[njsteve]

It's an old time shop - lots of experience. They do use torque plates for the Chevies but he says from his experience that there is no measurable distortion with Pontiac blocks when bored with a plate or without one. He indicated that it has to do with head bolt location in proximity to the bore walls. He said that the 400 small block Chevies were the worst for bore distortion due to the siamese bore walls and the close head bolt locations.