Reply to "351c main girdles"

Doug,

My thoughts. Making an engine survive at 8500 rpm requires a whole other level of build-quality more than 7500 rpm. If it were me, I would not only use a girdle, I would also dowel my four bolt main caps.

At that rpm the oem crank won't last long, and would need to be internally balanced. I would spend the $$ for a good internally balanced & lightened steel crank from Crower or Bryant, etc.

Everything needs to be blue printed, indexed & balanced. One of the steps in blue-printing is to re-drill each lifter bore "on center" so that camshaft timing is consistent for each cylinder. Lifter bores are way-off on production blocks, that's the main reason race engines have their lifter bores re-drilled & stuffed with bronze bushings. It never hurts to set the clearance between lifters & their bores tight on any engine, it just happens to be the "fix" needed for Clevelands and other motors with similar oil systems. By setting the clearances tight you insure that the oil delivered to the block by the oil pump is flowing to the main bearings, and not being lost to other "leaks" such as excessive clearance between the lifters and their bores. This also prevents excess oil from collecting in the lifter valley and dripping down on the crankshaft, where it is whipped into a foam that is not good for lubricating anything.

cowboy from hell