Have you ever pinned a maincap. Telling you it keeps them together with out any problems. Thinking for what he is trying to build a 2bolt with studs will be more then enough. Personaly i found that at about the 600 hp mark is where to change from 2 to splayed/pinned 4 bolt.

 

A girdle is useless in comparison to a good 4 bolt setup.

Ford guys can't do 4 bolt mains the the girdle is their only answer to that.

For this power level I would do a 4 bolt conversion to the center three mains. I like the flat 4 bolt register with the outer two bolts splayed.

500hp is basically what you are getting with 440rwhp just so you realize that.

The choice of if you should go to 4 bolt or not is related to the use of the motor and how much that block work is worth to you. A circle track/road race motor that's over 500hp needs the 4 bolts more than a 600hp drag/street motor. If I was going over 600hp on anything I would opt for the 4 bolt since it's worth the money to save the rest of the parts in the motor at that level.

BTW forget about pinning the caps... i've yet to see someone do it succesfully. The bolts and the register hold the cap in place, the pins just weeken the block and caps.

I should take some pictures of the best way to do a block and post them up here.

Bret