Looked at another thread this morning and it had a spec sheet with all the Tq specs for the 400 - 455 engine. https://www.teambuick.com/reference/400-430-455_engine_torque.pdf Says main cap goes to 110 lbs. My old Chilton says 100 and I was told by a few members in the know 90. When I assembled the bottom end of the race engine I went 90 - 95. Is this going to be a problem? Would really hate to pull her apart after all the Black RTV on the girdle and pan seals.
Main cap torque should duplicate the torque, and lube used, when it was align honed.. Your trying to duplicate the conditions that were present when the hole was made round, and sized. Having the correct information and duplicating the machine shop setup is especially critical if your not using a dial bore gauge to check size and out of round. You can play withTorque in 5 lbs increments from 90 to 110 lbs to adjust your sizing a few tenths. We use CMD-3 on the fasteners on all our mains, and set the torque to 100 ft lbs.. the CMD and the factory bolts repeat so well, I rarely have to fuss with it too much. Back when we used 3owt oil for bolt lube, there was a lot more fooling around, and studs were often a nitemare.. JW
Ok, well then. Have no idea what the Tq used was when it was honed. Bought the block from Clifton Love at the swap meet last yr (BG). He said it had been completely machined and ready to build but didnt finish it due to his health problems and the associated cost of medical care. Using the Peterson oil pump makes way more vol of oil than this block can ever hope to accommodate. Did check the main bore Tq'd at 90 prior to assembly and it looked good. Guess I'll just run it and see what happens. Whats the worst that could happen? LoL
I am sure you will be fine, as long as the girdle was put on correctly, and it's not touching the registers next to the caps, they are less susceptible to minor differences in torque and lube. JW
It seemed to fit very well. Dont see how there could be any variation in the installation. That thing is one heavy duty piece of steel. Kenny Voss saw that and said he'd never seen anything like it.
My engine builder had the mains between 100-110(each one was different) with moly lube. When I took it apart after 1100 miles, I could see that the bearings on two of the mains were worn at the part line. The only way that I could see this happening is due to the bore being out of round. I had a buddy of mine, who used to be a machinist, measure my main bearing clearances. I ended up torquing all of them to 105 to maintain a round bore.
