283 CI Main Caps

[Ray C.]

I purchased a bare 519 block and took it to an engine machine company to have it check out. The block did not come with crankshaft bearing caps. The owner of the machine company told me that the caps are part of the block and I will have a hard time securing the correct caps. Does anyone have any helpful tips on how to secure bearing caps that will work with a different block, or will this be a trial and error process?

Thanks for any help!

Ray

[Clem Z.]

Re: 283 CI Main Caps

you will need to install caps you buy and have the block line bored or if you are lucky you can get away with just a line hone. depends on the cap fit in the block. if the shop does not understand this find one that does.

[Ray C.]

Re: 283 CI Main Caps

Thanks! Clem

Ray

[Joe L.]

Re: 283 CI Main Caps

Ray-----

The shop is correct in the sense that main bearing caps for a 283 engine are not currently available from GM or, as far as I know, from other sources. Billet steel caps are available for "large journal" small blocks in the aftermarket, but I don't think they are available for earlier blocks. They might be, though.

What you need to find is a scrap small block with the same size caps as yours and buy the caps off of it. A lot of times, machine shops will save caps from scrap blocks in order to sell them to folks such as yourself. So, you might check around with other machine shops, especially large volume type shops, to see if they have what you need. If they do, you might want to consider giving them the machine business, too.

[John T.]

Re: 283 CI Main Caps

Ray

Billet caps are available for the early block but they are expensive. Caps are available from pro-gram. It seems they are used on same circle track engines as the builders feel the small journal has less bearing friction. Joe's suggestion of finding used caps is much more practical for a street engine.

John