[V8] Ball hone

[Sean cole]

Alright I'm sick of the back and forth act here.

The answer is NO you can not use a typical hone on these motors.  It's going
to destroy them also is true about running standard rings in these.  You
need to run plasma coated chromoly rings in these motors since silicon is
more abrasive then cast iron is.  Also if you are thinking over bore say
good buy to ~200 a hole (~1600) for a set of custom pistons the V8 pistons
are HUGE might as well go get some forged rods and turbo charge it.  Honing
is possible a number of places can do it and any shop can call sunnen and
order the hone.  I personally know a 928 Driver (Kim Crumb) who has done
it.  Needed a block honed for new rings (he could get factory items) and
paid the shop the cost of the hone to have them custom do it.

The issue isn't the hone itself really it's the etching process also
requires a special honing oil so you have got to drain all the old honing
oil of of the hone clean almost all of it out just to fill it with this
special oil.  Most shops I know unless they specialize in Alumisil
reconditioning charge a huge setup fee to do it.   I've looked into the
costs and I'll be talking to a Sunnen Rep in a few months (maybe around
Christmas time or January) about the cost of getting a hone to do an over
bore on a PT to 82-82.5mm.  I think if you get the right hone you can do all
the sizes for the PT and ABH/ABZ motors so if I did go about getting the
Hone I would then lease it to my boss (owner of Headwerks in Bloomington,
MN) to use it on customer work.  I'm after building a DTM level PT so I am
already looking at just about every aspect of tricks I can do to get the
DTM's 130.5HP/L level (470HP 3.6L or 550HP 4.2L).  I have a motor with a
broken block that will become the test motor for many items to come then
later become a very beautiful polished V8 table with a nice granite base and
glass top (man will that look great sitting in the living room).

Sean
90 V8q "UrS8" BBK incoming