I was thinking about installing Milodon splayed caps on my 454 2 bolt motor im rebuilding. It appears that it can be done and drilled by yourself. Has anybody installed these caps.? How easy was the drilling process.?

You have to at least line hone the installation, possibly line bore, then line hone. Not normally accomplished with a Black & Decker hand drill. You have to also check the fit in the registries, or some people remove the registries entirely and flat machine the block and line bore/hone finished results.

What I'm saying is it requires a machinist and a machine shop, not a home shade tree operation.


Larger Dave

You have to at least line hone the installation, possibly line bore, then line hone. Not normally accomplished with a Black & Decker hand drill. You have to also check the fit in the registries, or some people remove the registries entirely and flat machine the block and line bore/hone finished results.

What I'm saying is it requires a machinist and a machine shop, not a home shade tree operation.


Larger Dave

I had the Milodon caps installed on my 496. It was also a 2 bolt block.

I thought the Milodon caps were steel? See below.

It requires first fitting the caps to the block....machining on the caps required.
Then the block is drilled and tapped.
Next, line bore.
Followed by line hone.
Next, you have to set the bearing clearances.
Finally, you might need a .005" shorter timing set.

This all cost about $700 in machine shop time, plus the cost of the caps.
Maybe a bit higher than other machine shops, I believe this was the first Rat motor my guy did this on. He has done many small blocks. He uses Pro Gram caps, but for a big block they were expensive. I had already bought the Milodon parts.

I don't think you could install these at home.

The end result however is superior to a factory 4-bolt block.

On the other hand, right from the Milodon Catalog:

'These aftermarket main caps will strengthen not only factory 2 bolt blocks, but also 4 bolts. Unlike the factory caps, these not only have more cross sectional strength, but the real secret is in the angled side bolts!

The side bolts are angled so they pull from the side walls of the block and not the flimsy main web area. A bolt that is angled will require a massive amount of additional load to flex or stretch, let alone break, compared to a conventional straight up bolt. The side bolts heavily load the cap against the register step which stops "cap walk". It is cap walk that causes a great amount of unforeseen bearing damage and horsepower loss.

Milodon main caps are precision machined from high strength ductile material which has the proper balance of strength yet is not too rigid to allow transfer of increased shock loads to the crank and bearings. In this case more is not better when it comes to hardness.

Only .030" of material removal is required upon initial installation, which will allow 100% cleanup on a damaged block. The drill bushing used to drill and tap the side bolt holes is included in the kit. The side bolts can be installed by anyone with a hand drill and a tap. If the block has square main registers, the block needs only a standard align bore to finish the job. Milling the mains is only necessary if the main registers are not square.

All necessary bolts, washers and the drill bushing are included in the center three cap kit. For maximum strength the installation of Milodon main studs are highly recommended."

Ron