SBC main caps

Pro-Gram engineering makes some good quality caps. They have a website.

I made my own once for a 400 block. As simple as they are them companies are making some good coin on selling them.

Just to throw something out there, if you have to use someone to do the machining, and after the purchase of the caps, and by the time the rest of the machine work is done to make a 400 block decent... you'd be WAY ahead to just buy a Little M Sportsman block.... I think you can get them under 1200 bucks and they come with ductile iron splayed caps.

85Camaro said:

Chris where can I get some info in one of those little M sportsman blocks. What kind of power will these things hold up to? who makes these blocks?

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I don't know a whole lot about the sportsman block.... I had a customer give me one recently for a 427 build(4" stroke what a nightmare)....
should make 700-750 horsepower n/a somewhere between. He gave it to me to use, I didn't buy it but he said it was 1200 bucks. It has main bolts instead of studs. I'm a little surprised that steel caps alone would add that much to the cost.... I would prefer steel caps, but the iron splayed will take some abuse.... it's not like the 30 year old iron used in stock blocks.

But far as I can see it's all the same as a normal Little M save for the caps.


BTW Dart makes it. You can check on their website or call them for more information I wish I had more for you.

Re: I did the same thing .....................

68 nova 10.5 said:

on my 377 had a few problems wish I had bought an aftermarket block as well . but one question I would like to raise is how much additional machine work is there to be done to the block ?

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SOMETIMES the mains need to have a hone thrown thru them.... but, really if you were in a money crunch, take a new one, check everything closely, detail it up, hone cylinders to size and RUN IT. The machine work is decent.

Now a lot of machinists might balk at that as they are in business to make money machining.... I'm am not in the business of doing that. I'm in the business of making horsepower and designing the engine so you'll get a little different story that is unbiased from me.

I can get the block for 2000 bucks....

How strong is it? Well.... if you're refering to an iron, 9.3 deck it's the strongest sbc block there is I suppose.... it could take 2500 horsepower twin turbo.

Being a 9.3 deck I'd say you could build around 460 inchs without getting silly.

The thing about the tall deck though, is that I would want to make sure that it was ONLY used for something 440 and up. Intake runner length is increased and depending on the application this can have big implacations on the performance. 430ish and below I'd want to keep it a 9" deck.... max....

Well..... it all depends. How thick is the sleeve? What is the bore size?