If it makes you feel better.... My Brand new Ford BOSS 351 Windsor block had the same problem it was out of square front to back. This started out as a completed shortblock.. had to square the decks on MIXED UP BOSS!

I could watch this all day. Those guys are true craftsman. I spent 12 years in a machine shop watching genius at work. I’ve been a welder fabricator for 32 years and have had the privilege to watch and learn from great men like these guys. Not sure many of them would have let someone film them, this is pure gold. Great video Joe.

ED'S Machine shop is on the money. 👍

Mind boggling...amazing how far off a block can be from the factory. It's great to have a source like these fellers!! I might drag a block to Arkansas!!

Nice to see pros attending to detail. All the lil things add up, and its amazing what time, use, and mass production tolerances add up to!! Now you have the basis for a really happy engine!!!

That sure is a good looking shirt you are wearing! But be careful, I hear wearing that shirt can raise your Insurance premiums..... Duddie's Adventure is not responsible for any harm or regrets that come from wearing that shirt. Great episode Joe! You never really know what goes into building a true motor for maximum horsepower until a machinist looks at it. The level of detail you showed on what's involved is amazing! Great episode! This motor is going to rip when you are done!

Not many Machinist today are this meticulous on perfection. Shout out to your Machinist Joe.

Great Video !! Your building a power house!

a good seasoned block for the machine shop

Ed and Wayne are awesome! If starting from scratch, some day I would love to have an engine built at that level of craftsmanship. Fanelli Restorations has a cool series like this too.

Great to see you have some great machinist in your area!

Joe, you are lucky to have access to guys like this for your builds!

I’m afraid that quality machine shops are becoming a lost art down here in Louisiana…a lot of great info in this video!

Great stuff Joe!! Yeah, my small block deck was like 0.030 off. Pays to check the details. Was cool to see the decking.

So many useful stuff !!!I’ve just talk about your Chanel in my last video!!! Thanks for sharing the passion and all your gearhead tips 👍🏻💪🏻🍻

The engine machine shop I work at before I went over to production machining that was standard to true the blocks up. But as he mentioned in the video your at the mercy of the crank.

These have been an amazing three parts so far Joe. Love the attention to detail

Great video Joe. You did an outstanding job putting the video together. Nice editing! Glad we all did this together. I hope this helps people have a better understanding of what really goes into the good machine work. You as customers have a choice. Now you have some knowledge what to look for and expect. So you, can have a better engine. Raising the bar to the next level. Thanks, EM.

Good info on decking a block that I did not realize, thankyou for the education lesson. Another good one.👍

My last 400 block was off 11 thou on one side and 9 on the other to flatten the deck. Amazing how whilly nilly these things were machined from the factory. But i guess it was good enough for what they were trying to do. "Get em out the door." And some ran a lot of miles so apparently it was good enough. I like him letting you film in there. 👍

Great video, I live near Tulsa. I may give these wise men some business! great machine shops are scarce these days!

Another awesome vid . Learned a lot . Most auto machine shops don't have the fixture to do the work those men do . Or the skill to correct the factory machining . also , most guys building engine think it's not worth the effort or the cost . they would rather install a bigger cam to compensate . We need more folks that inour hobby . thank you !

As a former machinist i love and appreciate this video!

This is exactly why I always have the head(s) and block milled when I rebuild an engine, even a slant 6 . Ed explained the need years ago, and I had him mill my 170 cid slant 6 . (My 1st complete engine build) I can say it was worth it. I won't rebuild an engine without the complete milling being done

Took me a few watch thrus to absorb all the Geometry Precision going on here !! .....I had No idea block Register, Indexing & Set up had Advanced to this Precision degree !! .....Big thx for putting this vid up !! .....You brought me up to date....You got a real Good Machinest doing the job....

Good one!!! These guys are way too cool! Let you in the shop, explained what he was doing,how he was going to fix it, and he didn’t care if you filmed it to show us!! I have never had a shop even try to let you know what is going to happen to your part. Will you thank these guys Joe.

Great video and machine work

That was an awesome video Joe! I'm about to tear down my Magnum 360 to get to the machine shop and see what they can tell me. I'm using a new machine shop that was recommended and they specialize in Mopar but I hope they are as good as ED's.

With BB Mopars. that's why we keep our old manual Boring Bar around ? With the vintage legacy Blocks... we always Deck the Block "equal & square' to the main Bore FIRST.... then mount the Boring Bar directly on to the squared Deck to ensure it is then corrected/Bored perfectly 90* to the Main Centerline. The way to check that your Boring Bar is Boring straight.... is to Bore a hole .024"... then take a sharpie marker and draw 4 lines top to bottom in that cylinder.... then remount the Boring Bar a180* around and re-Bore thatHole at .026" or .002" larger. It should CLEAN all the Sharpie marker ink off !

As always cool video Joe. Love the technicals

More great information. Thanks Joe and to the guys at the machine shop! Their expertise and attention to measurements is invaluable. Great video!!

great video, you are lucky to be close to Ed's, that guy is a wealth of knowledge!

Very interesting video Joe. Thank you for doing this. You have a great machine shop there man, letting you get in amongst all the activities. Great stuff Joe thank you.

As a Machinist who machined nuclear weapons components for 30 yrs to tolerances as close as + .00000" to -.00002", I appreciate a real Machinists work. I wish I could get my 440 machine work done there. We have some slap happy machine shops around here. Yeah, that`s 20 millionths of an inch tolerance. But I know better than to request that for a block!

Thank you Joe I've always heard the term four corner decking but I've never really knew what it meant. That info is priceless. I will be saving this video in my favorite's.

Awesome video

This has been a great series Joe, really enjoying it.

Love to watch people who knows what they are doing!

Would be nice if e&d had a website, but I'm sure they get all the work they can handle as it is. I'm going to hit subscribe Joe. Great content

Yes blue printing is still very important

Have to complement you Joe, this is an OUTSTANDING series of videos you’ve put together with Ed and Wayne. Feel lucky I found the same kind of craftsman out here in Vegas to machine my 512, who, like Ed and Wayne, walked me through the steps he took to true my block.

Nice shop, those seem like awesome machinists! The fact that they are taking the time to educate folks and do the job right is a blessing for the younger crowd and us OG's. Hard to find a good shop in my area.

Great video!

glad you got it all machined in to correct specs now!

I love tech videos like this! I recently had a ford 390 block decked & it was out of square total about .016. That is what I got measuring from each of the four corners in relation to the top of the pistons @ TDC. Good video!

Great video.

This is an awesome illustration of the relationship between the deck height and bore centers, by the numbers, chrysler slapped this engine together using a set of average clearances , I learned a lot, and I could also watch this all day, this is how it's done right!

excellent video !!

this is pretty cool💪🔥

I've seen that twist many times in the engines I've built , it's partly machining but it's also the block settling after the thousands of heat cycles. Any engine I have a hand in gets the decks squared, the shop I last use can square the decks and keep the factory stamped numbers on the id pad using a Rottler CNC.

Great video fellas.

Good to know, l plan to build a 500 ci with a 400 mopar bloc 👍

That's alot of good information. I knew how important it was. I have never seen it done. Also I have never seen individual blocks measured. I have heard from engine machinists that build ridiculous race engines that a well prepped blue printed block can add between 40 to 60 HP. That is when your getting into extreme powered engines that are pushing 1200 to 1500 HP. This video helps you easily see why.

Duddies Machine 💜💜🙏

I bet the heads that came off of that block look like cinamon twists! Looking at the front of that block I bet you were terrified of a terrible off center cam bore!

Very good explanation of why shaving heads to make better compression don't always get the power gain expected and how the relationship between the deck and center line of crank bore can gain more power than expected also the importance of the relationship between both decks to each other,in other words it's better to get a block square than to just make the bore bigger and add compression

Same for me on my 24v cummins. It was out 8 thousand from front to back

Joe that engines going to be a bad dude when you get done with it. Just goes to show how far off a mass produced engine can be.

Good educational vid Mopar Joe.These things fall under the heading of "Blueprinting" an engine. The explanation of block deck height measurements being off "side to side" or "front to back" etc. is a bit redundant as "decking the block" is just that...leveling the deck. No matter where it's "high" or "low"...it gets "decked" just the same.

You can take quite a bit off the deck off a 440. Line bore the crank and deck block but Magnaflux the block first… especially around the mains.

I would make a trip from Oklahoma to where ever this gentleman is to do my machine work

😁👍

Great video. Good info. I would love to send my 400 block to these guys to have it squared up like this. What's the cost to blueprint a block like this?

Hi Joe! You have a really good channel. You show the viewers all the small stuff that make these engines sing. How much does that cost to do all the machine work? I’m in the special state of California., everything is so expensive here.

Huh... One of these days I should go visit you. I don't live a long ways from you and I go to Fayetteville for doctors visits [I used to live in Fay and work at the U of A, but now I live closer to Harrison area. I'm thinking of taking the 413 out of my motor home and building it up and putting it in a small car.

Great series Joe! Very informative! I’m going to have to send you a Lil Red Garage t-shirt 😆, what size do you wear?

with all that machining will it affect how how the intake sits on the block and bolts to tge heads ? I hear you have to re-angle the gasket surfaces especially when you shave the heads to gain compression?

very great info!! i hate to think about my engines.. is the block not stressed relived that the cams brgs not in alignment when rebuilding due to block being seasoned??

In your first video on the e street head you said there was a video on the repairs done , is it not posted yet ?

Joe, did they align hone the block before this work? I have seen the raised area toward the center cylinders before, but never heard a good explanation why it happens. The best I can figure is that is an area that doesn't cool as well and over many heat cycles, sort of says high. Also, you are very correct. MOST machine shops not only don't want your cameras in the shop, but they also don't want you.. That is either because they have some secret machining or they are not great machinists and don't want anyone to know that!! lol.. It is great to watch and get the reasoning behind every move.. You can buy books with all kinds of tricks and explanations, but seeing it is another ballgame all together.. And ya know, we always knew that the factory tolerances were crazy, but here's proof.. And many say todays factory machining is far superior because tolerances are far tighter. Well, this is not the first time I have heard about LS blocks being way out of spec!

Core shift was bad on that block you can see it when you look at the front of the cam tunnel. You are good to go now.

What machine shop was this, I been looking for one to do my 360magnum. I know your pretty close to where I live and I don’t mind driving for a quality machine shop such as this

Just wondering if Piston ring Rotation is Desirable & what Really makes it Rotate ?? ....I always thought the usual Factory little bit of Deck "Out of Squareness" was maybe Design Intentional & Caused the slight Unequal combustion Pressures to start & Keep the Rings rotating ?? .......I sorta get the "Minimum Parasitic" Side-Thrust friction Losses idea you doin there..... if the rings Stop rotating from the near Perfect Piston Alignment, does that Hurt any Ring/Bore wear Longitivity ?? ......Thx for putting up another Great video showing some nearly unbelievably Machining Accurately !!

Looks like you did a great job squaring the block but didn’t you use torque plates when boring the cylinders?

Little known advantage those old Chrysler engines had was the diameter of the lifters. Chrysler had the largest of all the "Big Three" and this allows builders to grind cams with a faster rise on the lobe so they can achieve a higher lift for any given duration using a flat tappet lifter, solid or hydraulic. Roller lifters negated this advantage but in the days of the 392 Hemi it compounded along with that hemispherical combustion chamber that completely unshrouded the valves and let that engine breathe.

Where do you a craftsman like this in the St.Louis area ?

great video but you might try to make them a little shorter so people will watch all of it.

That block may not have been nearly that far off when it was originally made. But after thousands of heat and Cooling cycles, cast iron can Warp a good amount. That's why updates that are sometimes put on Big Blocks are only done on blocks to have over 100,000 miles on them because the block is completely normalized and will no longer warp. Depending on the type of aluminum used, aluminum will Flex quite a bit, even each time it's heated up. But it eventually normalizes to some degree also. Why do you think on the North Star engine the rear cylinder head on the front wheel drive Cadillacs was always pulling the bolts right out of the block. Because Cadillac did not understand that when you put a steel bolt into an aluminum block. It has to be heavy coarse threads because of the fractal nature of aluminum. Once you do that upgrade on a Northstar Engine, the larger head studs will keep the heads from allowing them to warp and pull the engine apart. A well-designed engine, but General Motors could not figure out or would not take the time to make sure that the two-piece block was actually sealed. But once you get a few of the book worked out it's actually a pretty good engine. Horribly over engineered but a good engine once you get the bugs out of the way.

At 19:00 that 0.015" Feeler Gauge piston to wall Clearance is probably a bit Exaggerated looking as most piston Top to ring land Diameter is usually Smaller Diameter than the Actual piston Skirt Diameter near the piston pin location.......

It’s what they call “blue printing”. As designed. Production just gets close. And it’s good enough. - great example. * So, is this measurement taken from the crank centerline? * Also, I’ve heard a lot of connecting rod ends do not run parallel. Is this serious?

👍💪

18:40 I notice that the rod in your hand appears quite bent. Was that one from your engine?

Where is this engine machine shop at?

The number right beside the block number is the casting number yours is 5 that's good that's what you want 1 to 5 is best

Where is this shop located?

Where is Ed’s Machine shop located?

How much did it cost for the work done?

Like a machete and a samurai sword. They both kill, but one does it a little faster.

Ok crazy question from a know nothing background lol. If we are being so perfect with the block. How do we make the head gasket maintain that perfectness. Won’t the head gasket undo what you just accomplished with making the block perfect. Head gaskets have variance don’t they or does torquing the head fix it. Sorry for my un educated theory/question.

i have a newer cnc machine made hunting rifle the bolt rails(in receiver) level the scope level the cross hairs are not strait up and down it off some way i had to move scope a little more to make it right, ok i measure engine blocks if i rebuilding them if not right fix it! square it right to a machine shop with my measure make sure i was right? if i right fix it! i went threw auto repair tech school in high school i went to drag racing & military I got sick in 1992 - 2018-19 i was told i was sick from & hidden by posin sumac in blood of blood cancer oh great i about to D but my uncle guy who blood thinner based on! from like 1984 in military don't count, there time for it to come out! the other stuff in my blood delayed it being found!

Don't think Typical (0.006") factory production Cylinder to Cylinder bore spacing Offset is causing you Any Measurable power Loss with Full Floating piston pins...Factory Mopars already have a Vertical 0.060" piston pin Thrust side Offset to Minimize piston Slapping which lots of builders Reverse (Causing even More piston Slap Movement) in Hopes of more power which has generally Never been Measurable.....Any Reasonable (0.003" -- 0.006") Horizontal Offset is Easily absorbed by the Typical 0.013" rod to rod SideClearance.....Now a Diagonal slanted Horizontal top to bottom Cylinder Offset Is gonna cause some weird Piston/Rod friction generating Gyrations wearing things out & possible Measurable power loss.....I've never seen any Dyno tests verify these specific Effects....Just my thoughts on a very Interesting & probably Not generally Measured by most folks.....I could be major Wrong thinking on this & I'm sure Minimum or Zero Horizontal Offset Is preferred......Big Thx for showing this......

I like the machinist level trick but couldn’t a machinist straightedge and feeler guage check the deck flatness?

Just flip the piston lmao.. Huge power gains, ask ugly Tony. Used pistons and flip em, works every time a lose motor is a happy motor. Ugly Tony know best. A used cam helps also. As well as installing it with a hammer. Oh and add nitrous. So it gets down the track top notch hahahahaha.

Just make sure that your block is true before you open up the block..020 ,.030 , or.055 ...whatever.

What happens when this generation of machinists no longer exist?

What about heating the block and then take measurements if you really want to be accurate.... Lol

Thank you for these videos. Always great to learn from those who know. My engine builder is a bit more discreet, let's put it that way. I know most people know this, but this is not cheap work. Maybe a bit less in Rogers, but still not cheap. On my 440 HP block due to the need to fix the geometry (factory tolerances, core shift) and some pitting at the top of one cylinder is why we ended up .060 over. Given my application, plenty of material between each cylinder, aluminum heads, etc. it is fine being at that size. The cost of the complete engine will not make any sense to anyone so I'm not likely to boast about it at car shows. :-) I do eventually want to get my '64 Hemi block weld-repaired and get that engine built. I also think one of the cast iron heads needs some repair as well. My bank account needed to take a break but I do want to get back to finding a reputable shop that will take that on.

We knew the factory blocks were not square 40 years ago.