im about to havemy motor put together. wondering if im going to gain anything rom using acl race bearings vs oem. my setup is b18c 9.0-1 pistons rods shooting for 400whp

 

Gain anything? What are you hoping to gain? OEM bearings are great pieces. They hold up quite well. ACL's are also great pieces. I have used both OEM and ACL's in numerous builds and I have no complaints either way. OEM has a slight advantage to being able to better dial in clearances. The "standards" that 90% of ACL's are, are the equivilant to OEM Greens. I've mic'd them and confirmed this. 99% of the time, the standards will clearance correctly without any issues.

 

just use the oem bearings so you can build it to closer tolerances... acl race bearings arent bad but you cant pick what size you want with them like you can oem bearings

 

You can get over sized and under sized ACL's... Just putting that out there. There is nothing wrong with using OEM if you feel the need. Both will work great.

 

so your tellin me that the information is out there to order the acl's and get the exact clearances that oem can? i dont think so, acl work but its a cheap way out imo and any block that is being built for the abuse of FI should be built to exact tolerances (not ... "ah its close enough")

 

No, thats not what I said. There are three sizes of ACLs one can order. "Standard" being the most common... There is also oversized and undersized. Thats it.

There is a range specified for bearing clearance which I am sure you are familiar with. I have yet to have ANY set of ACLS clearance outside the "nominal" range. I have approx 30 engine builds under my belt so far and I would say over 50% of them were done using ACL's. Don't let the price of something dictate wheather or not its a quality product. Many, many people use ACL's (and other non OEM brands) in both stock and high hp applications with good results.

 

yes many people use acl and the way they measure them is with green plasti gauge which works fine to a certain degree

ive seen more than enough acl's not clearance out which is why i recommend oem bearings

if the oem colors are all green then sure acls will work great

 

I just put mine tongether with ACL race for the second time. Great bearings, but Ive not heard anything bad about OEM... My block is finished and it spins like butter!

 

ive used clevit77 in my last 2 builds and had to issues. and just like the acl they like the oem greens for size

 

I have never used anything but ACL's.... just ordered a set from Laskey last week for my new motor.

 

wait till you get a motor that they wont work and you will eventually wish that you went with an oem.... atleast thats what happened to me

 

Check the OEM codes prior to ordering. My experience shows browns/greeens to be good with ACL's.

 

if you building motors with this much scrutiny then the machine shop should have done all the work to ensure that all the clearance's are standard so acl's would work perfect

 

OEM..thing with acl on one size bearings are good for v8 if ur crank is all in tolerance and ur block is line honed, hondas come factory with different size crank journals and main caps thats why they offer like 6 different colors/size bearings..

my last block had machine shop put acl and block together, after 4k miles went out, i rebuilt myself and checked the acl bearing tolerances to all 5 main caps and wer like 7thous, 13thous, 11thous, 9thous, and 14thousandths....after i measured and bought Oem bearings and put them in had 1.6thousandths on all 5 main caps. which is perfect and u have equal oil pressure to all...just my experience..good luck

 

I guess I am blessed with a crank that is damn near equal sized across the board, then again my last crank was turned and I still spun my car to 10k without issues so IDK...

 

You dont get it...

There are 6 or 7 different OEM sizes. They are all considered "standard" The non standard bearings are for cut crankshafts. The differences are incredibly small between these OEM honda size. I assume that Honda does this due to different production runs, resulting in slightly different sizes.

ACLs fall within the "Green" OEM honda size.

 

im deciding what to buy aswel, a full set of OEM main bearings for my engine is £220 without postage....thats a lot of doe. i gather if your going to race your engine hard then go OEM, if its a dd with occasionaly racing then ACL should be fine but dont be suprised if you have issues heavy racing on ACL's? is this about right? my latest block came with Blk, brwn/blk, green, black, grn/brwn from the factory...do you think il have clearance issues if i go ACL aka all green?

 

People keep bringing this up, bottom line both are great. What matters is putting the engine together properly. Gap them correctly for your application and crank, use the right oil and change it often, and you will have no issues at all with either. People run 1,000whp on both with no problems. Buy what you're comfortable with and bolt it together. I ran my car with ACL race bearings at 450whp for 30,000 miles and they looked new when I rebuilt the motor. I probably (but didnt) could have reused them... My gaps are a little loose so I run 20w50. No issues 6 years later

 

keep it clean and use whatever gets your clearances right.

 

am i right in saying that black is the tightest clearance? does anyone know what the exact difference in size is between each colour because i dont think my caliper can read the difference, the difference between green and black is going to very little to worry about right?

 

you need a set of micrometers and a bore gauge to measure the clearances.

you will need a ball anvil micrometer to measure bearing thickness

here is a bearing thickness chart

http://www.laskeyracing.com/shop/bearingthickness.htm

 

thats brilliant, thanks for that link. i think i will go with ACL, measure the oil clearance and see what the score is. if maybe one is out of spec then i can get a correct fitting honda bearing and i still wont be out of pocket, you must think its a silly idea but i cant justify £220+ when i can get the same results for say £120

 

before you buy bearings look at the codes on your crank and block

if the codes are all over the place then the clearances with acl bearings will be all over the place and you will need to use honda bearings.

if they are all close then acl's will be fine.

I would not mix brands of bearings, they have different amounts of eccentricity and crush. It will work but its no ideal.

 

i know what bearings my block needs.

• #1= grn/brwn
• #2=blk
• #3=grn
• #4=brwn/blk
• #5=black

is that all over the place? i can see what your saying, my clearances aren't going to be OEM but will this be a recipe for disaster?

 

for those clearances i would run oem, when they are green/brown/yellow you can get away with acls

ive seen too many people have low oil pressure when using acl's on a block that calls for black/blue bearings