My friend Surinder

The machinist/engine mechanic had the tools to measure the bore -- this is the diameter of the big shiny hole where the piston goes. I hadn't counted on him doing those measurements for me, but he was willing (call it marketing I guess, since he is the one who'd machine the bore if needed). But I was headed to work anyway as my friend Surinder, a metrologist, had kindly volunteered to measure the bore for me using a hugely expensive piece of equipment called a co-ordinate measuring machine (his baby). I kick myself for not taking the camera into work because it was very cool watching him do this using this very cool machine. Basically the machine is a robot with a little glass ball on the end of a tiny rod called a probe. Think Demon Seed, except there were no unwilling human participants and certainly no DNA involved. Anyway he moves the probe and every time the glass ball touches something it stops automatically and records the position where it touched. Do this a few times, and the machine has enough information to figure out many things -- in this case bore diameter. It is 3.3769". Ooooh! What does that mean? Nothing without more measurements ...

(Incidentally, this measurement agrees with what Fred the machinist measured using a $200 tool, but I feel so much better getting the number from a machine that costs something on par with a nice new BMW sedan ... :)