I am going to have my block bored for Aluminum main caps. Will I need a shorter timing set?
Thanks for any help or advice you can give me.

Talk to the machine shop and see what they think. It is all on how much they take out of the block. If they barley touch it like they are supposed to you should not need a -.002 or -.004 timing set.

The aluminum caps should have nothing to do with "needing" a shorter chain. A normal align hone wont bother it much. They should be able to favor the cap side, and leave the block for minor boring, and as mentioned above, not need anything special for the chain.

I didn't need a shorter chain when I had mine done.
Draime Enterprises in Massillon did the work on it .

I am looking at Cloyes timing chains. Is the Hex-adjust timing chain worth the extra $50 or would you guys just use the 9-1325 standard set and use cam bushings? I see the cam sprocket is iron on the standard set and billet steel on the hex-adjust set. This is going on a 98% street duty car making in the 600hp area. Once again. Thanks guys!!

Depends in part on how concentric the cam bore is to begin with...a lot of RB's especially have pretty horrific core shift and the cam tunnel is not trully parallel to the crank. I'll reject a lot of blocks for race use for that reason alone. After a line hone I usually try standard but I'll have a -.004 on deck, definately a game-time decision but I've found with good cam/crank squareness, more often than not I want a -.004.

What's your favorite brand of chain Wise??

Used to run a lot of old Cloyes (had a slew of them) but lately I've been running Romac (Aussie) Rollmaster gold series or the Comp Billets.

i prefer the Pro-Gear timing sets. they hold up well, even with heavy spring loads and use better than average components to make their sets.

Wize, what equipment are you using to check the cam/crank centerline positions? just curious because i know a lot of guys see the core shift where the cam "looks" off center because the cam bore isn't in the middle of the casting. i've had a couple of those in the CNC this past week and they were actually pretty darn close, even though they didn't "look" like they would be.

'Eyeball' equipment and most often times test rolling (checking the drag by feel) just the cam/crank and t/c (which I always do anyway) Good to hear that you've found them better than they appear. But I"m sure you've seen the blocks that visually look a 'little' off and there are some that look like Stevie Wonder was on QC duty that night at the foundry. Lots of times though they tend to get built because that block happens to be the one the customer had. There's seemingly no rhyme or reason for the 'bad bad' ones, I've seen them all years from the early 60's to the late 70's.

I figure with the cam only turning 1/2 the crank speed it probably just wears the cam bearings (and possibly the T/C set)out a little concentrically but I've always wondered if and how it could also (slightly) adversely effect the cam timing from bank to bank. I know you've done a lot of work in that regard.

come to think of it I think the last RB (the 508 that Paul has now) had a Pro-gear (hughes) and yeah I agree that was a very good set as well.

when it comes to timing chains, we use mostly Pro-gear. we've been selling that brand for a number of years now and i've been super happy with them.

not to hijack the post, but some of the things i've seen on the factory blocks would make anyone understand why they typically were worn out by 60K miles. they're great foundations but the QC was fair at best.