CAT GIRDLE INFORMATION.

We get many calls about the "CAT new and improved girdle". After inspecting it we thought we owe it to our customers to post what we have found even though this could lead to design improvements with this girdle. We have put many years and a ton of time into continually making our girdle evolve into the highest quality product it is today. Listed below are the problems you will face when installing this brand girdle. The main thing that is attractive about this girdle is the price but the initial purchase savings will cost you significantly more at instalation. If you were to address even the minimalist items below you will be money in the hole

#1 DESIGN FLAW; This is an exact duplicate of my Revision A girdles that i made when nearly a decade ago when we first developed them. These girdles had an inherent flaw in the design that caused them to leak oil. This is what attributed to reputation that girdles leak oil. The crank throw windows were much smaller to add as much "beef" to the girdle as possible. Although that sounds good on paper it causes the girdle to extend into crank area creating a lip for the oil spray off of the crank to hit. This feeds the oil directly into the seams between the panrail portion of the block and the girdle and seam between the girdle and the oil pan. This makes it extremely difficult to get them to seal up and not leak oil. Luckily we only sold a few of these before we realized the problem. We offered to remachine these girdles to all of our customers free of charge. The machine work to fix them is expensive but at the time we had so few of them in the field we were able to absorb this cost. At the rate a select few of the distributors are selling them it will be very expensive problem. ;) This design flaw also makes it so the RJC crank scraper absolutely will not work.Since RJC addressed this problem we do not have any issues related to this problem area.

#2 MAIN DRAINS; The front and rear main drain area of the girdle has drilled holes instead of a slot. We found that although it is much cheaper to drill a couple of holes vs. machining a slot, it does not give adequate drainage in these areas. This is not as critical on the front main area but on the rear it is a must. The rear main on a buick V6 has a tenancy to leak oil anyway without the help on inadequate drainage. This is another area that must be addressed.

#3 PANRAIL HOLES; The panrail holes in the girdle were not in the correct location. We had to slot 8 of the 20 holes to get it to fit a standard Buick 20 bolt block. Once we slotted the hole we could install the girdle but now the counterbore was off from our newly slotted hole enough that we could not use the sealing washers. This took us more than an hour just to get the girdle to fit onto the block. This is just plain unacceptable quality.

#4 FASTENERS; All of the studs are of typical Chinese quality. Nothing ARP here. The thread on the nuts and studs are out of tolerance even if checking to the loosest lowest standard ANSI UN thread tolerances) on the nuts and studs you can see this "slop" just by feeling the difference between the nut and the stud after spinning one of the main nuts on. Shown below in the pictures is the combined result of the poor quality main nut and main stud. We measured close to .015 of slop between the two. This is a huge amount considering how fine the threads are. Even the stock bolts are a much better fastener than these studs. These studs did hold the required 100 ft/lbs of torque but there is significant more load on the fasteners when the engine is running and the crank is spinning some RPM. Will they hold? Only time will tell.

#5 MISSING ITEMS; it did not come with any main stud washers. In order to maintain proper torque you must use a hardened thrust washer or the nuts will loosen over time. I don't know if all of the kits come without these washers but where do you go if you something like this is missing?

#6 LAMINANT SHIMS; There are no laminant shims just one solid shim. This will make the girdle installation very difficult and will  add as much to the cost of installation as you saved buying the china girdle in the first place. In order to get the girdle to work you have to measure what the height of each must be and machine each cap exactly that height. Because the shims are not adjustable like the RJC shims you must also machine the cap much thinner to get the correct height. This fitment of the girdle is the most critical part of the install. It has to be done correctly in order for the girdle to provide long lasting support

How can you tell if it is a CAT girdle or an RJC?
 This question is simple. If it is yellow then it is a CAT girdle and all of the problems associated with it mentioned above come with it. If it has a silver machined finish and is engraved RJC Racing. You can be assured it is one of ours and will not have any of these issues

There are many more issues not mentioned. I could go on and on I tried to limit this information to one page.I just wanted to inform our Buick customers about it. The vendors of the CAT girdle are setting themselves up for a major headache.The RJC girdle has none of these issues because we have long ago solved these problems in the contiuned evolution of our product and our dedicated quest to improve our products and offer the highest quality products available.

to order;

 643 Crestview Dr.
Tooele,UT. 84074
435-882-2839 Jason@RJCRacing.com