Hey Roy;
Sorry to hear.

My first question is, did you have the motor torque plate honed? Just in case you are not familiar with that term, this process is done after an engine is bored, the machinist takes a steel plate about two inches thick and bolts it on top of the bare block. This plate has holes for each cylinder as well as bolt holes in the plate. This process is done to simulate the stress applied to each bolt hole after the heads will be torqued in place. After this plate is properly torqued on the block, you leave it over night in order for the bolt holes to stretch the metal inwards towards each cylinder hole.

The next morning the final, about .001 -.002 of an inch is removed during a honing process, not boring. At this point there will be 5 high spots in each of those cylinders due to the pressure of the bolts’ forcing the metal towards the open cylinder holes of the block.

Now, a lot of machinists have no idea that this process is an absolute must for the sbc and in fact, most machine shops do not even own a torque plate. If this is the case of your shop, find a new shop, no use trying to educate or tell the professional anything, they do not listen, from my experience.

Having said all that, check the block to see if there are cross hatches in each cylinder, hopefully your man at least did that right. Finally do not re-use rings, even if they are only one week in a block.

Roy, did you check ring end gap on all 16 rings? How much did you gap the upper ring and lower ring at?

Do you have four corner cooling?

Did you cement the block partially?

What do you mean by “pistons burned”?

What are the last 3 numbers of your block?