i bought a used shortblock and this being 4th motor in a year kinda want to freshen it up before putting together. where i live there is nobody cabable of honing frm cylinders, so is it absolute must to hone cylinders when changing rings? my only other option is to bolt head on and do leak down test but already had 2 prev motors went out with ring issues(1 rings, other ringlands) lmk what you guys think

 

If your cylinders are smooth and doesnt have the cross-hatch look to them they need to be honed.

 

you gonna listen to a 2 poster, good luck brrrrro.

 

^well whats your views on it? i have never pulled apart a used motor and still seen cross hatches(b,d,f or k or h for that matter), i know of a shop here in town that has reringed a few b series that i highly doubt they honed, so really want to know ppl's opinion on it. the block looks good but i am just tired of swapping motors in this car and would like to feshen up motor if its possible. closest person that could hone it is jacksonville(don w/rpm) not to mention the pain of shipping it.

 

Unless FRM sleeves are somehow different than anything else if it doesn't have a crosshatch it needs to be honed.

Also, post count means nothing when it comes to tech advice, nothing.

 

thx

 

It is different, the manual clearly goes over this, if there aren't any scratches deep enough to catch or finger nail or run the length of the entire bore it does not need to be honed.

 

please explain what you mean. Did he give incorrect information at all. Just because the user has only 2 posts doesnt necssary mean he or she doesnt know what they are talking about


to the OP. if you can grab them with your finger nail and dont see cross lines needs to be rehoned

 

here you go open wide. this is a pretty big spoon.

https://honda-tech.com/forums/honda-prelude-4/how-have-frm-honed-2476019/

 

As a few people have said, if there are no scratches that are deep enough to catch a fingernail, you do not need to rehone. Honestly if you pull apart a few factory FRM sleeve engines, they won't have a really pronounced crosshatch like other hones will leave, so I wouldn't be worried about a crosshatch at all.

Your most important things are to use new rings, and set the gaps correctly.

 

I have a very good Honda guy here where i live and he redid an H22 for me a few years ago and he told me the exact same thing. the frm is very strong and it is known to eat the rings up which in my opinion is a better thing than wearing the cylinder bore out all the time. FRM FTW!!! lol

 

wow mixed reviews, the cylinder walls look great, rehone is just a pain as i would have to ship to have done. anyone have first hand exp. with rering w/o honing and no smoke issues after? would be super po'd if i reringed and put motor back together and it smoked.

 

What I posted was straight from the Honda service manual, get one.

 

i do have one, and if you read the link apex posted, i found only same thing he posted. it says "if the block is to be reused, hone the cylinders and remeasure the bores". iirc the helms says check with finger nail refering to if block needs to be bored not honed. but was asking to see if anyone has firsthand exp. of reringing w/o honing and what their results were. i will just slap head on and do leak down test before i install in car.

 

if you have clean bores i would still use a fine grit ball hone and do 30 seconds or so up and down per bore with a good corded drill

doing this does a couple of things

1. removes glaze
2. creates a clean surface for the new rings to seat to

make sure you have the cylinders wet with oil...they actually make flex hone oil for just such a thing.

the thin steel rings that a lot of honda pistons use actually work better with a fine hone cross hatch

aggressive hones that would work on a cast iron ring are just too rough. i tried this once back in the day on a B series and it drank a quart every 1000 miles right after being rebuilt. there are a few hard to find but good articles on honda hone patterns and even talking with endyn is helpful.

something in the 280 grit to 320 grit range is what i would try next, nothing rougher

 

Since I already stated it once, I will expand.

I have personally re-ringed an H motor without honing. It ran great, didn't smoke or burn oil, had great compression. The engine would still be running happily right now, if I didn't overheat the rings with nitrous and crack a ringland. Looked great on teardown as well, aside from a tiny nick where the rings broke apart.

This was a full teardown, with everything hot-tanked, and cleaned again, before assembly.

 

imo it depends on the miles on that particular block, 250k vs 80k you make the decision, its pretty obvious, I've always re honed my bores the blocks I've ever came across always had over 180k I'm sure if i tore down a block that had 50k on it, I'm sure it would still maintain its factory hone and i would in that case not re hone.

 

well , that sounds good enough for me.

 

Don't hone FRM. Unless it's got some bad horizontal scratches that would break a ring. You want FRM liners to be smooth as glass, unlike cast iron where you want nice cross hatch. VERY few machine shops know what the hell FRM even is let alone how to properly hone it. I went through all of this bs on my build. Machine shop kept telling me I had nikisil which it's not. I called Sunnen and they told me a certain graphite honing stone to use along with a silicone honing compound. You basically are polishing the liners not honing them. I had to sleeve my block because the redneck machine shops around here F-ed up my FRM liners big time! IMO, just re-ring it or sleeve it and go with forged pistons.


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B(16,18) series are a different ball game. They dont use FRM.

 

This is the only post you need to listen to, FRM is done with such a fine stone that you can't even see a cross hatch, it's got a mirror finish.

Honing it is a waste of time unless it has deep vertical scratches.