Piston rings.

[tony.mon]

Yep, if not more:
Here's the costs for the last one I did-
Part Cost
Inlet valve stem seals- set 2 £27.74
Exhaust valve stem seals- set £27.74
4 litres 10W40 semi synth oil- Hein Gericke (inc VAT) £10.00
Delivery of oil (inc VAT) £3.99
Rebore- £60 per cylinder £120.00
Big end bolts- conrod bolts £15.89
Head gasket £26.47
Exhaust stud x 2 £4.82
Exhaust nut x 2 £3.07
Piston, front, oversize £70.81
Piston rear, oversize £70.81
2 x piston ring sets, oversize £98.35
Honda oil filter, with extractor foc £10.20
Head gasket £22.74
Alternator cover gasket £8.34
Clutch cover gasket £20.40
main bearing, left half shell (last discounted one in stock) 0 £6.00
main bearing, left half shell (special order from Honda) £12.30
Main bearing, Right half shell x 2 (discounted in stock) £12.00
Big end bearing, 2 x half shells front 3 £20.57
Big end bearing, 2 x half shells rear £20.57
Spark plugs (Ebay) Iridium, pair £9.97
Total spent on parts (inc VAT) £622.80

As you can see, I sourced some cheaper shells, but had to pay over the odds for the rebore.

Not cheap, but as good as a brand new engine. (This one was with Honda standard compression pistons, not high comp's).

[lloydie]

and that without paying to have it done
i realy want mine refreashed but with the hi-comps
think i need to start saving

[VTRDark]

It's stuff like the gaskets which is a total rip off, including valve stem oil seals which should come supplied with a full gasket kit. £3 for a en exhaust stud. It all starts to add up. The piston ring set price is ridiculous for what it is What a stinking Honda rip off, and I would want valves with those seals at that price.

(:-}

[Serlant]

s'all starting to get a little expensive... i just spent over 400 on new front and rear wheel bearings, swingarm bearings and suspension linkage bearings aswell as a new clutch, oil filter and oil and a new motobatt battery. i'd already ordered a 12mm adapter as soon as the gauge didn't fit, aswell as a new set of iridium plugs, the old one i took out of the front cylinder was pale white and a little worrying, aswell as missing a tiny bit of ceramic.

The first thing i'll do is check the compression, if its not too bad i'll just do them stem seals. if not i'll start saving

[benny hedges]

Piston, front, oversize £70.81
Piston rear, oversize £70.81
2 x piston ring sets, oversize £98.35
. (This one was with Honda standard compression pistons, not high comp's).

not much difference buying the je's then as they come as a complete kit with rings if you ask.
worked out about $40 more for the .5 over rings.
for the benefits you gain its worth doing if youre going that far with a rebuild.

also the pistons from a flat6 porsche fit and raise the compression to 12-1
i'll post the part number if i can find it on my pooter - bloody windows 7 the search is crap

[VTRDark]

also the pistons from a flat6 porsche fit and raise the compression to 12-1

Really That is very interesting. Who the heck tried and discovered that. Any particular model 911.

(:-})

[benny hedges]

Yeh it was mentioned on superchicken and when i was trying to source oversize 11.5:1 je pistons i noticed a bunch of articles from porsche owners..... The same 11.5s that fit the storms fit the porsches, so it stands to reason the 12.5 porsche upgrade will also fit the storm.

Not sure if my high lift cams will kiss them though lol....

[tony.mon]

also the pistons from a flat6 porsche fit and raise the compression to 12-1

Really That is very interesting. Who the heck tried and discovered that. Any particular model 911.

(:-})

Do keep up, Carl.....

[VTRDark]

I will do when I stick a 911 turbo engine in my storm.

(:-})

[Serlant]

well being a complete retard my new motobatt arrived today, somehow had it in my head it would be bigger than the origional so when it didn't fit i wasn't surprised, out came the hacksaw and it fitted into the battery box i then decided to have a look on the website and discovered they had sent the wrong battery well that'll teach me. well its in there now but was a squeeze, its the 20AH motobatt MB16U which is the same height as the MBTX16u but its longer and wider, I sent the website a message and they emailed me back about hours later stating a refund for the difference would be processed tomorrow so quite happy with the customer service even if they did send the wrong battery out. still waiting on the adapter for the compression tester and spark plugs.

Next question, I had read lots about the je hi comp pistons and had considered it, what put me off was the fact I thought you needed premium fuel if you put the high comp pistons.

TLDR : the 20AH MB16U fits in the firestorm if you widen the battery box.

[tony.mon]

If you fit higher comp pistons, anything up to 12:1 will run ok on 95 RON fuel, but if you also advance the ignition it will suffer from detonation, and bye-bye piston crowns.
With std ignition settings you should be fine.
Most high comp pistons raise it to 11.2 to 11.8, within std fuel range.

I'd have the fuelling set a tad rich rather than lean, just to be safe, and Storms respond well to this anyway.

[Serlant]

well got the compression tester on there today and the results:
front looks about 172


rear rear about 166-167.

[tony.mon]

They're both good, no need to strip at all.

You'd not notice any difference from fitting new ones re compression, and I don't think it's likely that you've had an oil ring failure with good compression like that from the top two rings.
Possible, but pretty unlikely, unless it's always (from new) used lots of oil. There's simply no mechanical reason for them to fail by themselves, and in any case once the heads are off you can check the bores visually- if one of the two oil ring scrapers on each piston has broken it will have left obvious score marks on the bore.

If it's just using some oil, I'd pull the heads, check the valve guides for wear and replace the oil seals.
While you're there it's always worth re-seating the valves, lapping them in, and checking the valve seat widths.
If over 3mm wide, probably best to re-cut, assuming the valves themselves clean up ok.

Easily done in a day, even with re-shimming.

BTW, even a little wear in a guide is ok, as long as they're not sloppy. It's the seals that do the sealing, not the guides.

[Serlant]

Agreed, after the taking those reading i'm definatly not doing the rings, i was leaning towards stem seals anyway as when i got it on 46k a year and a half ago i had it dynoed and it put out 102bhp with an almost perfect fuel/air curve after 4k with no smoke while he was revving but as soon as he snapped the thorttle shut at the limiter it let out plumes of white smoke, but then was fine when he ran it up again for the next dyno. text my old man who said i might want to check/lap valves on rear cylinder but otherwise good. so thinking about just doing clearances and stem seals if valves are ok.

[VTRDark]

This is all turning out quite positive. It's gone from a complete rebuild/new engine to just having to do some light work on the head. While you have the heads off, you may want to consider lightly cleaning up the ports. It's just a shame a gaskets and seals are so expensive for what they are.

Well done nice process of elimination there.

(:-})