Rod bearings

Burbank95sc

Registered User
I've bought new rod bearings and have a ques;
there is a little difference between stock bearings and new ones. the new ones have a small hole in them but the stock don't.
Can I still use them?

thanks for replys

here is the photo
 

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Burbank95sc said:
I've bought new rod bearings and have a ques;
there is a little difference between stock bearings and new ones. the new ones have a small hole in them but the stock don't.
Can I still use them?

thanks for replys

here is the photo
yes you can usr them, the hole in them is for a dowel pin to hold the bearing in place for use in aluminum rods. most aftermarket rod manufactures make all bearings with the hole. Kevin
 
thanks Kevin for your reply
btw are these bearings good brand or you guys recommend different brand.I've paid $35 for all of them
 
really now aluminum rods ..man do I have some swamp land .. on the side of a cliff for you ...really its for oil ...look at your rods and you will see a hump on the one side above the big end ..called a oil-spurt hole...and squirts oil on to the cyclinder wall to help the rings ...but are not ...drilled through the rod ..on the SC motor ..so you can still use the bearing ....dave
 
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In the case of these bearings the holes are for oil-squirters in the rods. Locating holes are typically centered, and present in both top and bottom shells.

Oil-squirters are used to spray oil on the bottom of the piston crown to cool it in high performance and heavy duty truck applications. Ancient news in the turbo world, kinda surprised the SC doesn't use this from the factory.
 
MercsSC said:
really now aluminum rods ..man do I have some swamp land .. on the side of a cliff for you ...really its for oil ...look at your rods and you will see a hump on the one side above the big end ..called a oil-spurt hole...and squirts oil on to the cyclinder wall to help the rings ...but are not ...drilled through the rod ..on the SC motor ..so you can still use the bearing ....dave


trust me, go to federal mogul or clevite and do the research. if the bearing is groved that is for oil. the hole is for aluminum rods they have an easier chance of spinning bearings since the aluminum expands and contracts greater than steel.
 
Parker Dean said:
In the case of these bearings the holes are for oil-squirters in the rods. Locating holes are typically centered, and present in both top and bottom shells.

Oil-squirters are used to spray oil on the bottom of the piston crown to cool it in high performance and heavy duty truck applications. Ancient news in the turbo world, kinda surprised the SC doesn't use this from the factory.
did you look at his attached picture. the hole is perfectly centered. if oil goes into that hole what the hell good is it going to do? it will just hit the rod and have nowhere to go.
 
Kevin you're wrong, those holes are for the oil squirters that are on the 89-93 rods. They just stopped drilling the holes for the 94-95 engines. True that its a well known fact that most forced induction motors came from the factory with those squirters. I have a couple of factory turbo cars as well as this SC and they all have those squirters to cool the piston domes during boost situations. Keeps the slugs from swelling too fast and sticking.
 
Like Mike says ...but it's the rings that do the work ..transfer the heat from the piston ..and the oil is sprayed on to the cyclinder wall ..not to the underneath of the dome piston ..the oil hole in the rod ..align with the and oil hole in the crank ...oil pressure ...then forces it out at the cyclinder wall..lubricating the piston/skirt ..hence less friction..[less heat] aiding the rings ..to transfer the heat out of the piston before it swells ....dave
 

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No Bob we're not going anywhere. LOL!!!! Mercs paper shows the squirters on the oposite sides of where the SC's squirters are. I've carefully studied this with an actual engine and not drawings and paperwork. Once you get the SC's crank in the proper degree of rotation and line the journal hole up with the squirter its very easy to see that the oil shoots almost straight up the rod beneath the piston top. Now since that oil is fed under full pressure of the oil pump it of course splash's all over the cylinder wall as well, thus killing 2 birds with 1 stone. Other mfg'ers such as Mitsubishi have seperate oil nozzles mounted on the block itself directing the oil straight up to the piston tops. True some engines have had the squirters direct oil onto the cylinder walls but for the most part they were not forced induction motors and I'm pretty sure that practice has stopped. Oiling the walls that heavily severely increases the workload of the oil ring and brought about its own set of problems.
 
yes i agree with some of everybody's views. But according to clevite that hole is primarially used to pin the rod bearing in place to prevent a spun bearing. I don't want to stir things up in here, But that is what i was told from a tech from clevite. plus they explain that on their web site. also a few engine builders have told me that squirting oil on the bottom of the pistons is not a good idea on modified race moters since the heat is so extreme that it will actually cook the oil to the bottom of the piston and causing the piston to actually retain the heat. plus as a second downfall it can cause your oil to break down quickly and possibly harm other parts of the engine. on stock moters this practice may be a good idea.
 
Parker Dean said:
No, it isn't. It's offset toward the bottom of the picture.

wow I feel like an idiot now!! sorry guys for me being stubborn! It looked to me in the picture that the hole was centered. But you are correct. I went to look at all my old parts and realized i was dead wrong. But in my defense when i got my h-beam rods there was no squirter hole but the bearing did have a hole. Thats why i called clevite. I asked him what the hole is for and that is what he told me. which he is right also, just not in our application. he probably didn't realize that the engine had squirter holes in the rod. I just believed what he told me and was to stubborn to hear something else. Its been so long that i dealt with stock rods that i forgot that they did have holes. But thanks for setting me strait.
 
Burbank95sc said:
I've read all replys from you guys and I'm still little confused. So should I use them or not?
yes they are a good bearing. if you believe anything i say now! sorry about all of that. I was thinking of how my rods are and forgot how the stockers were.
 
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Kevin Leitem said:
yes i agree with some of everybody's views. But according to clevite that hole is primarially used to pin the rod bearing in place to prevent a spun bearing. I don't want to stir things up in here, But that is what i was told from a tech from clevite. plus they explain that on their web site. also a few engine builders have told me that squirting oil on the bottom of the pistons is not a good idea on modified race moters since the heat is so extreme that it will actually cook the oil to the bottom of the piston and causing the piston to actually retain the heat. plus as a second downfall it can cause your oil to break down quickly and possibly harm other parts of the engine. on stock moters this practice may be a good idea.

Kevin you're correct in that the heat from the piston tops during boost situations helps to break down the oil. I learned a long time ago to change the oil in a boosted engine every 2500 miles religiously with dino oil. You will get some crusting of dino oil as well if you let the oil change go too far.
I preffer to use synthetic oil in my boosted engines because it does'nt burn and crust, plus it keeps my rings and ring grooves clean and uncrusted.
The biggest problem I've seen with the SC engine and crusting is the rings and ring grooves and not the undersides of the piston tops.
I've torn down about 12 SC engines that all ran on dino oil and every single one with the exception of one engine had stuck rings from crusty carbon. The pistons slid right out of the bores and the rings did not expand, so they were stuck and not really doing there jobs.
I like the synthetics because this will not happen with that oil. But even with that said I change synthetic oil at no more than 3,000 mile intervals.
I know that statement gets the Amsoil following into a frenzy, but I've been using synthetics since 1983 in engines of all kinds such as 2 stroke MX motorcycles and go carts as well as 4 stroke go kart, motorcycle and car engines. I'm very comfortable with my routine and have never had an oil related problem following it. The insides of my engines are always as clean as the day they were built, including the rings and there grooves.
 
Yes you can use them. Some manufacturers of bearings put the hole there, others don't. In my experience, it's only the 89-90 SC motors that had the hole drilled. Newer motors (or factory service parts) do not.

So.. short answer...

Rod with no hole + bearing with hole = OK
Rod with hole + bearing with no hole = BAD

When I first rebuilt my motor I used Federal Mogul bearings that didn't have the hole drilled. 5 of the rods in the set I used had the hole drilled and 1 did not. After 10,000 miles, the 5 with the hole in the rod had literally melted the bearing material off right where the hole was. Without the rod there to absorb the heat, it cooked the bearing material. The rest of the bearing looked perfect and no signs of carbon buildup. The 1 rod with no hole was absolutely perfect.
 
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