I'm looking to get a head pressure tested and make sure its flat before I put it back on. I also want to overbore a block slightly. Who would you recommend in the Raleigh area (within 30 minutes at least)? I would prefer to hear opinions from people with personal experience.

So far I've heard of t hoff from my ricer forum.

12/5/2008 8:34:44 AM

T-Hoff tried to screw me with a bunch of work I didn't need one time. I prefer the guy in the back of the Carquest on Germantown Road, right off of Chapel Hill Road between raleigh and cary.

12/5/2008 8:38:54 AM

durham
http://www.handcraftedracing.com/

raleigh
http://local.triangle411.com/Boyette--27s+Automotive+Performance+Machine+Shop.9.6057895p.home.html

wake forest
http://www.yellowbook.com/profile/cylinder-head-specialties_1539304179.html?addressId=0


Thoff in raleigh has been through a lot of changes in recent years, used to be a good machine shop 10 years back but I wouldnt send anything to them now that was important. I had some parts sent there for cleaning a few months ago and the steel came back dirty, the aluminum came back corroded.
HRT in durham has always done a great job for me, wether just resurfacing heads, doing full valve jobs, boring/sleeving blocks, even a complete rebuild. I have had all of that done there with great sucess.
Boyettes has a long standing reputation for the local authorities in quality performance machine work.
CHS does a great job on cylinder heads, never used him for anything else though.

12/5/2008 9:22:17 AM

+1 for CHS

12/5/2008 9:29:57 AM

+1000 for boyettes...

ehh, not so hot with Thoff. i mean, they are good. they probably do more imports than boyettes (probably, more like definitely).. of course i worked with thoff like 6 years ago, so things probably have changed.

i prefer boyettes. they've been doing work on friends motors and i took my integra block there. they got it going good, he just hated it cuz it dulled out some of his honing stuff. lol.
again, this was like 5-6 years ago. but they've always been good people.

12/5/2008 9:38:08 AM

carquest on germantown has a machine shop, that's pretty close to campus.

12/5/2008 12:59:28 PM

+1 for HRT

12/5/2008 1:02:32 PM

boyettes

12/5/2008 1:30:40 PM

i've had good luck with t-hoff. the guy that's currently head of the machine shop is top notch. if you go there, make sure to speak with him directly. he's had a hard time getting decent help in there, and as a result there have been a lot of screw ups.

anyway, for basic head work i would have to reccomend loop rd. auto parts over anyone else. though, all of the recommendations thus far are solid. boyettes would be my usual choice, they're just kind of expensive. rightly so though, those dudes have been doing it right for 30+ years. they built a number of engines for my dad and his car buddies all through the 70's/80's/90's.

[Edited on December 5, 2008 at 2:08 PM. Reason : .]

12/5/2008 2:01:48 PM

+1 boyettes

12/5/2008 2:18:57 PM

I've never been to t hoff but I have been to jax with the guy who runs it and he's pretty cool. He bought me lemon drops

12/5/2008 3:36:53 PM

Quote :

"+1000 for boyettes..."

They have done 4 motors for me and I have never had any issues. They are slow right now and I bet they could turn around your parts faster than anyone else.

12/5/2008 9:10:42 PM

boyette's it is.

hopefully have it off this weekend

12/6/2008 8:32:35 AM

Finally got my engines apart.

How much is too much to pay for an overbore, hot tanking, and making sure the top of the shortblock is level? I was going to have my head leveled and pressure tested as well. This is my first trip down machine shop land and I could easily get talked into anything.

I'm actually considering getting another block bored for my oversized pistons as a backup. I have a habbit of pushing the limits and destroying things.

12/24/2008 9:33:22 AM

its not too bad. only issue is that these honda blocks are tough. call them up and ask. boyettes wont screw with you. IMO, take all of your parts there (pistons and everything) and they'll do a mock assembly to make sure everything lines up... of if you pay them more they'll assemble the whole block for ya.

12/24/2008 9:49:21 AM

You get what you pay for with machine work.

12/24/2008 10:04:19 AM

^^

Yeah I'm bringing them a TON of crap. Literally.

300$ worth of d series parts is like an entire hatchback full. I'll have 2 short blocks, 3 cranks, 2 complete heads, 3 sets of pistons, yikes .

I think the only pistons I'll bring are the forged ones I'm going to use. I want to make sure the piston to wall clearance is tight enough so it doesnt sound like a diesal.

12/24/2008 10:46:19 AM

dont forget to clay the motor for valve clearance.

thats how i "blew" (just bent 8 intake valves) my first motor.

12/24/2008 12:41:39 PM

I dont think that will be an issue. My CR is going to be around 8:1.

It might be so low it isnt even interference if i cant find decent length rods.

12/24/2008 1:33:29 PM

T-Hoff machined and balanced my flywheel, it looked like they did a decent job

12/24/2008 2:07:41 PM

^^^^a lot of that has to do with how the rings are gapped also. if you have them assemble the short block, make sure you tell them it's going to forced induction (i assume?) so they can gap them properly (tight).

12/24/2008 5:25:21 PM

I'm not paying them to assemble it. That's half the fun!

I don't have any long term reliability goals. It's a giant leap into an assumed "square peg square hole".

So far that couldn't be closer to the truth. I cant go without some machine work though to prevent the obvious problems 76 mm pistons in a 75mm bore, etc..

12/24/2008 10:17:58 PM

oiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

[Edited on December 24, 2008 at 10:46 PM. Reason : uiiiiiiiiii]

12/24/2008 10:46:22 PM

YEEEEAH

so what are you building anyway? sounds like something experimental/custom/oddball. should have mentioned that first, it makes boyettes a no brainer by a looong shot.

12/25/2008 2:09:26 AM

nothing exciting. just a ~250-300 whp SOHC 1.6L. will probably take 20psi to get there lol. basically will turn into nothing but a front tire burner. FWD .

i wanted to ghetto it but the more work i do the less i want to use junkyard old crap. those guys on homemadeturbo are hilarious though.

12/25/2008 4:35:55 PM

Boyettes forwarded me to Thoff. So they must not be too bad off for business.



Anyone got a cylinder bore gauge I can use?

12/29/2008 5:58:39 PM