OK, so I think I should provide some background so it's clearer to anyone who reads this.

1. EB (Engine Bulder) "A" provided a prepped & assembled 4.375"-bore 440 short block for me after I destroyed my previous one when I threw a rod at the 1000 ft mark one night. EB "A" was supposedly a "Mopar Guru". I wiped a cam in that build after about 1200 miles (another story in itself) and he re-honed it due to the cam debris having messed up things. I found out much later that he "doesn't believe in torque plates". No, I don't know why in this day and age anyone would have that opinion...

2. When that (re)build was torn down to be freshened up, etc., EB "B", who was MUCH closer to me than EB "A", said the bores were too loose and he recommended taking it out from 4.375" to 4.380". He ordered the pistons for me and charged me (I still have the receipt) to do the cylinder hone finish work WITH a torque plate. I did the assembly of that engine, although EB "B" did the short block machine work and Dwayne Porter did the Stage VI heads I switched to.

3. I ran the block that EB "B" prepped for me until I had an oil system eff-up that required me to tear down the engine again. EB "B" had since relocated (or closed, not sure at this point, and don't care), so I asked around for recommendations for someone else close to where I now live. That brings EB "C" into the story.

4. EB "C" had a good rep, so I took my stuff to him to have a touch-up hone done as part of this rebuild. He asked me for the history of the block, and I told him what I knew. He calls me later and says, as best as I can remember, "Well, EB 'B' may have put a torque plate on the block when he honed it, but he sure as He11 didn't bolt it down. The only way these bores are round is if the plate is left off, and they won't clean up properly with the plate on at this bore because of the distortion." It was at this point I went and verified that EB "B" DID charge me for honing that block w/ a torque plate, even though it certainly sounds like he didn't.

5. So, EB "C" and I talked... He was also doing the full prep work on my spare 440 block, so we decided to just hone the first block w/o the plate (it had obviously been running that way for quite a while). At least that way I could put the 4.380" short block back together while I was still collecting the rest of the parts for the freshly machined 4.375" 440 block to replace it.

The somewhat amusing thing is that this same well-used (or "tired", as I recently called it) short block made as much HP and torque as it did, despite having .003" too-loose piston-to-cylinder wall clearances and "not round" bores. And, yet, I don't know that the next build with the properly-machined block, new pistons, etc., would actually make any more power when assembled with the same heads, cam, etc.

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Some tech magazine I read years ago had an article showing how different head gasket designs / compositions changed the way the bores distorted. An MLS construction resulted in noticeably less distortion than a composition gasket in their example. That was one of the first times that I heard how it's important to use the same type of gasket during the actual engine assembly as was used during the plate-hone operation.