Well, I blew a head gasket in October and haven't had the time to tear things down. With 235,000 miles on the engine I finally made the decision rather and just replace the gaskets to do things right.

I ordered a ZZ4 350 short block on Friday the 11th from Summit and it arrived today talk about a quick delivery. The other parts I ordered arrived the next day, Saturday the 12th.

The short block comes with pistons, rods and steel crank all assembled. You have to add cam, timing set, oil pump....etc. Most of what I have will transfer, but have ordered new parts as well. But you may not know that the ZZ4 is not balanced from GM . So I am pulling it apart to have it balanced.

That is the background, now the questions:

1) Since the ZZ4 is a new motor, can I use the old "standard torque values"?
a) connecting rod caps 45 pounds
b) main bearing caps 80 pounds
2) Is the retainer that holds the cam in at the front of the block torqued?
3) What about the rear main seal...any torque values there?

I am not too worried about the other things. I have torque values on the AFR heads and the SR. This will be a mild build, nothing radical. I will install the Lingfelter 74211 roller cam with 1.6 RR's. I have to change out the springs on the heads. My old 85 with the AFR heads and SR using the stock cam and pistons was at about 346 HP at the crank and 434 lbs of torque. I am guessing this new combination will be 375-400 HP and close to 500 pounds of torque. We will see what the numbers are when I have TJ Wong dyno and burn a new chip for this motor.

I posted this in C4 Tech and all I got was debate about balancing. I know that the factory does a half *** balance. My real questions have to do with TORQUE numbers. Any help is appreciated.

-John