Thread: using a torque plate

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I was just wondering if the head bolt attaching points in 460 blocks are far enough down the wall that torque plates are really needed. I have a really nice 040 block that I want to hone and ring, but I didn't know how much a plate will move it around. My clearance will still be ok with a clean-up hone job but if a plate moves the wall around much, it may require more material removal than I can stand & still have proper clearance.

You've got it backwards. The "more material removal" bit comes when you hone without a plate. The plate ensures a round bore with the head torqued down the same as the plate was, so any distortion is compensated for. That said, honing is not that aggressive an operation, and most of the time, you'll never notice the difference. You're just scratching the surface, not taking away a lot of metal.

1to the mild part of the bores can be off as much as .003+ so it is out of round so it can pull the bore out of round making both hi and low spot in the bores you will have to hone to the low parts of the bore to get it back round this is hard for the rings to seat up this has alot to do with how thick the block is and how many head bolts are around the bores if it has had deck plates on it when hone the bores it top could be out of round if check with out deck plate on the block if not hone with deck plates and you hone it you will make the bore bigger by taking the hi spots out and were there is a hi spot so you will have to make a round at the point where you will make the hole bigger to get the tapper out to you just can not hone the top of the bore and call it good with the deck plate on. the mains should all ways be TQ up when honing the block out with or with out deck plates from boring to honing with deck plates on a engine when boring you leave more in the bore to hone out less you bore with the deck plates thru the honing to i leave about 0.002 more in the holes when i bore if i going to use a deck plate you have no idea what the bore will do with the plate QT down i seen them move were you would not think they would get out of round

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. I'm sure the original bore/hone was not done with a plate. I don't know how much material would need to be removed to achieve a straight, round wall if a plate was used this time. I have about .002 clearance now and I dont want to remove any more than necessary for good seating of a new ring package.

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

Thanks for the feedback Paul. I felt that this was the case, but wanted some one with more experience to boost my confidence. Thanks for your time!
Perry