Ive never rebuilt or assembled an engine.
Or installed rings.
Or bearings.
So, i have a pair of chrysler engines for neons to do.
One is a 2.0 dohc, the other is a 2.4 dohc from a stratus.
I know to do it right, taking it to the machine shop is preferred. But thats 1k each.
On ebay, a complete ring/bearing/gaskit kit is 180.
Is there a good reading on what/how to do a ring and bearing rebuild? Using plastigauge and a dingle ball?
I am anti dingle ball, you can get a nice DIY honing tool that works better for not much money.
My issue with dingballs is if the cylinder wall is not round it exacerbates the issue.
There is a great write up on Neon.org on rebuilds.
I have had good luck with plastigauges, but get a nice micrometer and learn how to use it you will thank yourself when you spin it to 8k plus.
In reply to Professor_Brap :
Have links? Id have to buy a dingle ball, and if theres a better cheap option im all ears!
A link to the rebuild?
I have micrometers, but honestly dont know much about their use inside engines. And i suck at math.
Reading a micrometer is kinda like counting change, it's based on 25s. But you are counting thousandths not pennies.
In reply to Professor_Brap :
Oooo. Didn't know you could get a wheel cylender hone yhay big!
Done.
Ron: good read. Thanks!
Rings and bearings have to be the right size (standard/std size) and you cant mix up cam or main bearing caps in either location or orientation, so mark them first if they aren't already marked somehow. Some bearings have oil grooves or holes on only one half, so make sure and put them back the same way the old ones came out.
With rings sometimes the top and 2nd are close enough to be mixed up, so don't do that. The rings will be marked for top side, don't put them in upside down. That is probably detailed in the directions that come in the box. If you're planning to boost or nitrous you'll probably want to enlarge the ring gaps. If you do that without a real 'ring filer thingy' you want to make sure to keep as square an edge as possible and not cut it at an angle.
Also bore gauges are somewhat expensive and annoying compared to regular mics and calipers so if you want to get an idea of bore taper you can just stick a ring in the bore, measure the ring gap, and then see how much the gap changes at different positions in the bore. Not that I would worry about it. Unless the old engine was doing something nasty i would just assemble it and 'send it'.
In reply to Vigo :
No plans for nitrous, boost, or cams. Just porting and polishing and bolt ons.
Whats the preferred method of getting the parts spotless without a hot tank? Or am i overthinking it?
With out the use of a Flow bench and a few extra heads to practice on You Could do more Harm SELF Porting., It's Proven that some Ruffness in the port actually HELP's to Atomize the Fuel air Mix, Chevy has some heads that Have a Hump in the Port Floor to Force the air to Make a Turn Into the Chamber, Remove the Hump and the air gets Slowed or Lazy and wont turn into the Chamber.
.Port Match the Head to smooth the flow from the Intake into the Head and then Head to Exhaust, make sure the Valve's have clearance all around,AKA Un Shrouded, Just Tiny bit's help, Not Knowing If they are Hemi Shape or wedge shape The wedge shape gets more benifit from this mod.
Ya Can't just Hog them out and expect it to be better , It Likely won't.
in the neon world porting the intake manifold and head consists of gasket matching removing sharp edges removing casting Flash and smoothing some of the lumps. The really serious turbo guys reshape ports and such. I'm not one of those guys nor do I have a flow bench. So the porting and polishing would be a very mild job by most standards.
I have heard more big name engine builders say that a given cylinder will make more power on the SECOND set of rings that it sees, to believe that it is true.
Meaning, when they refresh an engine and replace the rings, they do NOT hone the cylinders! Pop 'em in and go.
It kinda makes me shiver a little bit, like it just feels wrong... but if guys like Joe Sherman (RIP) say it's true, then I'll believe it. A broken-in cylinder wall is a low-friction cylinder wall, and apparently the majority of ring wear will happen during break-in. (Vizard, I think, said that ring gap will open up .001-003")
In reply to Knurled. :
Power is one thing.
But what about longevity? Goals are dd duty for both engines. The 2.0 dohc less so (resto-ish)
In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :
I'd think that it would last longer, since it is wearing the rings less.
I haven't seen a "worn out" cylinder in any modern engine. Even the near-400k mile, dragging one cylinder and running the rest pig rich, nondescript engine in my old VW had near perfect bores.
The worst I've ever seen was on older Saturn S-series cars, where piston rock at TDC would leave a slap mark at the skirt. Pop new rings in and it's good again. (Really, they didn't wear the rings out, the rings would stick in the pistons and the oil returns would clog)
Do not get me wrong, I DID say that I'd feel squeamish doing it.... maybe hit all the bores real quick with the finest three-armed glazebreaker I could find, just to verify at least that there is nothing weird going on like deep spots from the skirts or "fingernail marks" at the tops of the bores, just to make myself feel not so squeamish.
Hmmmm
Lots to think about here.
But, im assuming every engine family, and every engine within that family, will be different upon inspection. Right?
Im starting with two engines ive nwver heard run, of unknown condition and mileage and maintenance. So, teardown will need to be careful and methodical. Right? Look for any strange colors/debris/wear patterns. Right? Mark everything so it can go back in the exact same spot. Right?
I haven’t seen materials mentioned.
I’m not sure if it’s still the case ( last engine I rebuilt was in the late 1990’s), but cast iron rings used to be recommended if you were just breaking the glaze, and moly were used if you bored the block and were working with freshly machined bores.
If I remember correctly, wasn't one of these motors seeking daylight from the bottom end? I would give that block a good look see. At least the crankshaft.
To clean things up, get a can of Berryman's. I soaked the pistons in my 2.4T motor overnight and they went from:
To:
When you go to take the crank off, you're going to have a slight issue: The puller that you can rent from AutoZone almost fits, but the center pin thing isn't deep enough for the crank. You'll need something to put in there as an extension and then that puller will be the business.
I bought a diamond sharpening stone with a 600 and a 400 side to clean up the top of the block on the Miata engine since I wasn't sending it out. It was under $10 on Amazon and combined with some WD-40, it did a pretty good job of cleaning the surface up for the new gasket. I also used some Formica sample chips as gasket scrapers since I've got about 150 pounds of them laying about.
Having the block hot tanked, cylinders bored, deck resurfaced and crankshaft checked and journals polished wouldn't cost $1k, probably closer to $400-500. Then assemble it yourself.
Back in my beginning self-taught mechanic years I did a few ring and bearing rebuilds. At most I'd have the head sent out and redone but now I know how to replace valve seals and grind valves. If the guides aren't worn I'd probably do it in my garage.
All I did was clean stuff as best as I could, install new rings and rod bearings and button it back up. No Plastigauge. No micrometer. The highest tech device I owned as a torque wrench.
It's funny that my teenage self did these 'builds' and drove them afterward with only moderate mechanical sympathy and they ran just fine. This is dependent, of course, on the level of wear the engine has on it. My rebuilds were usually to solve a worn ring/oil consumption problem.
Yes, there's doing it and doing it right. Engines aren't mystical machines and most will run well enough if they have compression, spark and fuel. They will run better with tighter tolerances and superior machine work. While I wouldn't rebuild one that way today I wouldn't talk anyone out of it either.
Untouchable:
The machine work cost, when added to parts, brings the total to close to 1k. The last neon engine i had built was 1250. Just too much to swallow twice.
And its high time i build an engine. Thats really the only big car guy thing i haven't done yet. (Rebuilding a differential is another. But ive done about everything else, including ac work)
I know that this is not the right way to do it. But, its financially feasable assuming the spare engines are in good shape. I could get used w/ warranty for around $500 if i so choose, which is plan b.
Dirtydog said:If I remember correctly, wasn't one of these motors seeking daylight from the bottom end? I would give that block a good look see. At least the crankshaft.
Both currently installed engines went and let the rods go play in traffic.
The two im planning to work with
2.0dohc: was smoking heavily. Pulled and stored years ago.
2.4dohc: nobody remembers anything about it other than it was in a neon. Could be broke, could be fresh. No one remembers hearing it run.
The ventilated stock engines will be torn down, and ill save what i can. Im not holding my breath on anything being any good on them other than the manifolds and cams.
In reply to wae :
I like the diamond sharpener stone! Thats a really good tip!
I have some chem dip here. So got that covered. And i think you mean about the harmonic balancer puller. I ran into that problem doing a timing belt job on one, but dont remember how i solved it. Probably a cut off piece of allthread.
Dusterbd13-michael said:Untouchable:
The machine work cost, when added to parts, brings the total to close to 1k. The last neon engine i had built was 1250. Just too much to swallow twice.
And its high time i build an engine. Thats really the only big car guy thing i haven't done yet. (Rebuilding a differential is another. But ive done about everything else, including ac work)
I know that this is not the right way to do it. But, its financially feasable assuming the spare engines are in good shape. I could get used w/ warranty for around $500 if i so choose, which is plan b.
As a point of reference, including the junkyard 2.4T that I picked up, the motor in my Neon right now was about $1,250. That's the u-pull motor, $450 worth of machine shop stuff, oil pump, timing kit, new bolts, gaskets, rings, bedplate sealant, and chain guides with me doing all the teardown and assembly. And that was just a stock spec rebuild with nothing special on the internals.
Oh, and FWIW, I decided to keep my balance shafts and put new chain guides in. Everything I read seemed to indicate that if you were going to be south of 400hp, there wasn't a ton of benefit to removing them with the biggest risk being the guides cracking from age
Oh, and speaking of bedplate sealant. If you don't have any of that Mopar anerobic stuff, let me know. Knurled told me that he has successfully used Good Stuff on that, but that was after I bought a tube. I should have enough to do another engine and I'd be happy to drop it in the mail to you if you can use it.
untchabl said:Having the block hot tanked, cylinders bored, deck resurfaced and crankshaft checked and journals polished wouldn't cost $1k, probably closer to $400-500. Then assemble it yourself.
I don’t know where you go but around here thats closer to 1k
Patrick said:untchabl said:Having the block hot tanked, cylinders bored, deck resurfaced and crankshaft checked and journals polished wouldn't cost $1k, probably closer to $400-500. Then assemble it yourself.
I don’t know where you go but around here thats closer to 1k
This was three years ago, but they tanked the head and block, did a line hone, honed the cylinders, replaced the valve guides and seals, cleaned up the mating surfaces, put in new freeze plugs, and checked for warpage for under $450 on mine. I did all the disassembly (except for the valves) and provided all the parts. So, that might not be too far off the mark?
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