After bolting on the connecting rods I bolted on the main cap girdle and noticed that I have very little room between my ARP rod bolt and the girdle so I had no choice but to notch the girdle.
As you can see on the image above the space between the ARP rod bolt and the Main Cap Girdle is not very much. I used my new Dremel Tungston Carbide Cutter bit to notch what I needed.
Up top on the right you can see the first step of my notching process and then the the final job on the right. I didn’t want to take too much off at first so I notched only a little bit of the girdle but then after bolting it back on the engine, I realized I needed way more and went back to notching it.
As you can see in the images above that I have way more room for the bolt to clear after notching which makes me feel a bit more at ease when pushing so much horsepower through this engine.
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hey i was wondering if you had to make exact measurements to notch the girdle,, please email and let me know thanks
I measured and marked a 3/4″ inch area right in the middle of each girdle slot, then started notching the girdle. I checked periodically to make sure it was in the right place by cleaning the girdle off in water first then blowing it off with compressed air. Then positioning the girdle back on the block to make sure I was in the right place. I did this a couple of times till I was satisfied with the result.
IMPORTANT: Make sure you clean the girdle of properly with soap and water and compressed air to make sure no shavings fall on to the bearings and inside the block. And as a suggestion if your doing any kind of metal grinding in the vicinity of your clean block, make sure you cover your block with plastic or a clean lint free cloth to make sure you don’t get metal shavings landing on the block from fly debris.
Good luck on your build.
Bart