I feel stupid for asking, but the extent of my machining knowledge involved taking parts to the shop for work done.

(Well....I DID work at a machine shop, but the lathes were are program run, and we didn't do engine work.

What might this cost me?

Any particular block that's best?

I'm mentally preparing for a new engine.

Thanks,

Kelly

BTW....I realize it's beefing up the 2-bolt mains.....but how?

 

A pic is worth at least 1000 words.

Notice how the 2 outward bolts aren't parallel to the 2 inner ones.

The caps cost around $200, and installation is another $250-250.

The best block (out of small blocks anyway) is a 2-bolt 400 block.

 

I had one of my dogs splayed once. Oh no, wait a minute..... never mind.

 

Why couldn't he do it at home. It is perfectly possible to do it at home. Thats what I will do.

 

Be sure to let us know how many bearing you chew up or spin becasue you dont have the caps perfectly drilled. Regardless, even if you do drill the holes yourself, you will STILL HAVE TO take it to a shop to have it line bored to be sure it's squared up for the crank after the caps are installed.

This is not an area you break out the 1/2 drill and juststart drilling because you think you can do it. You can do it, but doing it CORRECTLY is going to be the differecne between you constantly pulling motors or just going about your day.

 

RB83L69....what brand are those caps you pictured? I am thinking about going with splayed mains when I build my stroker and probably will for the strength.

 

Milodon

 

that's defenatly a machine shop job, you'll be waisting a perfectly good block if you try it at home

 

Thanks.

 

Agreed. Take it to a machine shop and pay them the money. The instructions with the caps say that anyone can install them, but when I just sat mine on the block it looked like a nightmare waiting to happen if I did it. As mentioned, if you change the caps you'll have to get it align bored anyhoo, you gonna do that too? Leave this to the pros.

 

That's a terrible thing for a guy to do to his best buddy....

BTW - If you have the correct drill bushings, or a decent mill, you can drill/tap the outer bolts easily. The trick is going to be align boring the block if your mill doesn't have a really low knee and one long-ashed boring bar.

 

Wow...that's pretty much exactly what I imagined. Splaying must be another one of those words exercising onomatopeia (heh heh, I feel so smart now).

Thanks for the help. So I'm looking at somewhere around 450 bucks for the caps, installation and an align-bore job eh? While it's there, I'm gonna have him deck the damned thing and bore it .30 over anyways.

Kelly

 

I hope your machinist doesn't bore it .30 over, you won't have any cylinders left if he does. I put the splayed caps on a friends engine once, but I used a Bridgeport milling machine to do it correctly, it was pretty easy to do if you have the CORRECT equipment. He then took it to a shop that had a align-boring machine to have it finished.