Has anybody use these bearings on their motor? I'm just curious to see if it's a good brand or bad brand to use. If not then I'm going with ACL.

 

Never used em personally. However my uncle used them in his Chevelle...

 

every Honda engine I've seen with my own eyes (two of which I built) that used king bearings destroyed the crank journals within a few thousand miles.
every engine I've built that used ACL bearings has been bulletproof.
and all the above referred to engines spec'ed out perfectly for clearances on all journals when first assembled.

my own personal car saw 130k miles of extremely heavy abuse on acl bearings and when I took it apart both the bearings and the crank journals all looked brand spanking new still and showed no signs of wear at all visually or measured.

so yeah, I will never ever touch King bearings again. ACL at all times for me.

 

I've used ACL, King, Clevite, Rock Auto bearing brands. Never had a bearing failure so long as the clearance was where I liked it. The few times I did have a bearing failure I didn't bother to check clearances in the first place.

Bearings vary slightly between most manufactures. The biggest difference I've seen are 3 layer and 4 layer bearings shell construction as well as different backing material construction. What does that mean to the average end user? Not a while lot. For someone who is looking for 600+ hp and 9.99's then bearing material and construction are critical. However the most crucial part is making sure the clearance is well within the set tolerance of the engines operating parameters. If not, that's where problems arise and it's always easiest to blame parts and machine shops.

 

Oh and some thing I've notice recently. King bearings have been giving me .0017-.0018 oil clearance on the last 3 sets I've used. ACL and Clevite have both been all over the place. Some giving me .0008-.0010 clearance and others .0022-.0025. I can't explain why, but I put together enough engines a year to see the difference.

 

lol at every motor that has had king bearings ruined the crank. I use king bearings in most of engines we build, being they are on the looser side of honda's fitting. Most of the time they are in the red thickness, acl's are usually in the green, which is in the middle of honda's oem. I'll use acl x's when I need more clearance than what the king's will give. Never have had any bearing issues with King, acl, clevite, or any. As long as you're checking your clearance, and the crank and rods are good I don't think you will have any problems. But OP, I like king's cause they're on the thinner end of oem.

 

that's just my experience. the sad part was the bearings came out looking new still in those motors, only the crank journals got destroyed. it was as if the bearings were made of harder metal than the crank, and had a rough texture and just ate right through the crank.

 

Hmm. In my mind that's impossible. Bearing top layers are much softer than the crank journals. I've pulled engines apart that had copper showing on all mains and rods and yet the crank journals were still perfect and so were the rod tunnels and main tunnels. If the bearing were to have been worn past the copper layer it would have been metal to metal contact. Now we are talking about a steel backing against a hardened crank journal. That will cause some serious damage to the crank

 

Acl bearings or oem honda bearings are best to use. Ive used kings before and didn't liked how thy turned out.I've used acl with good results. I'd pay more for the xtra insurance and quality for longer lasting motor.

 

Thanks for info fellas. I'm gonna go with ACL bearings to be safe

 

Triple check your clearances to be safe.

 

Will do

 

sorry to semi thread jack ya, but on same lines with a standard crank never touched do u guys like to start w/standard acl sized bearings or ????. i would think std to start point to check clearances, then go from there. i normall mic EVERY oem half shell but damn that gets old and seems "small" bit of waste of time for oem rebuild anymore

 

If you check ACL website they show the min/max diameters of both crankshaft journals and rod/main tunnel sizes. They also show the max crown height of the bearing shell halves.

Using those numbers as a reference, I'd mic the rod and main crank journals as well as the inside diameter of all rod big ends ( with cap torqued ) and the main bores ( with main caps torqued ). From there dertermine how much clearance the ACL bearing will give you.

Example:

#1 rod journal = 1.7712

#1 rod big end = 1.8903


Subtract the two and get .1191

Looking at the max crown height ACL lists the H series bearing at .0592 PERS SHELL. Take that number and multiply it by two, you are using two shell halves. We get 0.1184. So now we have

0.1191
-
0.1184
=
.0007

That would be the clearance of that particular rod/crank combo. The math is easy. Actually measuring the crank and rods is a different story. You need precision tools that read .0001 to be able to find these measurments.

But that's how I'd start a build.

 

^^Couldn't agree more.

But I would use steel-backed connecting rod bearings (ACL, Clevite, Honda P72) over an aluminum-backed bearing (King, Honda PR4) due to chance of high-rpm pound out.

 

I had a similar issue w/ King bearings. Spun rod bearings 2 times in a matter of 3 months on my boosted LSV setup. When I rebuilt the 3rd time I decided to run ACL bearings because they were available on the spot, not a week out and it ran fine...until I cracked a piston haha.

 

my personal experience has the acl hx's coming in between oem red and pink, which are the colors im using to get my tolerances around .0018ish. so basically, oem or acl in all the few dozen motors ive put together over the years. only time i really had bearing wear very substantially was one of my rods which had its tolerance at like .0014 on a boosted setup. not doing that again, .0015-.002 for me from here on out

 

Exactly what you said. .0015-.0020 and it will live happy. I don't like to get too picky on brand name. I use what works.

 

I've used King bearings in 2 LSV's, a GSR and a handfull of LS motors with no issues. Always double checked clearances and proper assembly procedures.