Main cap girdles re-discussed

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fishmens67 said:
Is Kent's contact info the same as it was in 2017. you posted it over at Mopart's as I remember.
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Yeah, it’s the same.

I forgot to mention if he doesn’t answer he will call you back.

The guy is very busy. But he has always made the time to call me back.
 
So I heard there will be a new player for la race blocks at some point down the road. Callies has the blueprints for the R3 block and is supposed to manufacture them once they are done with the wedge blocks.
 
lead69 said:
So I heard there will be a new player for la race blocks at some point down the road. Callies has the blueprints for the R3 block and is supposed to manufacture them once they are done with the wedge blocks.
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More choices is more better!

I absolutely have no real "need" but a huge want for aluminum Ritter block with big bore diameter, capable head setup, and standard-ish (~3.25 - 3.50") stroke crank to rev the hell out of, sorta the old Trans Am racing combination. Completely unreasonable for a street driven car but I don't care. While I'm at it, I wonder how much a billet flat plane crank would cost?? And of course it would have a girdle, or at least suspenders.
 
gzig5 said:
More choices is more better!

I absolutely have no real "need" but a huge want for aluminum Ritter block with big bore diameter, capable head setup, and standard-ish (~3.25 - 3.50") stroke crank to rev the hell out of, sorta the old Trans Am racing combination. Completely unreasonable for a street driven car but I don't care. While I'm at it, I wonder how much a billet flat plane crank would cost?? And of course it would have a girdle, or at least suspenders.
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Mmmmm I love Girdles. And Walmart girls.
 
pittsburghracer said:
So during my morning shower I thought about this a little more. Some of you guys act like chevies and fords have zero issues. Well if you would get to the tracks more often you would found out exactly how it is. I’m not talking about a few of our 11 second Mopars that use hose clamps on their transmission lines still and are know to cause a three hours cleanup twice a year but I’m talking 4-5 and 6 second 1/8 mile cars. And at keystone we have a lot of them. I honestly can’t think of one major engine failure last year but boy my Chevy friends sure put on a show. They broke and broke often and I’m not talking Speedmaster and Edelbrock parts they broke good parts, expensive parts. It’s gotten to a point where APD a carb company stepped up and started offering rocker arms became they can’t last the season with the expensive ones out there. So get off the couch and open your damn eyes, please.

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Thinking dirty thoughts in the shower eh? lol
 
I see a bit of stuff about high horsepower 3rd gen Hemi builds. 800hp is kinda the new 500hp.

So as much as I love mopar small blocks, and would love to be able to run 800-1000hp in one reliably with forced induction.
it seems at a glance like once you start needing to pay $4000 for a block and then another few thousand in addition to get it machined ready to run, the value for money in a 2009+ 5.7 or 6.1 seems hard to beat.

Of course, I would also assume the Ritter block or similar has a much higher capacity for horsepower than the OEM hemi blocks.

But with 1000hp turbocharged street/strip cars becoming more and more common, an affordable small block configuration that can be reliable at 800-1000hp would present excellent opportunities that don't currently seem to exist as far as I'm aware. (Though I could be wrong)

I'm currently plodding away at a home-built blown 360 project with most parts being custom fab or adapted from something else.
The blower itself is quite small with horsepower limitations which are similar to the alleged engine block limitations. 600whp territory.

It really does niggle at me that if later on I decide to swap out my little eaton blower for a bigger whipple or Kenne bell to add a couple of hundred horsepower, I'm probably going to need to pay $5500-7000 for a new aftermarket block for it to have any hope of being reliable.

If that itch does occur, unfortunately It'll be most cost-effective for me to go back to the drawing board and adapt all my bolt-ons a G3 hemi and run that instead.

Call me cheap, or not a real racer. Amateur or whatever. And you'd be right. This is just a hobby for me.

But I'd say that more often than not, needing an aftermarket block is a deal-breaker and not even a consideration for most people.
 
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Rat Bastid said:
Yep, disagree all you want but I have experience on my side.

And every example you posted is nothing like a girdle like we are discussing.

So there is that. And I’ll say it again just to irritate the general public. If you are having issues to the point you think you need a girdle, or a block fill or both you need to save your money and buy a block.

Unless of course you think the factory is stupid and the aftermarket is stupid and the people who buy good blocks are stupid. Then you are on your own.

One more time for clarity.

A main girdle doesn’t work no matter how bad you want it to.
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That's very true! Many people have the idea that adding a main girdle to their $75 stock production block miraculously transforms it into the equivalent of a high dollar aftermarket block, and it simply doesn't. A correctly designed girdle, one that is aluminum and not steel, and one that requires the main caps to be machined flat so the girdle has the maximum clamping effect on the caps can add a small improvement, and have other benefits like dampening harmonics. But that's about all that can be expected from one.
 
CNC-Dude said:
That's very true! Many people have the idea that adding a main girdle to their $75 stock production block miraculously transforms it into the equivalent of a high dollar aftermarket block, and it simply doesn't. A correctly designed girdle, one that is aluminum and not steel, and one that requires the main caps to be machined flat so the girdle has the maximum clamping effect on the caps can add a small improvement, and have other benefits like dampening harmonics. But that's about all that can be expected from one.
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The more I look at it the more ideas I get. I think with a couple of spring clamps on it I could use it to hold targets to get in some practice with my new pistol.
 
pittsburghracer said:
The more I look at it the more ideas I get. I think with a couple of spring clamps on it I could use it to hold targets to get in some practice with my new pistol.
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That's funny....! Hotrodders seem to be easy prey for creative marketing for a lot of products that may or may not have any benefits. Remember the clear see thru valve covers back in the 60's. Sounds neat until you crank the engine and you can't see anything because oil is sprayed all over them. Or the clear distributor caps, the list goes on and on. A billet main cap or even a main strap on the caps will likely provide as much improvement as a girdle.
 
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CNC-Dude said:
That's funny....! Hotrodders seem to be easy prey for creative marketing for a lot of products that may or may not have any benefits. Remember the clear see thru valve covers back in the 60's. Sounds neat until you crank the engine and you can't see anything because oil is sprayed all over them. Or the clear distributor caps, the list goes on and on. A billet main cap or even a main strap on the caps will likely provide as much improvement as a girdle.
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Hey man, don't knock the clear dizzy caps! Hours of viewing pleasure!
But they can be handy on a dizzy test machine.
 
CNC-Dude said:
That's funny....! Hotrodders seem to be easy prey for creative marketing for a lot of products that may or may not have any benefits. Remember the clear see thru valve covers back in the 60's. Sounds neat until you crank the engine and you can't see anything because oil is sprayed all over them. Or the clear distributor caps, the list goes on and on. A billet main cap or even a main strap on the caps will likely provide as much improvement as a girdle.
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The only block I ever cracked (440) was an engine that ran 8.60’s@155 mph that had 440source billet main caps. I swore that the next stock block would have aluminum caps. But I bought a Keith black block and mega block and sold off my stock blocks.
 
The last set of caps I did on a BB were alloy. Got them from that Jerry guy. I was not very happy with the way they were made.
 
So this weekend gone I had an interesting conversation with someone about stud girdles and block limits.

The owner of this car.
I recognized it at a swap meet in my little town far from the city, and spoke to him briefly. (Note: all of the info in these links is pretty old)


TURBO V8 CHRYSLER CENTURA - READER'S CAR OF THE WEEK
VIDEO: TURBO CHRYSLER V8-POWERED CENTURA

He runs a turbocharged 318, stock block, factory crank. Deep in the 9's now with 30psi on pump fuel, using air-water intercooling and a chiller system he made from an old under-dash AC unit.

Years ago on 19psi it made 600whp.

If you do the maths on this, a mild 318 + 30psi running low 9's at 150mph+ in street trim, low stall, highway gears, pump fuel. It has to be somewhere beyond 900hp.

Interestingly, in a previous iteration of the turbo 318 without a girdle he did experienced a main cap failure.

During a drag racing event he noticed the engine was struggling to accelerate at the top end of the track and didnt sound right afterwards.
Upon teardown of the engine, he discovered that one of the main caps had broken into two pieces and he had bent the crankshaft .080" out of concentricity.

In his current build he is using a girdle. It is surviving well so far..

My take away is this
Whatever the horsepower limit of a stock block is, with or without girdle? ...I cannot say.

What I can confirm is this guy runs his 30psi combo on a stock block 318 with full confidence.
He takes it on Sunday family outings 50 miles from home like it's nothing unusual at all... and he does it with a girdle.
 
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