Rod bearings look like poop - 85k ESS-Supercharged

[drrust]

Originally Posted by monterey

Doesn't a bearing need to disintegrate to cause problems?

Technically yes, but the cost over overcoming a major failure is significantly more than replacing rod bearings. Even if one catches it as a knock, the crank can be damaged enough to require replacing.

Waiting for a rod to be thrown through the block (there is one recent thread on this) doesn't seem prudent if you are putting significant upgrades to your car.

[L4ces]

Mine were worn down to the copper and my motor is unmodified. I did it at 150K miles; there were no symptoms.

[deansbimmer]

I have never seen or heard of anyone experiencing S65 rod knock being able to simply replace the bearings and be good. They all had unacceptable crank wear that mandated a full tear down, or engine replacement.

I've also NEVER seen a set of S65 bearings come out that looked to have any type of normal wear. To bury your head in the sand and hope for the best seems quite foolish.

[Properstyle]

Originally Posted by Mvy

Looks like the original owner didn't change bearings before supercharging. That's foolish in my opinion.

I supercharged my car at 72k original miles and bearings. I changed my bearings at 92k and my bearings showed almost no wear at all. My car while supercharged saw 7k rpm more than it saw 3k lol. these cars are just hit or miss.

[pbonsalb]

Ill guess pictures of 100 sets of bearings have been posted here. Over 90% of them have looked prematurely worn to me. If it was the other way around, I would be supporting those who say not to worry.

[houston]

Originally Posted by Properstyle

I supercharged my car at 72k original miles and bearings. I changed my bearings at 92k and my bearings showed almost no wear at all. My car while supercharged saw 7k rpm more than it saw 3k lol. these cars are just hit or miss.

Did you post them?

[Properstyle]

were posted in my build thread.

[drrust]

Originally Posted by Properstyle

were posted in my build thread.

In your build thread you don't describe the bearing wear as almost no wear at all. You did throw an expletive in to describe the difference between top and bottom. It looked as if some of the top side bearings initially had "pull out" (#5). That is isolated coating removal in the central region with no wear on the edges. I will say they looked somewhat better than other bearing sets posted.

The question I have is how much longer did you think those bearings would last and do you regret replacing them?

[Properstyle]

Originally Posted by drrust

In your build thread you don't describe the bearing wear as almost no wear at all. You did throw an expletive in to describe the difference between top and bottom. It looked as if some of the top side bearings initially had "pull out" (#5). That is isolated coating removal in the central region with no wear on the edges. I will say they looked somewhat better than other bearing sets posted.

The question I have is how much longer did you think those bearings would last and do you regret replacing them?

"Next I would like to say I was pretty shocked to see how my bearings looked. You can tell the top clearly have more wear than the botton which I think is very common in most cases but the bottom bearings lock damn near new, the only bearing that honestly really concerned me was number 1 and 2 and top of number 6 which you can see whore down in a larger part of the bearing then all the rest. for reference non were down to the copper. My car has 92kmiles as a 2009. I've been supercharged for the last 20k miles I use 10w60, some times shell, sometime liquid moly, some times Castrol but I normally make sure to change my oil every 6-7k miles."

If I knew my bearings looked like they did I would have left them. But They are done now and I guess you can call that peace of mind but again that is why I say these cars are hit or miss. I don't do anything special to my car out side of change the oil every 6-7k. I race the car alot, like really alot, so to see what I did for bearing wear compared to others, I was bluntly shocked. I don't regret doing as I just like working on cars, I've taken my blower kit off just to clean it lol...

[drrust]

When I had my bearings replaced the bottom halves also had almost no wear. There were two tops that also looked good. But the rest had some level of wear. In my case I'm a little troubled by the variations in wear. Also think the "pull out" that is evident in the beginning stages of wear could lead to particles between the two surfaces.

[Honda]

Originally Posted by Properstyle

I supercharged my car at 72k original miles and bearings. I changed my bearings at 92k and my bearings showed almost no wear at all. My car while supercharged saw 7k rpm more than it saw 3k lol. these cars are just hit or miss.

I totally agree with this. These engines are hit or miss.