shipo

Meh, "pay to play, or you pray" is simple fear mongering. Folks, there is nothing magic about bearings made for the Honda (Honda does not make their own bearings) when compared to other top quality brands. The fact is, bearing technology is very well understood and very-very mature; "modern" bearing composition was fully developed just before WWII and hasn't changed hardly at all in the last 80 years.

Free Man

JRCivic1

The value in the Honda bearing is getting lost in this discussion. It isn't about comparing the quality of the materials from the OE and aftermarket bearings, although it is true that the Honda bearings are made with the finest grade materials. Mahle/Clevite and ACL utilize similar quality materials in their performance level bearings as shipo has suggested...

The advantage of the Honda bearing is that you can make the BEARINGS fit your block and crankshaft combination and create the oil clearance that you desire... not the other way around. You have the flexibility of seven part numbers that are essentially .0002" thicker at each step from the thinnest to the thickest. If you use Mahle, ACL, King bearings etc., there is only ONE bearing choice and thus, if you are building an engine and targeting a specific oil clearance, you have to modify the block and/or crankshaft to achieve the desired results. Who wants to make a block and/or crankshaft fit the bearings being used ??? Micro-polishing a crankshaft costs money... Line Boring/Honing a block costs money... and these are the only viable alternatives to achieving a specific oil clearance when using a "one size fits all" bearing !!! This idea that one would install a set of main or rod bearings and check for a "Go - No Go" fit is absurd and not to the level of a quality engine build. In addition, if by chance a main cap or rod proves to be outside of this clearance window, what do you do ???

In addition, being forced to modify the block main journals in order to achieve proper oil clearance introduces other issues that are not desirable. A line bore/hone moves the crankshaft center line up closer to the deck. This alters the crankshaft to camshaft event timing and requires adjustable cam gears to compensate for this condition. Increased load is placed on the oil pump drive unless the housing is modified to remove this stress and essentially "center" the drive around the crankshafts new position within the block. Modifying the oil pump also costs money.

So in closing, to install bearings the proper way... do you simply purchase more expensive bearings to work with the block and crankshaft that you have, or do you buy cheaper bearings and then spend a bunch of extra money modifying the block and crank to fit your economical bearing choice ??? Which path is the cheapest ??? Which path is less of a headache ??? Which path has fewer "side effects" ???

You decide.

Free Man

muellersfan

I would mostly agree.

I did all service manual measurements before and after installing aftermarket bearings. The crankshaft measurements were all within specs. Based on plastigage measurements, the aftermarket bearings yielded in spec measurements and the engine continues to run like a top.