[Brian Baker]

If you were to view the caps at high rpm under a strobe light, you would see that they "wave" fore and aft in the block (like an undulating flag in the breeze). I used my analogy of the old guys on STAIRS (not stares) so that a layman could understand the concept of what the caps are doing, and what your brace will do when they're all tied together. You can call it a "novel" all you want.

Preloading the center caps so they stay round? Don't the cap fasteners already do that? All your brace is doing is tying all of them together, which is not a bad idea...provided you anchor them to something else besides each other. Anchoring them to the outer bolt holes for a 4-bolt cap might be a marked improvement.

7500 rpm with a 2-bolt block and your girdle? Let me know what it's like to drive over your crankshaft at 600'...I hear it can be a real character builder.

Where's our resident "engineer" 1/2" stud? I'd love to hear what he has to say on this topic.