Ok, here's the lowdown on honing plated cylinders...
If you saw my last post on the honing subject You most likely saw the pictures of the inside of the cylinder bores and you saw just how smooth these bores come new. You also saw a picture of a cylinder with about 1000 miles on it and saw it was mirror smooth, no scratches in the bore, no missing plating, just perfectly glazed. It looked great, but because it glazed before the rings fully seated, it lost compression instead of gaining it as the engine broke in. Yeah, it made nice power and even got stronger as it broke in due to friction reduction and all, but the rings never fully seated so the engine got stronger, then it became weaker. The rings showed me just what I needed to know about why I lost compression and in some areas on the ring the original black coating was still intact. Rings should be shiny smooth bare metal once seated, there shouldn't be any sanding or machining marks on the surface where it rides in the cylinder.
Couldn't I just put in a new set of rings and put it back together? ... Yup... but it'll be short lived.
Like my pictures show, the new cylinders come smooth, no cross hatch pattern or anything for the rings to wear into. I've also had that cylinder in the lathe to true up the top of the deck as well as the base. This is where I was able to see that the nikasil coating is .010" thick on these cylinders, and it's been consistant on all the others that I've put on the lathe.
My next step will be to do any port clean up and port work as honing will be the last step before a final cleanup and install onto an engine.
Now a quick word on honing... If you don't know what you're doing or have the right hone for nikasil plated bores, stop there... You can mess them up if you try to use a brake cylinder or small engine hone with the wrong type and the wrong grit stones. You can mess them up if you hone them dry too, you can mess them up if you hone it for too long, and if you don't control the drill's rpm and if you don't move the hone in and out at the right pace to obtain the right cross hatch pattern. I do this type of stuff every day and there is a difference between doing engine work on a daily basis and someone's friend's sister's boyfriend who knows someone who honed a cylinder and ruined their engine because they didn't know what they were doing.
I know it sounds difficult but it's not that bad, a cordless drill set on the low speed setting will spin the hone at about the right rpm so you can obtain a good cross hatch angle, and about 10 to 30 seconds of honing is all it takes on a previously used cylinder that's just glazed. This will allow the new rings to properly seat and the engine to last a lot longer.
On a new cylinder it may take about 30 to 60 seconds with a fine stone hone to get the cross hatch pattern where it needs to be, but either way, gotta check it every few seconds.
With .010" of plating inside the bore and honing should not take off any measurable amount of metal, or in other words, less than .0001" so the amount of metal removed during honing would be neglidgeable when done right. I use a 48mm Flex Hone brand hone and they do make hones for nikasil plated bores which should be used.
