I want you to explain everything in life to me with that cool accent.

when doing an old school v8 block such as a 1970 pontiac block, is one torque plate enough to bore/hone the 2 banks at separate times ? or should 2 torque plates be required to be torqued down first before boring can begin ?

Andre, have you much experience with also running hot coolant through the blocks when they are machined? Seems to be one of the things some swear by, others swear at?

For free standing liners, or those with one or two narrow ribs attaching them to the main block strecture, it is very unlikely to make a ny measurable difference. As a rough guide, for needing a plate... If you have access to the block as it is being torn down, or at least before any bore work is done, have a look at the wear pattern in the OEM cross hatch honing - with some engines you will see the bore is shinier adjacent to the head fastener areas, this means the block has distorted when torqued down. Have a look at where the rings have been, or reference the ring postion on the pistons and how far up the bore the piston comes. Then measure the bore diameter just below where the rings reached at several positions, where the bolt/stud holes are and where there are none - if the bore distorted when torqued it would be expected to wear round in that postion and when the torque stress has been removed it 'should' settle to original state - you may need to talk to your ring supplier what sort of out of round is acceptable, as some rings are more sensative than others and, if using gas porting, you may get away with a little more out of round. If the head fasteners are closer to the bore, more distortion when torqued should be expected. Some blocks don't have a lot of material around the holes, which may encourage flex, ditto with the deck thickness. Alloy blocks will move more than iron blocks, so distortion is more likely. AFAIK, all head bolts are a coarse thread as are some stud's nut threads - for the same torque value a fine thread will pull harder on the block threads (tensile load), especially as they will often have a higher torque value and/or better lubrication. If there is any doubt, I expect all the chaps watching these videos will be working on known engines - check out the relevant forums to see what is suggested for your specific applications and use that as a basis for your decisions. Remember, it is going to be you that pays for it, one way or the other ;-) One last point, from experience, a shit-for-brains machinist can still destroy your engine with a 'plate but a good machinist will get pretty darn close for 99% of engine builds.

Thin wall cast iron blocks especially Opel XE , Ecotech need the torque plates. 4AGE , CA18 as well ..... Even older small block BMW 6 cylinders. They tend to wear ridges at the bottom of the cylinders if not bored correctly with torque plates.

Torque plates are a complete marketing gimmick! There’s a couple of reasons the torque plate rationale is flawed! 1. No factoring for HEAT. At operating temperature the cylinders and head are going to distort regardless! 2. When your head is torqued to the block, there’s this thing that separates (isolates) the head from the block decreasing the forces being transferred to the block. Using a torque plate without a head gasket is going to artificially transfer distortion that otherwise would not have occurred! Therefore honing your cylinders with this artificial distortion permanently imprints this distortion into your cylinders. 3. An aluminum head is going to conform to a cast iron block. The cast iron block is not going to conform to the aluminum head. I could go on and on!!