JEFF - I wouldn't lose any sleep over the ring end gaps being lined up. The rings actually rotate around the piston when the engine runs... unless the ring groove collapses and pinches the ring, or there's loads of carbon deposits in the groove. The only rings that don't rotate are those in 2-stroke engines that are pinned in place so the ring ends don't stick through the ports in the cyl walls which normally makes for a bad day. But 4-stroke rings rotate about one revolution per thousand crankshft revolutions. The spot loading of the piston rocking back and forth, slight bending or misalignment of the wrist pin & bores in the rod & piston cause the rngs to rotate. But that being said, I make sure there's some separation between the end gaps when I assemble an engine.
You have to have cross hatch in the cylinder walls. If you're going to ball hone the bore, lots of good info here; http://www.brushresearch.com/flex-hone.php?gclid=CNS49sf0trMCFYpFMgodTgYAOg
DON - Thing I found out years ago about those block heaters, you can get too big of heaters, they get hot enough to open the thermostat and let the heat into the radiator then establish that as a flow pattern. I try to plumb them to keep the circulation as far away from the thermostat as possible. The 1000W heater I put on my first car, a '70 Chevy Nova w/ small block V8 would register 140 degrees while parked in a snow drift in 10-20 deg F temps when it was plugged in all night. When running 70 MPH it would run about 170-180 degrees on warm days. I didn't have a winter-front for it, but I did slide cardboard down in front of the radiator on cold days. I don't do that anymore, too easy to over-heat an engine. I had a 1500W heater on my '87 F150 w/300-6. It would get pretty warm too... start the truck while sitting outside and the temp gauge would immediately come up to the low end of the "Normal" range.
SON's heater should be able to heat his garage on LOW on all but the coldest days this winter. We put 4" of insulation in the walls. He hasn't got anything in the ceiling yet but may put some in. He needs to insulate his garage door, for both heating & cooling and NOISE.
You have to have cross hatch in the cylinder walls. If you're going to ball hone the bore, lots of good info here; http://www.brushresearch.com/flex-hone.php?gclid=CNS49sf0trMCFYpFMgodTgYAOg
DON - Thing I found out years ago about those block heaters, you can get too big of heaters, they get hot enough to open the thermostat and let the heat into the radiator then establish that as a flow pattern. I try to plumb them to keep the circulation as far away from the thermostat as possible. The 1000W heater I put on my first car, a '70 Chevy Nova w/ small block V8 would register 140 degrees while parked in a snow drift in 10-20 deg F temps when it was plugged in all night. When running 70 MPH it would run about 170-180 degrees on warm days. I didn't have a winter-front for it, but I did slide cardboard down in front of the radiator on cold days. I don't do that anymore, too easy to over-heat an engine. I had a 1500W heater on my '87 F150 w/300-6. It would get pretty warm too... start the truck while sitting outside and the temp gauge would immediately come up to the low end of the "Normal" range.
SON's heater should be able to heat his garage on LOW on all but the coldest days this winter. We put 4" of insulation in the walls. He hasn't got anything in the ceiling yet but may put some in. He needs to insulate his garage door, for both heating & cooling and NOISE.
