Ok heres the deal, I pulled my my engine apart to put a cam in my 327, but when a friend looked at my pistons he said my rings might go out soon. If i put the cam in the 327 and the rings go out, can i put the cam into a 383 i am building? I cant afford to build the 383 right now and am wondering if there is any reason why i cannot run the engine for a while and then pull the cam and put it into the 383 at a later time.

 

You can swap the cam as long as you make sure that the lifters end up back in the same lifter bores in the new engine. Lifters take a set to the cam lobe they are broken in on. Just keep the lifter box, mark one end "front" and put them in order as you pull them out, starting at the front.

How did your friend know your rings might be going out soon on your 327 just by looking at the pistons? If it's because they are covered in carbon, that might be due to worn out valve guides/seals. If there was a sizeable wear ridge at the top of the cylinder bores, it might be true. Only way to know for sure is with a compression test.

 

He said there was a lot of carbon build up and the cylinder walls looked "too smooth" he said that an enigne should have a little scratchieness on the cylinder walls and when they smoothen out the rings are going bad. Its actually my dads friend but my dad thinks he might be full of crap so I am looking for some help before i commit the time and money into it. If I can put this cam into the 383 once its built ill just do that because the 327 ran fine before i took it apart.

 

Scratchiness on the cylinder walls is called cross hatch, and is a result of the honing process that brings the cylinder to size. It usually goes away after a few thousand miles, although with synthertics that's not necessarily true anymore.

If the engine is not smoking or horribly down on power, it's probably ok and your dad is right about the friend.

 

I'd agree with that also. If the 327 was still going strong and not smoking, then personally I'd keep using it. There may be a lot of life left yet in that engine before it needs to be rebuilt.