what kind of bearings to use?

[boostedEG]

well awhile back i rebuilt my gsr, and used all OEM Honda bearings, but just recently had an oiling issue and got a rod knock.

now i'm thinking of upgrading to LS internals (aftermarket pistons and rods) and have a few questions...

first of all what brands of bearings do you recomend? i've always heard OEM are best, but i've known several people who had no issues with ACL bearings which are WAY cheaper, any thoughts?

secondly, i know i just use LS rod bearings, but what about main bearings? GSR/LS/other?

[boostedEG]

nevermind all the main bearing are the same.

[hrcDSM719]

Ive had good results with ACL bearings, as well as Cevite 77's. Any sort of tri-metal bearing would be a good idea. And, if you're going to be using LS rods, Id also recommend getting ARP rodbolts, as the factory LS units tend to stretch after repeated high RPM spinnage... Definately check and double checl, then triple check your bearing clearances. You may even want to pull the crank and have it re-cut, balanced, and polished beforehand, and then purchase oversized bearings. There is nothing worse than replaceing peices only to have them fail 100 miles down the road.

Hope that helps man!

[FrankDMS]

^+1 cl-77 (colo crank, will turn and sise bearings/ballance rotating assy 4cyl 200$ incuding clevite 77 bearings) not a bad package deal. Look in the phone book for the #.

[nicklk]

+1 OEM bearings

[boostedEG]

i've always heard not to turn a honda crank. if it spins a bearing toss it in the trash. not too sure why this is, its just what i heard. and by the way if i go with LS rods they will be eagle LS rods, so no worry about stock rod bolts.

[M@]

About 500 whp on stock bearings, here.

[M@]

i've always heard not to turn a honda crank. if it spins a bearing toss it in the trash. not too sure why this is, its just what i heard. and by the way if i go with LS rods they will be eagle LS rods, so no worry about stock rod bolts.

Honda bearings are supposed to be specifically matched to their maincaps and the block girdle according to an OEM color coding system they have on the caps/etc. People normally just get a set of bearings and call it a day, but they're not the right size, etc. so they wear fast. And that's also why you never turn a Honda crank.

[HONDA GHANDI]

They dont wear fast because they are the wrong size, they wear fast because people dont build the block correctly or check the tolerances correctly. I have used Clevite77, Calico coated race bearings, coated and non coated ACL bearings, ACL race bearings and OEM bearings. The trick to making any of these work for the long haul is to correctly match them to the journal they are going into. Precision measuring tools are a must, plastigauge wont get you close enough.

[M@]

Well, I guess I was misinformed... sorry lads.

[HONDA GHANDI]

i've always heard not to turn a honda crank. if it spins a bearing toss it in the trash. not too sure why this is, its just what i heard. and by the way if i go with LS rods they will be eagle LS rods, so no worry about stock rod bolts.

This is partially true, sort of. lol. The honda crank hardening procedure only hardens the outside part of the journal, not the entire thickness of it. When the event of a bearing failure heats this small portion of the surface up and "blues" it, the hardening has failed. Machinists will simply take that section down to the cleanest metal and run a thicker bearing. The problem with that is the surface of the crank has now been weakened and will not stand up to the demands of the tight tolerances that Honda requires. The ONLY way to fix a honda crank is to machine it down past the damage, TIG weld it back up (usually robotically to avoid imperfections) and then re machine it back to its OEM state and nitrile coat it and harden it. Unfortunately this process is about 2x what it would cost to purchase a new crank.

[hrcDSM719]

Damn! Tobi is full of all kinds of useful lil tidbits of info...Ghandi ineed!

[HONDA GHANDI]

15 years of trial an error can do that to a person.