Originally Posted by
DRFTwizard
I don't know if i'm going to get the block decked or not. I can clean the old gasket off with no problem and have done so on a couple of engines without any problems. The trick is finding a compound that will only remove the gasket and not the aluminum. 3M makes some pads that do just that. Since I can't mic the deck height I don't want to have issues with piston to valve clearance if the deck is shaved too much. The heads are going to be resurfaced and hot tanked.
I'm also going to hone it myself. There is no scoring in the cylinder walls and the original honing marks are still visible. I bought stock rings so I'm just going to berry hone the walls and put it back together.
I strongly reccomend you get it honed with a torque plate. Those cylinders are garanteed to be egg shaped from the factory. The result is using oil under high RPM on de-accel and smoking. Ask me how I know. As far a decking the block, you don't have to. I didn't on mine and just used a razor blade very carefully to get the gasket parts off. At any rate, once you get the rotating assembly back in it you are going to want to check how much your psitons are out of the hole at TDC. This will help you select head gasket thickness and that determines squish clearance along with how far the piston is out of the hole.