I did have to do more clearancing on the megablock that what it came with from the factory.....but the older siamese MP megablock I used had plenty of meat there, and when i slid my finger inside the water jackets, I could feel how the tooling the used to cast this block considered this area an area where engine builders WILL have to grind on to clear strocker crank/rod combos. The water jacket has a BIG lump or iron there as opposed to a factory hemi block.

So 4.375" crank and 6,96" stock rods with BIG older ARP hex nuts were not a problem after some serious grinding and that area on the bottom of the bores still remained super thick thanks to the extra meat on these MEGABLOCK castings!