Thanks for the reply.
I am not doing the machining myself, but I do all of my own blueprinting and building. I am not mounting billet caps, I have stock caps and have been carefully measuring the quality of my last align hone which turned out to be very poor to say the least. I'm seeing up to .0005 taper, and huge amounts of out of round (like up to .0015). To check whether or not the machinist honed without the pan rail bolts in, I checked that too, and it was no better.
My girdle has been ground flat and I have discovered a small difference in the heights of the caps that would certainly load the caps differently when bolted down (I can rock the girdle slightly). It also changes the clearance to the pain rails, which then further distorts the main bearing bores once the pan rail nuts are torqued down.
I'm certainly finding that the quality of machinists out there is lacking. I have gone through three and they have each been unable to follow simple instructions. One of them has done several 231s even, although I don't know how many were girdled. I'm beginning to wonder if it is possible to find one capable of a proper line hone on a girdled 3.8 at all. I am pretty sure the ones I have used did not re-adjust the girdle to pan rail clearance after taking material from the parting line to perform the align hone
I actually stumbled upon turbodave231's align hone video on youtube a few days ago, very informative. In his video the SBC being honed allows for individual caps to be loosened as they approach spec while others still need more of a cut. How is this achieved on a girdled 3.8? Seems to me like you wouldn't be able to loosen any caps and only end up with what you get with all of them tightened. Also, when taking material from the parting line, is this usually the same amount from each cap?
The method I am using to space the girdle is to use individual spring steel close tolerance shims (like washers) which is a method used for girdle fitment on other engines. I guess my original question should have not been whether they are all at the same exact height but rather what tolerance should I expect. I suppose one method would be to lay a machinist's straight edge across the cap registers in the block but that is one tool missing from my box.
Any thoughts appreciated,
Pablo