After checking my rod and main bearing clearances I have found that my mains are at .003" (.0001" below max) and my rods are at .0015" ( .0005" above minimum)

Will these clearances be ok or should I try to find or do they even make rod bearings for a 22RE that are .001" above std.?

I am thinking about using 15w-40 oil. Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks
Ken

did you replace the bearings?

it should be fine. you can run heavier oil if you want, but 10w30 will be fine.

Yes, This is a complete rebuild, new crank, rods, pistons, bearings etc.

The reason I am considering 15w-40 is that I have been reading and hearing that many of the oils on the market no longer have or have greatly reduced the anti wear additives.

It seems that most new cars today, have roller cams and don't have as much of a need for the anti wear stuff. The problem is, our engines do need this stuff or it can cause the cam to wear out sooner. It appears that the oils made for diesel engines ie. Delo 15w-40 etc. still have the additives our engines need.

Yup, delo 400 5w-40 by chevron, its one of the few commercially available oils left out there with the various anti-wear additives that flat tapet cam engines need. Here in canada you can get it at UFA, not sure where else though.

Ken, they make oversize bearings. You're already in there, so get them done correctly. Check your crank size.

Get your bearings from www.engnbldr.com

I'll have to give him a call and see if he has any that are .001" oversize. It is a new std./std. crank so I don't want to grind it 010".

I don't think it will be a problem the way it is, but, if I can find .001" oversize bearings, I will just use them on 1 half so I will gain an extra .0005" for a total of .002" clearance.

I just got back from the machine shop. They are adding 47mm x 39mm valves to go with my port job. I had hoped to pick up my head today but it turns out that the valve springs that were in the head only had a seat pressure of 40lbs (they barely had 12,000 miles on them) so it looks like I'm needing new springs.

On a plus note, they said that they have seen all 5 stages of LC Engineering heads and my port job looks like their stage 3 port job. If the truck doesn't make any power this time I think I may start looking at a 4.3 or a Supra engine.

That's interesting.. I assume the crank mics to spec? If not, send that thing back.
I bought "reconditioned" rods for my 22RE - bronze magnafluxed, checked out, verified OK for around $120 for all 4.







Ted's got valve springs also. If you email him, he'll provide you all the options for spring pressures including double valve springs.



Has your head been bench flowed?
Even a very well tweeked 22R won't make the power of a 4.3.. +25 hp over stock seems to be the "round about" limit for most modifications without doing radical things..
They're good little motors though.. tons o' torque.

After checking my rod and main bearing clearances I have found that my mains are at .003" (.0001" below max) and my rods are at .0015" ( .0005" above minimum)

Will these clearances be ok or should I try to find or do they even make rod bearings for a 22RE that are .001" above std.?
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>>>*I prefer to get readings in 4 decimal points before I will start to do any real fitting. The best plastigage will only tell you you have the right bearing in the box. Seeing variations of .0010" in a block that has been through numerous heat cycles is perfectly normal.

Far more accurate is to overoil with 30W and rotate the shaft to read the clearence at the oil wedges, but that takes a bit of practice to see and feel. I reach for my 2.5X glasses and my snap gauges when I am being very fussy.

I also wouldn't consider .0030" to be out of the ball park since that is what we see typically when installing a shaft that has been run but simply polished and reinstalled.

I will wager we have a few jillion out there running just fine at those clearences, and .0015" on the rods is actually a happy number, exactly what we like to see.

A brand new crank offering .0030" is a bit surprising since that is 1/2 a thou over what we have seen inhouse, unless the machinist repolished it or something, some polishing belts will remove a tiny amount of material.

But sorry, there is no .001" undersize bearing available in any brand I know of for these engines. Still, I wouldn't be concerned, those specs should run just fine.. I would hang it, bolt her up and see if she will run..*EB

Thank you for the replies.

I hurt my knee at work a couple weeks ago so I have been on crutches and that has caused a 2nd problem being that I can't bring my parts to work to re check everything.

Before I got hurt, I checked the crank, rods and pistons and I was very impressed with the quality and consistancy of everything. Total crank run out was less than .001" and all rods and mains were the same with the exception of 1 main that had a .0003" taper.

Since checking everything, I have had the block bored .040" over and the mains aligned honed, the rods were resized when the ARP bolts were installed. I assembled the engine with the bearings that came with the crank and rebuild kit so I could measure piston/deck heights before getting the block decked. I also but a slight dimple in a rod jounal so while everything was being balanced, I had the journals polished.

The new bearing measurements are with a new set of Clevite 77 bearings, not the originals. If I didn't have a bum knee, I would take everything back to work and mic them to get down to the 4th decimal, but that is imposible right now so as much as I hate to, I must use Plasti-gage. I need to get this truck running, it has been down for almost 2 months and summer is here and I want some miles on the engine before I load the truck with camping gear, a boat and head into the mountains.

I'm happy with my main bearing clearance being on the loose side but was concerned with the rod clearance since it was on the tight side.

This 22RE was the first engine I had that used light weight 10w-30 oil (also the first engine that someone else rebuilt for me) and when I pulled it apart, I never saw bearings in such bad condition. Lets just say, I feel more comfortable with looser bearings and heavier oil and I'm still torn between 15w-40 and 20w-50, gads, I've had engines that I ran straight 60 weight in <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/scared.gif" alt="" /> Old habits are hard to break.

I will be installing a real oil pressure gauge this time so I will know how many pounds of oil pressure I have instead of going by the stock half way gauge.

Ted, do you know what pressure your pumps show at idle and around 5500 rpm?

Also have you shimmed the pressure relief valve on your pump to increase pressure? If so, how thick of a shim for how much increase?

Thanks for your help.
Ken

With most of my engines being built in the late 70's and 80's I never had any of my heads flow benched.
I really don't remember my friends, no matter if they were 9500 rpm Midget, 8500 rpm big blocks, 9 second 1/4 mile or Micky Thompson type offroad rails, having their heads flow benched either. I think the biggest reason we didn't was because there just weren't many places that did flow benching back then.

I must say that I have built some newer engines with after market heads and when I plugged the head flow numbers into Desktop Dyno, along with different cams, the resulting power the engines made were impressive when the engine was assembled. It takes alot of guess work out.

I have considered getting this head flow benched, but most likely won't because of lack of time and the limited number of cams available for factory fuel injected engines. If it was a carbed engine, I would be more inclined to have it done because I wouldn't need to worry about pleasing a computer to make the engine run right.

Thank you for your help.
Ken