So in less than 3 months I will be getting married, so I have no time right now to tear my car apart. Plus it's really nice out, so I need to be driving it.
First, about a year ago I did a compression test and the numbers were low. I'm thinking I need a re-ring and a honing. What does something like that cost if I strip down and take the assembled shortblock to a respectable engine shop?
Second, my throwout bearing makes noise everynow and then and I have 142,000 miles on the car. If I get a new clutch, think i can rip everything out on a Wednesday, get the flywheel resurfaced and be driving it again on Friday?

 

Honing should be ~$40. I did the dis assembly and reassembly, so I would expect that to be an extra $50. There are also different types of honing - I believe you want a plateau hone.

I would get new main and rod bearings, as well as the piston rings. I thought I could get by with just rod bearings, but discovered one of my mains had a pretty big gouge on it, and had to wait another week for shipping. Get new thrust bearings because they're uber cheap. While you're at it, it's not a bad idea to replace all the freeze plugs for an extra $15, especially if your block gets cleaned with corrosive solvent, which it inevitably will be. Don't forget to get all the seals you will be needing. There are 2 different size oil pan seals, oil pump pickup seal, oil pump housing seal, oil pump outlet o-ring, and front and rear main seals. Plan on spending 2x the time that you expect to take if this is your first time. Just for the machine work, my shop took 5 days, although they did have a lot of other projects (can you say Rolls-Royce Merlin 27 liter v12??). All these parts mentioned above except for seals can be bought at:

http://www.store.partsdinosaur.com/page138.html

You can find all the seals at finishlineperformance.com

Throwout bearing is easy - take the old one off the shaft and then slip that new sucker on the shaft for maximum performance. Don't forget to lube the shaft and fork with a very light coat of moly grease. For the clutch, just unscrew the 6 bolts holding the pressure plate on, then take it off, and the disk will come off with it. If you're getting the flywheel surfaced, there's an extra 6 bolts to take off, and don't forget to take the 3 dowels and bearing out. Then replace everything, and line up the disk with the flywheel bearing with a clutch tool. Easy.


If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask

edit: congratulations on the marriage!

 

Don't know how far you are from Allentown, PA, but you should try Mccully Racing Motors (MRM). http://mccullyracingmotors.com/

Send them an email and see how much they would be able to do it for you. I know they can definitely do honing and all that because they just built a 2.0 block (which is currently for sale). But that service isn't listed on their website (yet). Just email them (Tom and his son Jason) and tell them you know Artie from the Mob and LVMOC.

 

You will work hard to do the clutch stuff in two days, but it can be done. I just got my clutch out in about 3 1/2 hours. Think hard about taking the downpipe off along with the cat/test pipe (hell, swing the whole exhaust out of the way), it will make it way easier to get the trans clear of everything.

 

I'm about 25 minutes from Allentown, I'll email mcculley racing, but I also wanna contact Dave at KDR and see what figures he can give me. Thanks for the great info guys!

 

Mine was $380 for a hot tank, bore & hone and final clean. Prices are pretty high around here though. Plus, I went to a very respectable shop. The guy does all the machining for the NMCA racers in the area.


As long as you can definitely get the flywheel resurfaced, I would think Friday is not a problem. I just did mine last night and it took about 6-7 hours for a rear main seal change, pilot bearing and clutch release bearing.

 

So I'm ordering my FM Level 1 clutch on Friday. Next weekend I should have it and I should have the time to put it in. How mandatory is it to resurface the flywheel? Think I can just swap clutches and be done?