Originally posted by milner351
A machinist / tool die friend of mine has recently been playing with a Ford small block.
He machined the tops of the main caps to make them flat for the girdle to sit on, except for an area right in the center at the top of the cap - there he left a square "peg" for lack of a better term sticking up about 3/16" of an inch - the peg is roughly 1/2" square.
He then machined the girdle to create "holes" for those "pegs" to fit into - with not much tolerance, on the order of .001" in any direction - he put the whole thing together with studs, hardened washers between the girdle and caps, hardened washers on top of the girdle, and arp nuts that came with the studs on top of those washers.
He's thinking out of the box - something he does quite well - and he enjoys testing his theories, I enjoy following along with his endeavors as well. This one seems feasible - he is not comfortable using dowels in a SBF as there just isn't much iron in those main cap webs as it is....
I don't have pictures to show - I know my description probably leaves as many questions as answers but - it will be interesting to see how this little sbf will work out - he's going to do some road racing with it this summer - he's putting a cam in it with an advertised power range of 3000 - 7500.
He machined the tops of the main caps to make them flat for the girdle to sit on, except for an area right in the center at the top of the cap - there he left a square "peg" for lack of a better term sticking up about 3/16" of an inch - the peg is roughly 1/2" square.
He then machined the girdle to create "holes" for those "pegs" to fit into - with not much tolerance, on the order of .001" in any direction - he put the whole thing together with studs, hardened washers between the girdle and caps, hardened washers on top of the girdle, and arp nuts that came with the studs on top of those washers.
He's thinking out of the box - something he does quite well - and he enjoys testing his theories, I enjoy following along with his endeavors as well. This one seems feasible - he is not comfortable using dowels in a SBF as there just isn't much iron in those main cap webs as it is....
I don't have pictures to show - I know my description probably leaves as many questions as answers but - it will be interesting to see how this little sbf will work out - he's going to do some road racing with it this summer - he's putting a cam in it with an advertised power range of 3000 - 7500.
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