Should I or Shouldn't I...pistons and cylinders?, Can of worms? Options

[computers4kids]

I pulled apart my spare 75 2ltr down to the block (didn't split the case) that I'm planning on putting in my 75 project car. I also pulled the heads. My intentions was just to clean it up, do a visual inspection on the heads and re-seal the motor. I was going to take the heads down to our local machine shop to have them cleaned and if necessary a valve job.

I'm looking for some advice on whether I should remove the pistons, have the cylinders honed and new rings installed? Is this worth doing on these type of motors...or do most just buy a cylinder and piston kit?

Looking at all the kits available make me wonder whether to go with the stock 94s or a big bore kit. I see Jake sells a stock Mahle kit for $284 and the big bore kits are between 3 and 4 hundred elsewhere. I have both stock injection and weber 40s...probably go with carbs. I don't want to split the case to replace the cam.

So what do you think? (you can tell from my questions, I'm not much of a mechanic...but I like doing things for myself)

[computers4kids]

A little more info...

When I bought this car (krusty's backyard...Santa Maria) it had "fuel issues" and the PO of the PO had the MPS off and didn't know alot about the condition of the engine. Anyway, I sold the car as a roller soon after buying it...put the transmission in my 74 and put the 2.0 in the corner of my gargage.

The heads appear to have no cracks, the valves look OK, and the chambers are rich with black gunk...running rich too long.

The Piston tops look good.

The cylinder walls don't have any scoring, etc..look OK.

Of course the real question, how worn is everything? I don't know. If piston/cylinder sets like the ones Jake sells (cheap ones $284) will work then that seems to be a reasonable way to refresh the motor. Are these cheap sets as good as the stock 93 pistons in there? If not, honing the cylinders, cleaning the pistons and new rings sound better.

Ah...but I didn't know the rods have to be fitted for the replacemnent pins. Doesn't that pretty much require pulling the rods and splitting the case? It's a can of worms! I don't want to dump 3-5 thousand in this motor. If I could keep the "refreshing" of this motor to $1000 I would be OK with that.

If I'm just wasting my time and $ performing a cheap refresh, then I would rather put the money towards a V-6 or V-8 conversion.