Do the final hone with a plate, there was some guy's
in the shop today and this discussion came up, they
asked me what I thought about it, I know the last 3
engines I have done were honed with a plate, but really
couldn't tell any difference et wise, than all the
other 1's I have done without it, so I really couldn't
make a good argument either way, so does anyone have
any real concrete info either way??????????


Thanks
Dave

It just depends on how much the block in question changes when you torque down the torque plate. Some blocks may change very little other. Others can change quite a bit. Always better to be on the safe side and use the plate.

The torque plate simulates the distortion that the head produces on the cyl. walls when assembled so I personally say yes. Some guys go as far as heating the machining oils up to near running temps to go further to controll "running" conditions.............

Last time I had my motor out to Mike he checked the cylinder walls and said they were wavy. Had him hone it with a plate.

Car picked up .001.

As already said it depends a lot on the type of block and how many head bolts hold the heads on I've seen major distortion on SB Mopars, not so much on the BB and Hemi blocks Best bet to see the results on how the plate(and the head gaskets) affect the cylinder walls is to use a dial bore gauge on the cylinders form top to bottom and all the way around the bores with nothing on the block, install and torque the main caps and check again, same thing on the plate and head gasket I use them no matter what Ring seating time and HP are different with and without them, been there, done that

Also use your head studs. If you run aluminum heads. Make aluminum spacers up to simulate the height of your cylinder head. Preheating the block and warm honing oil can't be a bad thing either.

Sense we are telling all our secrets LOL

But, what do I know Josh says I'm a Rookie.

I asked a builder I know how much deflection would
be seen from using the plate to not... he said he has
seen .003 distortion in spots(that was a 4" bore)

Back in the 80s I looked at a Ford 302 that was in a race shop for inspection because of a warrantee lawsuit. The bores were so out of round and no sign of ring contact in huge areas next to each bolt head. I don't know how that motor made any hp, it looked that bad. And to think the guy had to go to court,,,,,,,,,,,

I've seen a number of tech articles showing different levels of bore distortion w/ plate-honed and non-plate-honed blocks, as well as claims that certain honing techniques (e.g. "hot honing") resulted in HP improvements in Pro-level engine programs. However, I've never seen a true A-B test of the same engine prepped & tested w/o plates first, then re-honed w/ deck plates. That would be interesting, but not likely to be high on any tech writer's list of articles to fund.

FWIW - not much, I admit- my 452 block hasn't been plate-honed for the last two rebuilds (even though I'd been told it had been by the previous shop that took it from 4.375" to 4.380"). I don't recall the amount of OOR at the top of the bore the current machinist found when he bolted on the plate to the 452, but he said it was enough that he couldn't re-hone it w/ the plate unless I was willing to bore it out yet again. Since the block was already .060" over, I didn't have access to a sonic tester to see how thick the walls were, and it would require custom pistons for a bigger bore even if the walls were thick enough to go bigger, we agreed to just re-hone it "as is".

My build-in-progress 451 block has similar & frustrating history. A previous shop that had supposedly "race prepped" it w/ a 4.360" bore turned out to have not plate-honed that one, either, so we didn't take any chances and re-bored this one to 4.375" using a plate to do the final hone.