Make your own Torque Plate
Make your own Torque Plate I had an idea for making a torque plate. What if you took a junk head and milled the valve cover rail down till it is somewhat flat, knocked the guides and seats out, found the center of the bore and bored 4 - 4.1 inch holes in the head. The head bolt holes are all perfectly evenly spaced around the bores. All you would have to do to find center is zero the mill with the digital display on the four bolt holes around each bore and move the mill to the center of them. It wouldn't be as solid as a solid steel torque plate but neither is a complete head. I think it would come very very close to simulating what really happens to the bores when you torque the head down. The way those bolts are deep in the block and quite a ways from the cylinder I wonder if it is even necessary to use a tp to hone the block.
Any input is appreciated.
Any input is appreciated.
You are going to see .004"-.006" differance (runout top to bottom of bore) from useing a TQ plate vs. not useing a TQ plate. It would be easier to make a TQ plate out of 1 1/2" to 2" plate than it would be to cut on your old cylinder head (in my opinion).
Staging Lane
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 69
Likes: 0
From: New York
people have tried milling out heads to build torque plates, but so much material gets removed from the heads that they no longer have near the same stiffness across the head. When the bolts get torqued, the pressure distribution is all wrong across the top of the block, and consequently down in the bores. So it doesn't work well.
