor yet. Personally, I would go with a set of good used Nikasils if that hapened to me. The bright side is than they can then accept JE pistons with higher compression.

Now, would you mind sharing all the details, so maybe we can figure out what went wrong?

- How many miles on the P&C set?
- How did you prepare the cylinders? Just cleaning or did you do a slight honing with scotch brite pad or similar?
- How were the ring grooves? What was the ring groove-ring clearance?
- Did you make sure the ring gaps were offset when you installed them?
- How did you break the engine in? Constant 2000 rpm for 20 min, or varied rpm on Dyno, or did you take it for a drive at varied rpms right away?

Regards,

Aurel

Aurel,

I did not do the rebuild myself, my mechanically minded friend put it together using Wayne's book as the reference.

114k miles on p/c's. Thorough clean and hone using scotchbrite pads.

After assembly took the car for late night freeway runs to load up the engine at diferent rpm's. After that process did not work put it on the dyno.

Can't tell you about the ring set up I'm afraid.

Good luck with yours!

Cheers

a buddy is/was in the same situation... Allusils with 170k miles... so what to do.
Apparently Ollies is a place that has done reringing of Allusils with some good percentage success. I think the key is to get enough of an agressive set of honing marks to get the rings to seat, not sure if hand scotchbrighting is "deep" enough. I would call Ollie and see what he says. After we thought about this everyday for a month... decided to get a complete 3.4 setup from Charles at LNE. I had nicisil cylinders and had them reconditioned at Jerry Woods and new rings... they were all well in spec.

Jim,

I've never had any luck re-ringing Alusils, even after proper preparation.

I will either bore and replate them with Nikasil and use a JE or Omega piston (race engines). Street engines get a new Mahle P/C set.

Absolutely correct!!!

In my book that makes it (re-ring Alusils = crap shoot) pretty firm... Steve and Henry agree 100% it sounds like.
On this rebuild I think we made a good choice and went for a full LNE solution.
Steve and Henry thanks for commenting..