Hey guys! I am about to start my "adventure" of building a motor for my car. However after lurking the forums over the past year I have seen a few people comment on issues with OEM bearings. And like every other "problem" you see in a community of this size sometimes things get skewed out of propotion. Sometimes a small problem wasn't a problem and it was just simply a different issue altogether that looked like a problem.
So I thought it would be a good time to openly debate this topic as a number of us are starting to get ready and / or are putting a fair amount of money into a forged bottom end for higher horsepower applications. There are a number of manufactures such as Dynasty, Full Blown, and others who have "shortblocks" prepped and ready to go. All using OEM bearings. A number of companies are saying the OEM are just fine. But I have also spoked to a number of individuals who swear by the fact that the OEM bearings are a severe problem at 300+ WHP.
This topic can get a tad confusing because you see a number of people running 300+ 400+ 500+ on their cars without any issue from the factory. The reality is that we don't know how much these individuals actually drive at these horsepower levels. So how much of a problem is there with this?
I had started researching bearings and it is not an easy solution as of yet. I know @
Don@Accelerated is currently producint modified rods that fit a custom set of ACL bearings he has worked on which is one option. I also know a local engine builder that has a coating technique to strengthen the rods (Although it is still in testing from what I know). I personally have contacted a number of manufactures.
Kings engine bearings has told me that they wont even start looking into bearings for roughly six months for this car. As they have a large list of other cars that are currently more in need of bearings. Lets face it not many people are really doing builds from the eyes of bearing companies. 50 builds is a very small number for a company to mass produce for.
ACL is closing their factory down in june 2014. This was announced a while back and at this time I don't think they have any desire to produce bearings for this car as there is little reason for them to "innovate" new products when they are shutting down their factory.
Mahle Is currently not producing any bearings. I will call them again today to ask if they have plans to produce for this vehicle.
Accelerated performance has told me they had a number of builds with bearing issues. I cannot find any reference on this forum to these individuals. However a lot of the car community simply is not on this forum.
I know @
cf6mech has had trouble with his build that was built by AWDtuning that was pointing towards rod bearing failure. He has since rebuilt his engine using Don@Acceerlated's modified pauter rods with ACL bearings and as far as I know has had success.
You can follow cf6mech's posts on the topic here as when he was breaking ~400WHP he was starting to have issues.
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showt...t=25673&page=2
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44765
Are there any shops and / or users that have modified engines that would like to contribute info into this debate? I am looking to re-do my entire setup and looking to invest a "hefty" amount of money. I would hate something as simple as a bearing issue destroy my investment and ruin my day.
