You don't know if you bought the right bearings until you measure the clearance. Hope I am not wasting my time explaining this. You don't pick bearings on a guess based on what was in it or whether your cranks is fine. You pick them based on the measurements, with instruments, preferably and plastic gauging material as an alternative.
So many people cry when their fresh build comes apart. Not planning on checking to see if your engine clearances are in spec? Always be sure when you pick up the bearings to buy a box of Klenex to wipe your eyes.

 

Bearings are overrated!..Who needs them?

 

ok, please dont think i'm trying to be a dick about this cause i'm not, but
you are wasting alot of your time by going through all that colored bearing crap! the diff in those bearings are so small that it's just nit pick bull shit! espeacially when you're just freshening up a good running motor!
of course you mic the crank! that'll tell you if the crank is ok or not.
if it's within specs [which it is 99.9% of the time if the motor wasnt knocking ] then you get "AFTER MARKET" std bearings and plastiguage them just to know they're good!
i was a master toyota tech back in the 80's when the japs started all that 5 sizes of bearnings crap, and myself and a couple other techs that did all the engines and transmissions, looked at this real close and saw just how small the diff was in the sizes. we looked for cranks that after playing the lil match the #s game required the #1 and #5 bearings [toyota had #s instead of colors like honda], and used the #3 in both of them, then plastiguaged them. they were well within, not just berely within specs everytime we checked them! we also tried after market std just for shits n giggles and gueess what?! they plastiguaged out the same as the middle sized factory ones did! you see when you're on flat rate, time is money!!! and the parts dept wont keep hardly anything in stock because of their invitory rules, so we got with the parts manager and got him to stock only the middle sized bearings. by doing that we helped him with his invitory woes, and helped ourselves so we didnt have to order bearings and have to wait 3 more days to get a car off of our lifts! also we showed this to the southeast toyota area service rep. and he said good job! go for it!
we did lots of motors that way and never once had a single problem out of them!
about turned cranks,
if your crank is bad, a good crank kit will work fine!
as long as it's a quality kit it wont be weak like you were saying in the other post. we have built lots of motors with them and have ran the crap out of them and sprayed the crap out of them and never had a single problem with them. several of our frinds in tr are running them right now and they're working great!!!

long story short,
if ya wanna do all of that "add this to that,and sbtrct that from this and divide by 2 then find the square root to this then divide by 12" LMAO becuase it's fun for ya, then that's great!, but it's just not that nessesary!

 

oh yeah, you know all about what i'm talkin about!

 

stick to your nissans man!!!!!!!!!!! lmao
by the way i need talk to you about some interior peices for an 82 280.
or maybe ya wanna just buy the car from me.
but yeah, damn ricers mess stuff up, but those of us who know what we're doin dont have any problems! ricers screw it up even when they have all the right stuff!!! lmao and most of them that had problems had them because they had rods knocking and just stuck in some bearings from autozone and then tried racing the next night! and also most evryone in here knows that i've never had any problems with turned cranks even when spraying the hell out of em! i did have a rod bolt problem once just because i didnt change out the stock bolts. that's way more important than 1 1/1,000,000 of an inch in bearings! ALWAYS USE ARP ROD BOLTS !!!!!!
back to bearings though good rule of thumb, if it checks out really well within specs with plastiguage, then you're good to go! and i dont mean in just one spot either! check it at several points as in top/ bottom, sides, and inbetween! if you check it like that, the plastiguage doesnt lie!
oh and i was laughing with jaimie in the other post because in his old black teg, 2 tegs ago i think lol, he had a rod rattling like hell when he would first start it up, so he threw some after market std bearings in it from under the car, and raced it out at 78th that night and was beatin down everything out there! i dont know how, but that damn thing lasted for about a couple months of running and spraying the crap out of it! i guess that goes to show that even riggin it up works sometimes!!!

 

just so ya know..ACL bearing(standard size)(green)mic out great.I just put a set into an ITR and they were perfect.If you dont like the plasti gauge then a machine shop will charge 40 tops to mic all the bearing clearances.I personaly would not use any other bearing but oem acura or ACL.Never use discount or any of that crap and Always stay away from turned cranks. just my .02

 

i dont think he meant to use those bearings on a worn out crank, he was saying that you can use regular bearings IF the crank isnt worn out bad.

 

You can't get consisten readings using pastigage on the sides of bearings. The bearing bore is not a perfect circle. It is oval and bells out at the joint of the bearing shells to lessen the chance of snagging or drag at the critical bearing joint. If you check the big end of a rod, for example, using an inside mic or bore gage, you can see how much wider it is from joint to joint compared to center of bearing shell top to bottom.

As for the colored bearing scheme, the japanese engineering philosophy is to create equal clearances on all bearing surfaces. The idea, or at least I have read, is to improve harmonics and balance at high rpm and to spread and equalize friction loads under extreme rotation. The only way to accomplish this is to have every crank journal and bearing bores identical in size (not practical) or a range of bearing sizes to mix and match to ensure equal clearance across the board.
Keep in mind Honda engines will run 200,000 miles as they come from the factory, even under frequent hard driving. How many guys slapping in std bearings in their garage see nearly that much life out of their bearings?
It is common to see people challenge what the factory does. Sometimes people come up with a better way of doing things, which is the heart of performance tuning.

That said, a build I am working on now just got std sized ACL bearings on rods and mains. This is because of four cranks I had, only one had journals consistent enough in size to keep them all within a couple 10,000ths of each other with the ACLs. These bearings were sent out for dry film lube coating and further massaged with scotchbrite to bring them down to the exact tolerances I was looking for. This engine goes together with every bearing within 1 10,000th of an inch of each other.
It's just a matter of whether you are a meticulous builder or a what-the-Hell type. When the engine is going to see hard use or maximum performance is the goal, I go meticulous.

If I had to worry about the pocketbook or keeping the parts guy happy, I might come up with solutions that involved compromise as well, so I am not being critical, just saying my preference is for precision when possible. Throwing engines together with standard bearings was something myself and buddies always did with V8s. We got a wake up call rebuilding a Buick V6 when we discovered it not only called for closer tolerances, it demanded them. When I got into Hondas, it was crazy critical. There is a reason these little four bangers are so efficient and capable and close tolerances is one reason.

I don't question Honda engineers. They spend the time and money and see it all in torture testing and teardown. Costs and meeting regulations are limiting factors for car makers and whenever you see a maker go an extreme on something like bearing sizes and tolerances, you can bet your ass they are doing it for a reason.

Stocking and engineering bearings in a wide range of sizes is more expensive than just cranking out std bearings for a one-size fits all solution, so I have to figure there is a good reason for it. I put my trust in Honda engineers. Their solid work is why were are all here doing what we do.

It bears repeating: When it comes to the bearing scheme Japanese makers use, they opted for the more complicated, costly way of putting their motors together and that tells you something. Ignore it at your own risk. Lots of guys talk about their workarounds and shortcuts and how they suffered no ill effects. Many times it goes something like: that motor ran for another ......... you fill in the blank but that number usually is nowhere near what it should have been when you think of what marvelous pieces of engineering these Honda engines are - at least when put together they way their creators intended.