Ok, so I have been doin lots or research lately since I'm finally getting close to actually doin a 347. Long story short I have had 3 assemblies ready to take to a machine shop & something in life has always come up & caused me to sell off everything. Not this time, LOL.

So the first machine shop I called said he didnt have a torque plate but would still do the machine work. I'm not too excited about this. So I get the rest of the info from him & continue my research on here.

I recently stumbled across a thread where it was mentioned a SB Ford torque plate can also be used, it doesnt need to be a LS1 specific plate.

Is this a true statement or not?

I called another machine shop today who seemed to know a little more about the LS1 blocks & I asked again about the torque plates. He said he didnt have one for a LS1 block. I mentioned I had heard a SBF plate could be used & he said he had one for a 302 if it would work & would do the honing with plate for $150. Everything else I wanted done was also cheaper than my original quote from a shop who wasnt real familiar with the LS1 blocks.

Clearing this up would be very much appreciated. If the SBF plates can in fact be used I'm goin to this last machine shop I just contacted most likely.

 

Sorry I dont know if the sbf plate would work. I would personally find a shop that a ls1 plate. I would also bet that since they dont have a plate they dont have much experiance with lsx's. Tulsa or OK city someone has to have one. If not dallas isnt that far.

 

The place I called today said he had done a couple & asked if it was the stock aluminum block or the iron 6.0L, so that leads me to believe he has had a few come thru the doors. But we dont have any speciality shops around here for LS1 stuff.

 

No it usually will not fit on the LS1 block but it is close.

 

Alright, thankx Erik.

 

i have also heard that it does fit, and i know iv read on here that people have used them......

 

Maybe they fit on the 6.0 iron blocks? I think the guy I saw talk about it said he had the shop use one on his iron block. I'd have to go search through a ton of threads again to find it though.

 

did you call moritz? they did my first 408 and had a torque plate for it

 

Yea, thats who I called yesterday & they told me they did NOT have a LS1 torque plate.

But I'm confused a little more now, did another search & found this thread with several people saying the SBF plates DO work & had their engines done with one.

https://ls1tech.com/forums/generatio...our-motor.html

 

I always heard that too and if the holes are big enough on the plate they can even if you only do one cylinder at a time. We have 6 LSx tq plates and 60 different LSx blocks in here and we could get any to fit. I have 3 SBF tq plates as well.

If we bored out the plates more they would have gone but I wasn't going to do that on mine since I already have LSx plates too. We tried to use a SBF plate on a LSx deal with 1/2 bolts and no go either.

 

They might have bigger holes in the ford plates than we do and with the 11mm head fasteners they could get them on. The bore spacing on ford is 4.380 vs 4.400 for chevy so the last holes would be .080 off already so if its close it will not fit but they have have bigger than 1/2" holes in their ford plates.

I'll put the ford deal with the biggest holes on a reg LS1 and see for you later Mike but like I said it didn't seem to work with plates we have.

 

So Erik do you think this could be a viable option for a motor thats only getting a hone from 3.898 to 3.905 without any actual boring of the cylinders? I'm guessing the torque plate would need to be opened up if boring the cylinders correct?

I'm learnin as I go here before I take it to a shop so I can give them specific instruction on what I want done.

Also if I'm planning on having ARP head studs do they need to be installed for the torque plate or will a old set of stock head bolt work?

 

Thankx for taking the time to do that Erik, I appreciate it sir.

 

Did you ever get a chance to check this out Erik?

 

Just did and it will fit with the 11mm OEM bolts but not the bigger 1/2 aftermarket bolts on one LS1 lock we have . The holes are slightly offset but since the Ford Windsor torque plates are made for 1/2 inch bolts for Windsor it will fit the LS1 with the smaller 11mm bolts.

You still need to check and make sure the bores are not being blocked by the plate. On my big Ford Windsor plate which is 4.185 it easily fit even a 4.030 LS1 iron block in there.

 

SWEET! Looks like I have decided on a local machine shop then. The shop has a really good rep, but I'm always paranoid about LS1 stuff around our area.

Thankx again for taking your personal time to help out sir. Its appreciated.

 

No Problem Mike.