Smoking Tire Podcast - Steve DINAN

[SYT_Shadow]

Originally Posted by SFCM3

clevite bearings WITH modified journals AND modified crank...

Originally Posted by kimiraikkonen

SD Autotech (former Dinan service depts) supposedly uses BE Bearings, but claim it's a customer spec for them. Not sure what that means....as the bearings are made by Clevite......so maybe a customer spec from Clevite?

If you are modifying journals and the crank you can run whichever bearing you want. The modifications are precisely to achieve the needed clearance.

The BE bearing is designed for OEM engines, to allow regular engines to achieve the correct clearances

[Green-Eggs]

Originally Posted by Montaver

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...&v=8tS99lrAmOA

This is a very interesting episode if you are a BMW enthusiast in general, but there is a lot about the S65. Starting at 1:10:30 there is discussion about the rod bearing issues (spoiler - he likes clevite bearings due to racing) with interesting tidbits of info I had not heard before. Also stuff about the stroker motors they are still building, S85's, how they strengthen the S65 for forced induction, and some other bits and pieces.

Sounds like he's now doing the same thing Bert has done for his FI engines for the last three years. Bert is friends with the Dinan guys and I know he can't keep his mouth shut about what he does.

Originally Posted by SFCM3

clevite bearings WITH modified journals AND modified crank...

Originally Posted by kimiraikkonen

SD Autotech (former Dinan service depts) supposedly uses BE Bearings, but claim it's a customer spec for them. Not sure what that means....as the bearings are made by Clevite......so maybe a customer spec from Clevite?

https://carbahnautoworks.com/product/s65-repair-kit/

Let me translate this for you. First, yes I can confirm that Dinan is a BE customer. But that's not what Steve is talking about. The missing link was his comment about NASCAR bearing. The BMW P65 race engine uses a NASCAR bearing and journal size of 1.889 inches. S65 is 2.0465 inch journal. When you use a NASCAR journal and bearings, there's practically endless combinations of STD, +0005, +001, +0015, +0020 shells, in addition to oversized shells for damaged cranks. There's also quite a few manufacturers for 1.889 inch bearings. So what Steve's describing is that he's now using that journal on his stroker motors.

Bert told me about the NASCAR journal idea a few years ago...before he started making BE Bearings. Van Dyne recommended the idea to him, but everybody knew that it was too expensive as a "fix" for the public because it meant you had to rebuild the entire engine. That's about when he decided to make BE Bearings.

Bert's next S65 engine will be doing the same thing -- using the same NASCAR journal. He's building a 4.5L flat-plane S65 as his next project. Clevite offered to donate the bearings for the project. All the parts are there, just waiting to strip down his spare block and start putting it together. He bought the cams from Dinan and I know he talked to them about the NASCAR journals when he bought them. Not sure if that was before or after Dinan started using the NASCAR journals on the stroker. Would be funny if that conversation was the idea for doing it to the Dinan strokers. ETA many months, maybe a year away though. We're involved so I'll probably have a thread about it some time in the future.

BTW, this isn't such a crazy idea as it sounds. Clevite makes an off-the-shelf NASCAR bearing for Honda S2000 motors too. Meaning it's 1.889 inches, but S2000 journal width.

[wyatth]

Originally Posted by Green-Eggs

Bert's next S65 engine will be doing the same thing -- using the same NASCAR journal. He's building a 4.5L flat-plane S65 as his next project. Clevite offered to donate the bearings for the project. All the parts are there, just waiting to strip down his spare block and start putting it together. He bought the cams from Dinan and I know he talked to them about the NASCAR journals when he bought them.

I'm listening ...

[Seattle M3]

He is on another league to most other tuners. How many have come and gone over the years while Steve keeps turning out great product after great product. Expensive no doubt but then an M3is more expensive than a Mustang as well and they both “perform” the same! Very interesting to hear about the HP advantages to a dry sump system.

[Green-Eggs]

Sounds like he's now doing the same thing Bert has done for his FI engines for the last three years. Bert is friends with the Dinan guys and I know he can't keep his mouth shut about what he does.

Bert just gave me some more insight into this. Bert said he had a "parts-only" build last year for a guy who lives close by. Originally, the owner was going to build the engine himself, but ran out of time. Bert suggested he use Dinan for the build, and Dinan agreed to build the engine knowing that Bert spec'd all of the parts. I think it's the only time they've agreed to build an S65 on other people's spec'd parts, and I was told it was the first low-compression S65 Dinan built. So Dinan got to see everything Bert did to upgrade the parts for blown motors. Now it sounds like they're building low-compression stroker motors of their own. No biggie, it's good for the consumer.