So my block is suppose to get decked this week and the machine shop my good friend is telling me about says that they need to disassemble the block to deck it. Now i told him due to the frm sleeves that is not possible without sleeving if i want my pistons to ever go back in the block.

The guy who is running the machine shop is my friends/friend and claims that with the frm sleeves if you remove the pistons you can still re-install them as long as you don't hone/bore the walls of the cylinders. He said that if the rings are toast you can replaced them or if they are fine they can just be re-used and dropped right back in. Now he claims he has done this with over 100 h22's. As far as my understanding on this goes, you can't un-install them because the old rings won't seat right once unseated, and the new rings won't seat right which requires a hone/bore which obviously can't be done without sleeving or potentially ruinning machining equipment.

Should i tell him that it will not be happening? I am not even truly sure i need to deck the block. I am going to have them check it for warpage while they do a helicoil on the h22 head i am dropping off ($5 for a broken bolt in it).

 

the guy at the machine shop is correct if you remove the pistons you can still re-install them as long as you don't hone/bore the walls of the cylinders

 

really, well that is some good news. What if the rings are indeed fried? Can new rings be installed without having to hone/bore?

 

yes as long as the walls are not scraped up. i would just by new pistons if your rings are toasted

 

The whole point of it going to the machine shop is to ensure everything is in good running order.

Thanks guys for the info

 

Also some places can bore/hone frm; Darton, Golden Eagle..Ect... Takes a different machining technique..

 

yah i have heard of some places being able to but i personally would not trust any shops in my city. They are getting better but still no one has produced a stock block h22 bored out on stock sleeves that lasts longer than a couple oil changes. At least none that i have heard of.

 

 

I had my block overbored .25 with Mahle pistons and so far i've put on 15k with 2 lapping sessions.

 

yah i was looking at a mahle setup down the road because apparently this shop is willing to overbore with the frm. I am not doing it right now but after talking to my friends friend he really does seem to know everything about these motors. Definetly did not expect someone in my city to have any actual clue.

 

Doing a compression test before the tare down might have been useful. If the engine had some miles on it it may have less than optimal compression anyway.

Honestly, since its already torn down you're in the neighborhood anyway. Have him measure the cylinder bores to see how out of round they are so you can see what you are working with. If the cylinders arn't too bad i would really consider replacing the rings and just have the cylinders machine honed.

In my experience these engines loose compression through ring ware before anything else like the barings go. So if you replaced the rings and honed up the cylinder walls you would still get out of it for pretty cheap and have the benefit of having new rings and a fresh cylinder wall.

 

^ i was just looking up at the mahle gold pistons. I am seriously considering picking up a set, having the walls honed, replacing the bearings with new oem bearings and calling it a day. If everything is measured, installed, and machined correctly i can't see why there would be any problems. It seems a decent number of people have successfully done this. It also seems (based on readings on this and other forums) that others have had bad experiences with them but it tends to be an installation error or something along those lines.