Main cap and cylinder head studs.

[Little Mouse]

I'm buying parts for a higher compression then I have ever done 331 sbc and run it on the street with E-85, so I'm leaning heavy to the idea to use cylinder head studs never used any or main studs before. The machinest said my block 010/020 with the 3482 caps the mains he said were in spec I could run it without line honing. It might see a little way past 8000 rpm at shift point so my real question is would it be worth all the expence to line hone it and use main studs or just buy some new arp main bolts and forget about the line hone. I have talked myself into using a titan sportsman oil pump ( not cheap ) after reading everything under the sun on gerotor pumps.

[Schurkey]

My opinion may not mean much...but here goes.
Forget the head studs, use ARP head bolts. Pay what it takes to get the main studs done right.

[Little Mouse]

I'm buying parts for a higher compression then I have ever done 331 sbc and run it on the street with E-85, so I'm leaning heavy to the idea to use cylinder head studs never used any or main studs before. The machinest said my block 010/020 with the 3482 caps the mains he said were in spec I could run it without line honing. It might see a little way past 8000 rpm at shift point so my real question is would it be worth all the expence to line hone it and use main studs or just buy some new arp main bolts and forget about the line hone. I have talked myself into using a titan sportsman oil pump ( not cheap ) after reading everything under the sun on gerotor pumps.

All old OEM GM blocks need align honing and more so if adding studs. No such thing as 3482 caps you must mean 2482 caps which were GM's performance 4 bolt caps in the day, Pay attention the oil feed hole from to the cam journal is only 3/16 hole, Weird the hole from the cam bearing to the mains is 1/4 inch. Also the decks have no extra hole for the performance gaskets.

Yes that is right my mistake 2482. I did watch someone on the famous youtube lol use what he said was a 22 inch long drill bits to enlarge the center oil passage and the lifter passage. If I recall right he used a 7/16 for the lifter and 1/2 inch for the middle, then he drilled the three center mains to a larger size up to the main line. He mentioned not drilling to the total end at the back of the block to allow for threading of plugs, this sounded like a worthwhile thing to do then use the 20 percent higher flow titan pump is this a good plan Carl ? I took two blocks of the same type to him to just check them for cracks to see if I even had anything to work with and had mentioned I wanted to line hone them, when I picked them up he did not push anything just said I could use them the mains were in spec.

[Little Mouse]

All old OEM GM blocks need align honing and more so if adding studs. No such thing as 3482 caps you must mean 2482 caps which were GM's performance 4 bolt caps in the day, Pay attention the oil feed hole from to the cam journal is only 3/16 hole, Weird the hole from the cam bearing to the mains is 1/4 inch. Also the decks have no extra hole for the performance gaskets.

Yes that is right my mistake 2482. I did watch someone on the famous youtube lol use what he said was a 22 inch long drill bits to enlarge the center oil passage and the lifter passage. If I recall right he used a 7/16 for the lifter and 1/2 inch for the middle, then he drilled the three center mains to a larger size up to the main line. He mentioned not drilling to the total end at the back of the block to allow for threading of plugs, this sounded like a worthwhile thing to do then use the 20 percent higher flow titan pump is this a good plan Carl ? I took two blocks of the same type to him to just check them for cracks to see if I even had anything to work with and had mentioned I wanted to line hone them, when I picked them up he did not push anything just said I could use them the mains were in spec.

No need to drill the center main out 1/2 inch I have seen where a shop did this a broke out into the cam tunnel had to plug it with an 1/8 pipe plug still running The lifter and the main feed are both 7/16 which is plenty IMHO. The 3 center mains 1/4 inch seems to be fine, Just those blocks and the 327 restricted the oil from the main feed to to the cam bearings for some reason.

The biggest pump I run is the 10552 10% more volume an all my 2 barrel circle track engines I run the 10553 and no issues to date 40 years building these engines.

Housing bores maybe to size but there is no way to check for alignment from journal to journal is where I see problems.

I don't how many times blocks come in the shops and they always say the mains line is fine run the align hone through a couple of times and it usually makes a liar out them LOL

Here is a pic of bearings with 400 miles on them SB 327 shop said they were to spec and they were but the alignment was off.

All old OEM GM blocks need align honing and more so if adding studs. No such thing as 3482 caps you must mean 2482 caps which were GM's performance 4 bolt caps in the day, Pay attention the oil feed hole from to the cam journal is only 3/16 hole, Weird the hole from the cam bearing to the mains is 1/4 inch. Also the decks have no extra hole for the performance gaskets.

Yes that is right my mistake 2482. I did watch someone on the famous youtube lol use what he said was a 22 inch long drill bits to enlarge the center oil passage and the lifter passage. If I recall right he used a 7/16 for the lifter and 1/2 inch for the middle, then he drilled the three center mains to a larger size up to the main line. He mentioned not drilling to the total end at the back of the block to allow for threading of plugs, this sounded like a worthwhile thing to do then use the 20 percent higher flow titan pump is this a good plan Carl ? I took two blocks of the same type to him to just check them for cracks to see if I even had anything to work with and had mentioned I wanted to line hone them, when I picked them up he did not push anything just said I could use them the mains were in spec.

No need to drill the center main out 1/2 inch I have seen where a shop did this a broke out into the cam tunnel had to plug it with an 1/8 pipe plug still running The lifter and the main feed are both 7/16 which is plenty IMHO. The 3 center mains 1/4 inch seems to be fine, Just those blocks and the 327 restricted the oil from the main feed to to the cam bearings for some reason.

The biggest pump I run is the 10552 10% more volume an all my 2 barrel circle track engines I run the 10553 and no issues to date 40 years building these engines.

Housing bores maybe to size but there is no way to check for alignment from journal to journal is where I see problems.

I don't how many times blocks come in the shops and they always say the mains line is fine run the align hone through a couple of times and it usually makes a liar out them LOL

Here is a pic of bearings with 400 miles on them SB 327 shop said they were to spec and they were but the alignment was off.

Ok after I find out further with sonic checking if that's ok I'll have the block line honed and use studs. Should I enlarge the middle oil passage ?. I do like that melling pump supports the spur gears top and bottom, what's your opinion of the shark tooth melling ?

[Little Mouse]

Ok thanks for the replies.