Out of my 1970 442 street/race car over a thousand passes.
Hmm 3,4,5 barley have copper showing.

 

What do the rod bearings look like?

 

The rods bearings had no damage lol. I still have them i think maybe I should show what they looked like.VR1 20/50 race oil was used. I just can not wrap my mind around the mains only half of the thrust bearing showed any damage and 4 was minor 5 rear main was also slight. But why these and nothing with 1and 2?

 

The clearance on crank was done by the book Joe Mondello. The mains and rods used stock bolts and same with rods. Hi volume melling oil pump stock oil pan. Stock balancer ,stock push rods,roller rockers HS,stock E heads 207 intake 168 exhaust, performed intake, 750 demon carb 461 ci,.

 

Sorry, I don't have the Mondello book handy anymore..... You said by the book, but, I wish You could mic the main journals and see where 1-5 are in the numbers to see if 3-5 are slightly larger than 1 and 2.

Did you run any oil restrictors anywhere?

I know there are way smarter folks than I who might be able to better read your bearings....

Thanks for sharing your experience and info!

 

Not necessarily in this order but;
clearances
align hone (And just because they may be in size doesn’t always mean they’re inline).
Balance-my bet is it’s not as close as it needed to be

Hope this helps.

 

No oil restrictor anywhere. Not sure what journals measured as this was my first build 2001. I assisted my friend he had the mondello book. I did buy one for my next build. These were all standard bearings. I will try to get journal sizes . I remember we used plasti gauge to check tolerance after torqued. Guys say that is not a good idea but it worked on this engine with these passes and around 4 thousand street miles. Car weighed 3750 pounds with me in it. Car ran best 12.50 108 mph 496 lift bullet cam. I think there was more left in it with a better cam and different gear. 355 rear gear posi. 1970 442. Compression is 10 to 1 . If I ever had a complaint it would be heat soak after a few runs this engine did it's job way better than my eye ***** on the tree racing.😂

 

How straight is the crank? Turned correctly and polished? Looks like a big problem with #2 and #4.

 

He said they were std bearings so it was not turned.

Its kind of hard to really tell because of the lighting in your picture. I think what I thought was wear in the center of the bearings is actually a reflextion. I would say the clearances are pobably close but there is either a problem with the align hone or the balance job or maybe both. Still it did ok for 1000 passes. I bet the wear on the bearings was there almost immediately and then they "clearanced" themselves and stayed that way for the duration.

 

no wear on one or two three was edge so was four except wider and five was back edge. I am a dunce! That being said I couldn't measure crank because I forgot I installed new bearings when I posted. Does bearing i still have and show them. This was the factory standard crank. I with Mark balance could be off but unfortunately I am leaving it alone. The car will not be raced anymore . I think under normal driving it will last a long time. Jmo
The lighting was bad with reflections. You have to enlarge picture to see the copper.

 

I would post some HD pictures on Class Racer. They have a solid base of good engine builders with vast experience on the site.
For what was done to the engine, I think 1000 passes is impressive. These engines have a history of self destructing without careful attention to detail.

 

Passenger side bearings

 

Drivers side

 

Scratches from normal wear but nothing you can feel. Except rod bearing #4 in one spot copper showing.

 

Crazy nothing on the other half #4rod bearing.

 

So there you have it. Short block is almost done just painted oil pan. Got ng back out to install oil pump bought a new one. Was seeing pressure drop is why this engine came out. I think it held up good for what it was. Wasn't make nearly the ET it did when fresh still in high 12 second range. Oh I forgot to mention. This car was not shifted it was drove at the track in drive only. The eng was run though 3" exhaust dropped in front of rearend. race dump were capped.

 

Combination of dirt, possibly inaccurate machine work and setting bearing clearance with plasticguage, this is the end result.

 

Maybe! With three thousand plus street miles and these passes who cares. Oh and my first engine build I am happy with what it did.
Gee almost twenty years ago when this engine was rebuilt from factory build.

 

What your seeing here is the rod parting lines pulling in at top dead center, more RPM and it will be worse. The fix for this is oval honing the factory production rods, and of course a lighter piston always helps with this. What kind of RPM did this engine see?

 

5400 rpm 99% I did do a few time only's to see if anything left shifting. Shifted t/o at 5600 found nothing better so I just left it run in drive. Also as stated this is a stock crank with no rework. Rods are stock were only resized.

 

If this engine is going in your new car chances are it will RPM higher through the lights, you might want to clean up the back of the bearings for a little more clearance, now that you know what your working with you can fine tune the bearing clearance.

 

Back to the top this is the numbers match engine to my 1970 442. It is not going anywhere except back in the 1970 442. The motor in the 1970 442 is my second build it is a 468 ci. It will be modified for temp rocket vapor engine to get car to the track this year while building the permanent engine for rocket vapor. This is as cash allows i am not diamon Jim or Mr money bags.

 

I know money is tight because of your Rocket Vapor build!
If it was my numbers matching engine I would lean towards having the crank polished by a competent machine shop.
The key being competent. The reason I say this is guys that build performance cars tend to drive them enthusiastically
I have experience with spun bearings, that's why I'm so impressed with your 1000 pass stock rod std crank 455.
Bearings are softer than the crank surface, but I wonder if any damage might have been done to the surface of the crank given the bearing wear?
What does the crank look like?

 

Crank looked real nice . Like I said with the miles and hammering it with 1000+ passes I just don't care. I think it will hold up just great under normal driving.

 

It's not uncommon to have torsional flex in the Oldsmobile 455 engine block. Typically the average assembly by nature is just very heavy. The cars that these engines go in are heavy as well. What you're seeing is block flex with clearances that are too tight. If you stop the block from flexing, then those clearances that you run.,would be fine for that given HP that you have. A partial fill of the engine block and a mid plate, really makes a difference. It takes the stress off the factory motor mount area. We use the Valvoline VR 10-30 and VR 20-50 in the majority of our engine builds that take place in the shop.

 

I use VR 20-50 Thanks for info.