Thread: bearing clearance

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the best way is the way i do it. i will tell you. i size the clearance for the job at hand NOs drag .street street /strip . hi RPMs big engine and other things come in to play . i mic the crank put the number down on paper . i set my mic and then set my dial bore gauge to read bearing when its in the housing bore . some play this off say any thing will work on rods you have 0001.5 to 0003. about the same on mains by the book. i hold every thing no more then 0002 and that is from were i want it .not were it come s out so to build them at the leve were i hand fit bearings were i want to see them. your not going to get there with plastigage. but at the end of the day i like to think i build engines like rockets so i may not be the guy to ask i spend alot of time here more time then most and housing bore size,s . i think at pays off.. my stuff works

Pat, you are the experienced machinist that I outlined in the first part of my reply. Not everyone has the experience or the tools or the controlled environment like you have to work in. Some of us have to work on dirt floor garages in the cold, where, even if the mic was just zeroed, it ain't gonna be accurate for very long, not to within 2 tenths anyway, even if the average guy knew how to measure and read 2 tenths. He'll be lucky if he's within 6 or 8 tenths and in the end, it won't matter anyway because he's probably not trying to build a precision motor like you would build one and I hope he has the common sense to realize that.

Just trying to be real here. You can put a motor together using plastigage and it will pull your beater down the road and hold oil pressure if you used the plastigage correctly. If you want or need a precision motor to compete in some venue of racing or if you simply have the money to buy the best motor you can, then contact Pat and let him build it. End of story.