Thread: using a torque plate

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Originally Posted by hpwdboss1

I guess what I really wanted to know was.. do these ford blocks move around when torqed as chevy's do? The head bolts low point of attachment relative to the cylinder bore made me think there might be less distortion.

The big block chevy head bolts anchor directly in the cylinder deck (which is not much thicker than the SBC deck), while the 429/460 block's head bolt holes anchor deeper in the block in and around the entire cylinder bank and therefore work against much greater structural integrity/stiffness and do not distort the deck anything like the chevy blocks distort. When it comes to very high performance engine building, the chevy needs the torque plate a lot more than the 460.

This is not to say that the 460 wouldn't benefit from the use of a torque plate, but the need is so minimal that if you are splitting hairs so greatly that you want to use the torque plate on the 460, you might as well pre-heat the block to operating temp prior to boring too, etc, etc.

Paul