Quote:
Originally Posted by ham_sammich
VAC is just a company that supplies Calico Coated Rod bearings and ARP hardware.
ESS is just a company that supplies Calico Coated Rod bearings and ARP hardware.
(I'm sure there are other third party companies doing the same)
BE bearings "made" their own bearing to spec, and bolts to spec.... Which, if you believe them fixes the bearing wear problem do their conclusion of poor oil clearance.
My observations don't lead me to believe its a clearance problem specifically. Looking at how the bearings wear, I believe it's legit bearing fatigue. If it was a clearance problem from assembly, the wear would be WAY more wide spread, and not focused in consistent, specific spots on the bearing surface. I've seen two different scenarios.
1. Bearing wear focused on the top bearing, centered, and slightly past TDC on the bearing surface- Caused by excessive pressure on the power stroke, generally due to poor ignition timing control, low fuel octane, or both connected with high compression engines.
2. Bearing wear at the parting lines, and on the edges of the bearings- Caused by bearing crush during assembly, potentially over torqued bolts, or outer bearing diameter larger than rod journal inner diameter which causes the ends of the bearings to crush together during assembly.
However, I've check for bore distortion with Calico bearings and OEM hardware, and when torqued properly, to spec, the OEM bolts did not distort the rod end diameter. ( not measurable distortion with a metric micrometer.)
I've installed both, BE and Calico, and honestly cannot tell one from the other. Both do the same job and address the same problem.
( For transparency sake, Im running Calico coated 702/703 bearings and OEM rod bolts, 22k+ miles (112K on the engine) and still going strong.)
Pick what you feel the most comfortable with, and move on. Bashing companies because of the biased crap you read on forums is faulted logic.
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When you say that OEM bolts do not distort the bore, what do you mean by that? Are you saying that you can't see changes in concentricity vs. ovality? What are you measuring this with? I can see an absolutely repeatable change in ovality as I torque the OEM bolts on the 3rd pull. At around 100-105 degrees I usually see the closest reading to concentric, but continuing on to the spec of 130 degrees goes back slightly oval again.
This is measured using a Sunnen GA-2125, referenced against the CF-1126 calibration ring.
Not trying to be argumentative, just trying to understand your statement.