Motor is Turbocharged
Bottom-End:
B18a1
Eagle Rods
Wiseco Pistons 9:0.1cr
SRP Rings
Clevite Bearings(STD)

I assembled the motor with Plastigage Measurements
Rod clearance are as follows
From crank to flywheel
(Rod1 .003) (Rod2 .0015) (Rod3 .0015) (Rod4 .0015)

Drained the oil and it came out copperish.
So I ordered 2 brown bearings from honda and ordered 2 yellows from honda
and i will plastigage the 2 sets to see if clearance is in spec.
My question is
Was that .003 to tight for my journals?

 

What was really flabber-gasting, i primed the motor before initial start up and crunk it up it knocked 3 times and after that it started to quiet down then 3minutes of idleing it started back knocking...

 

.003 is way more than service limit. its too loose not too tight. i think stock is somewhere between .0008 and .0015 with the service limit being .002

 

you are correct stock is .00008~.0017. Ill update once i measure the new bearings

 

From my recent experience with some Clevites, I'm expecting you'll find that the .003" clearance one will be the better or best one. My suspicion is that the Clevites (P's, or H's?) are just too soft for the high revving turbo applications. Since you Honda guys have all of those nice ACL Race bearings available, I can't see messing with Clevite... Just FWIW.

 

For turbo cars we shoot for .002

OEM spec is too tight..

Build em loose, only you will know, build them tight, everyone will know.

 

i build my motor(s) for the big end of the oem spec. with oem bearings my tolerences are .0015 to .002. ive been doing it for years with no issues, making 400-450hp

 

Do either of you last two posters ever use Clevites? I'm guessing not.

 

never got a chance to rev it, started knocking on 1 st crank..

 

Oh my. . . . .

When are you tearing it down, I'm very interested in what you find.

 

MAKE SURE you check that rod isn't out of round.

 

a bad clevite bearing....

 

Which one?

 

So if you plastiguage and get .002? Which color rod bearings from honda would you try for an all motor application?

 

on rod journal 1..

 

So the one with .003" was the one that went bad, huh? Well that shoots my theory all to hell then! LOL...

 

have anyone ever found a out of round rod journal hole on new eagle rods?

 

I didn't check mine out to the parting line area or anything since the bearings aren't round out there, but within a reasonable angle mine were within a few tenths of a thousandth.

 

always oem. provides me with the most consistant fit for every journal. i use oem for as much as i possibly can

 

Cool, thanks!

I just went back to OEM for my Neon too. They just hold up SOOOOO MUCH BETTER than those damn Clevites did...

 

will be plastigaging new bearings today..

 

update. test fitted both bearings green seems to be to loose on that 1 journal it measure .003 plastigaged the yellow much tighter!! going to oil so ill update later!!

 

ended up snatching all clevites out... replaced them with oem so far so good!! My take on this is dont use a one size bearing on a motor build unless you have a machine shop that can actually machine them to exact clearance. Here's what ive come up with... a lot of ppl get on here suggesting clevite and acl's, but fail to post their "Real" info. they claim to have used these STD bearings when infact the machine shop put the bottom end together with little maching and probably didnt worry about letting the customer know because the machining was minimal. these bearings are for ppl who have precise measuring tools, Plastigage isnt hard to work but isnt and nearly precise as a micro-meter or other tools with that said clevites are good bearings if installed with precise measuring, with an exception of the lucky ppl who's use them with great success.. Happy New Years to all....

 

When you find someone who has been running them in a high power small displacement engine I'd be very interested in reading about it. I'm only aware of short term success and then spun rod bearings. . . Or in two cases (yours being one of them), the bearings were basically trashed from the very beginning. Very strange.

I just haven't heard stories like that from the OEM bearings (single size as in MOPARs or multi-fit like in Hondas) or from ACL or Kings.

 

Im not arguing lol, im just saying, if you have a machine shop that is building a motor with std 1 size bearings im quite sure they can machine to fit any clearance without having to buy actual oem bearings..