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machining costs

42K views 21 replies 9 participants last post by  RPM 
#1 ·
how much roughly has is cost you to bore .030 over? and what did you have done (cam bearings, freeze plugs, decking, magnaflug, hot tank etc.)

a machine shop near me wanted a $300 deposit, i think thats high, thats only for a .030 over and freeze plugs
 
#2 ·
I had a 350 done this summer it wasn't bored, only honed, freeze plugs and cam bearings installed, hot tank, and a valve job and he shimmed the springs back up to proper height for $375.00. This was just a average automotive machine shop that isnt geared toward racing engines, but if they guy you are talking to mainly does race stuff then he will probably be higher. Sometimes cost isn't the only thing you should be concerned with. Check their reputation.
 
#3 ·
Well, if he's the only guy around he's probably going to be higher.

What is the shop's reputation?
How is the quality of the shop's work?

Different areas of the country have different rates for the same services. Quality usually cost's more but is no measure of accuracy or quality.

Suppose a shop invests in newer machines/tools for better quality, service, and/or capabilities, would you pay $150 more for top quality, spot on work? A good deal is nice to run across these days, but saving a few $$$ and forsaking quality will get you nowhere. Most machine shops that stay in business do so because of their work. Check around. Ask for references. Talk to the machinist and don't base your relationship soley on a dollar.

JMHO
 
#4 ·
It depends what your looking for if your building a bone stock engine or are you building a performance engine as there is a big differance between a shop that just builds stock engines compared to one that builds performance engines.

We build performance engines and we do all performance machine work,

If a block is sent to our shop its sonic tested then cleaned and magged then its line honed with a new ARP main bolts, its decked, bored and plate honed and the lifter bores are lightly honed and we charge 595.00 for that work.

Most local shops can't sonic test, line hone, square and deck and plate hone and most have substandard hones for performance honing.

We get blocks in the shop that guy have had them bored and honed and set the crank in and torque up the mains and the crank binds up cause it was not line honed or the engine has a lot of blowby because it was not plate honed.

But you get what you pay for as your not going to get a top of the line job for 300 dollars.

Here is a link to blue printing a block granted your cam tunnel would not have to be done as we only do this on the engines we build in our engine shop.
 
#10 ·
machine shop tom said:
Thermal cleaned, mag checked, torque plate bored and honed, cam bearings and brass core plugs installed, around 325 bucks. Align-bore, add 145 bucks.

tom

Tom
What about line honing as that is preferred on performance engines as we only line bore when changing caps or installing new ones.

Boring off an an unsquared deck in not acceptable on a performance job as we have had to try to straighten out some of the messes that have ended up in our shop and in some cases we have had to replace the block.

If everything is done right the first time there should not be any problems down the road from what we have seen.
 
#12 ·
I don't do align boring or honing in-house. I have had better results with having my blocks align-bored as opposed to being align-honed. The place where I send the blocks to be align-bored always does a perfect job. Where I was sending the blocks to be align-honed, not so perfect. Not even close.

tom
 
#14 ·
This is a good thread. It has been 20 years since I worked in a engine machine shop. Exactly what procedure do you guys go thru in machining a block from start to finish. That is a block comes in. Clean it first then flux it. Align hone. Then deck. Then bore and hone with plates. That's about how we used to do it. Do you still do that or is there a better way now?
 
#15 ·
RPM said:
This is a good thread. It has been 20 years since I worked in a engine machine shop. Exactly what procedure do you guys go thru in machining a block from start to finish. That is a block comes in. Clean it first then flux it. Align hone. Then deck. Then bore and hone with plates. That's about how we used to do it. Do you still do that or is there a better way now?
You got it. Although the first step SHOULD be "get a deposit".

tom
 
#16 ·
machine shop tom said:
I don't do align boring or honing in-house. I have had better results with having my blocks align-bored as opposed to being align-honed. The place where I send the blocks to be align-bored always does a perfect job. Where I was sending the blocks to be align-honed, not so perfect. Not even close.

tom
WOW interesting a we get a few blocks in from another shop to line hone as they only line bore and with just a few strokes of the line hone you sure can pick up on the inperfections of line boring.

Most line boring machines can only do 2 journals at a time and when moving the machine 3 times to line bore the block there is more risk of no having the mains in line from what we have seen.

There is better heat transfer with line honing over line boring.

I would be interesting to know if they are line boring in one set up or moving 3 times to finish the block.

Our set up to bore the cam tunnels is done with one set up and we can also do the mains if we had to, But we have a set up to line bore the mains.
 
#17 ·
CNC BLOCKS N/E said:
It depends what your looking for if your building a bone stock engine or are you building a performance engine as there is a big differance between a shop that just builds stock engines compared to one that builds performance engines.

We build performance engines and we do all performance machine work,

If a block is sent to our shop its sonic tested then cleaned and magged then its line honed with a new ARP main bolts, its decked, bored and plate honed and the lifter bores are lightly honed and we charge 595.00 for that work.

Most local shops can't sonic test, line hone, square and deck and plate hone and most have substandard hones for performance honing.

We get blocks in the shop that guy have had them bored and honed and set the crank in and torque up the mains and the crank binds up cause it was not line honed or the engine has a lot of blowby because it was not plate honed.

But you get what you pay for as your not going to get a top of the line job for 300 dollars.

Here is a link to blue printing a block granted your cam tunnel would not have to be done as we only do this on the engines we build in our engine shop.

Sorry here is that link I forgot to post.
http://www.chevelles.com/forums/showthread.php?t=93124
 
#18 ·
the dan said:
how much roughly has is cost you to bore .030 over? and what did you have done (cam bearings, freeze plugs, decking, magnaflug, hot tank etc.)

a machine shop near me wanted a $300 deposit, i think thats high, thats only for a .030 over and freeze plugs
AT my shop, bore and hone with plate, cam bearings and brass plugs, square deck, hot tank and mag. $400.00. align bore $150.00 we don't line hone in house, when we install new caps we line bore then send out for line honing. CNC is right, better heat transfer with line hone. sam-missle
 
#19 ·
I've got a lot of experience myself with align boring and honing. When it comes to these operations, it boils down to operator experience and familiarity with the equipment he's using.

I have align honed aluminum blocks with steel caps and kept holes to within 2 tenths on size and roundness on all 5 holes with no taper, even at the parting line in some instances. I've also seen some that were so large at the parting line, the only thing to fix them was to weld them up and align bore them first, then finish hone them.

A large commercial line bore like ones used on diesel engines is the only way to go when it comes to accurately boring a set of caps, but not everybody has one. I've also used little old junky boring machines designed around the time of Henry Ford's model A, and done a good job with them.

Align boring has it's place, and so does honing.
 
#20 ·
NAIRB said:
I've got a lot of experience myself with align boring and honing. When it comes to these operations, it boils down to operator experience and familiarity with the equipment he's using.

I have align honed aluminum blocks with steel caps and kept holes to within 2 tenths on size and roundness on all 5 holes with no taper, even at the parting line in some instances. I've also seen some that were so large at the parting line, the only thing to fix them was to weld them up and align bore them first, then finish hone them.

A large commercial line bore like ones used on diesel engines is the only way to go when it comes to accurately boring a set of caps, but not everybody has one. I've also used little old junky boring machines designed around the time of Henry Ford's model A, and done a good job with them.

Align boring has it's place, and so does honing.
Good point as I have always said line honing is an art and not everybody can do it as we have seen some jobs that were .0015 from low to high.

We have 2 line hone tables and I peraonally do all the line honing at our CNC shop and at the engine shop andd so far no problems after 20 years or so doing this procedure.

One thing we do during the line honing is release the caps and retorque them couple of times to make sure they repeat for size and thats hard to do when its in a line boring machine.
 
#21 ·
thanks alot guys, deffinitely gave me the heads up and alot of knowledge.
this guy is pretty well known and i went to a guy that my dad knows who is a perfectionest when it comes to restorations and he had a few good words about the guy, so im genna go down with my 300 deposit tomorrow and we will worry about the rest of it when i see the quality of the job,

do you juts recomend line honeing? the block is practically new, even though i saw that alluminum block getting it done
 
#22 ·
Yes have it align honed and it should be the first operation then all the other machine work will reference off of the new surface. Everything square like it should be. You can tell a big difference in an engine that has all the work done to it vs one that has not. The enigine will turn over so much easier during assembly, you can just feel the difference, in how the whole assembly turns.
 
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