What is going on with this block a guy is asking about on forkbook?

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Just curious as I’ve never seen this before!

TY

Red

Looks like aftermarket caps, but I am in no way an expert.

It is just a set of homemade support straps.

That is one of the old race "tricks" band aids to try and stiffen up the bottom end, if your interested in making the bottom end stronger go to a set of after market aluminum main caps and a set of ARP main studs
The old time drag racers started doing that back in the 1950s or so to every V8 motor out there hey where trying to make the bottom end stronger on including 265 V8 C.I. Chevy and the older Ford V8 flat heads and the early Mopar first gen hemi motors

flat head fords used to be done like that. just a band-aid.

In reality doing that actually made the cap much more prone to distortion under load and cracking - that was a modification of the day along with grooving the mains on the crank for better oiling. Nice history piece - but I would replace the caps with aluminum ones

Agreed. I'm surprised that the picture didn't include a couple of boxed rods lying around. That was done to everything as well. Cut pieces of sheet metal to the outline of the rod and weld them to the edges of the flanges of the connecting rods. It supposedly made the rods stronger.

R.