HELP NEED ADVICE

[turningwrenches]

iM IN PROCESS OF BUILDING A 360 THE BLOCK HAS NO RING RIDGE TO SPEAK OF . IM THINKING OF JUST RE RINGING IT AND NEW BEARINGS .CAM SHAFT AND TIMING CHAIN SET IT IS FOR WEEKEND OFFROADER ONLY IM ON A TIGHT BUDGET. HOW ARE SUMMIT TIMING CHAINS AND 8600 CAM SHAFT ANY SUGGESTIONS ON PARTS THIS IS FOR A WEEKEND OFFROADER ONLY 77 JEEP CHEROKEE

[Dusty]

we've done that to a few motors..... honed em, polished the crank with emery cloth micked the bearing and put in new cast rings on the old pistons, new std bearing in a motor that should be turned down to a .010/.010 crank stuffed a decent cam like the 8600 and or the howards 479 lift cam in. usually have the heads fully gone through though. and run them for 5-10 years with no problems. the motors rarely see over 2000 rpm and even when they do who cares if they toss a rod big deal. you spent less than 1000 buck getting the engine back on the road and it still works well enough.

[tufcj]

I did the same thing on the 360 in my CJ. Got the engine for free with a little over 70K on it. It was a leaker, covered in baked on oil.

When we pulled the heads and mic'd the cylinders, all were still within specs with no serious scratches, but the rings were badly worn. Honed the cylinders, new rings, new cam bearings (important, I've seen lots of factory cam bearings break down), had the crank cut .010/.010 just to true it up. Spent my money on a polished/ported/gasket matched, 3 angle cut set of 291-C heads. I run the Edelbrock performer set, which is close to the Summit 8600 in spec. I'm quite satisfied with the performance, and I've put over 40K on the engine since. It still only uses about a quart of oil between 3K changes.

Bob
tufcj