Bottom End Buyers Guide - How to Choose the RIGHT Pistons Rods Bearings Studs Gaskets Cranks Sleeves

what compression pistons do I buy should I get h-beams or i-beams do I really need race bearings these are some of the questions that you're going to face when building a performance engine for those of you that don't do this type of work everyday selecting the right parts can be stressful and if you select one wrong part you could experience a catastrophic failure during the process of this video we're gonna help educate you on making the right decisions on the right part purchase for your built this bottom end buyers guide is going to cover seven chapters Pistons rods crank shafts bearings fasteners gaskets and sleeves where they apply the bearings go on the crankshaft and then the connecting rods go on the bearings the rod bolts hold the connecting rod to the crankshaft and then the piston is attached to the connecting rod with a pin the Rings go on the Pistons this whole assembly is held inside the block by the main gaps in the piston section we're going to talk about bore size compression ratio material skirt style rod length stroke and wrist pins in the rod section we'll talk about beam profile rod bolt rod length and the material used in crank shafts will cover stroke weight and material and bearings will cover the bearing size the material and whether or not you need any race or non race bearing in studs and fasteners we'll talk about the material the fasteners are made out of and how to use them correctly in gaskets will cover bore size the thickness of the gasket material and its layers in the sleeve section we'll talk about a repair sleeve a dry sleeve a wet sleeve and wet sleeves that convert your open deck block to a closed deck block there are a lot of guides on the internet that talk you through the process of assembling your parts or even tuning your engine however they all assume that you've already selected the correct parts for your build in my experience many of the mistakes people make happen during the part selection process before it's even time to start learning about assembly selecting the wrong parts could prevent you from being able to achieve your goals or worse lead to a premature system failure the purpose of this video is to fill the information gap by providing an entry level guideline of questions and answers to help you select an appropriate combination of parts for your build goals by the time we're done covering these topics you're anxious uncertainty will be replaced with the educated confidence necessary to make the expensive and important decisions ahead of you because there's so much information to cover this video will be longer than our usual tech tips we've labeled the various sections on a timeline at the bottom of the screen to make it easy for you to take a break and come back picking up where you left off or skip around between a particular section of interest one common mistake I continue to see is when the part selection process gets fueled by impulse and opportunity instead of starting with a well-thought-out plan and sticking to it many of us are guilty of this that gently pre-owned turbo pops up for sale at a price you just can't resist and you buy it without knowing if it's right for your goals because you were afraid to miss out on a good deal or a seller is running a special on an overstock model of injector for a limited time only and you buy them without knowing if they're the right size for your goals or not this leads to a mixture of parts that you probably would not have selected if you'd made a good plan and stuck to it so let's focus on making a plan the first step in making a good plan is to have a goal setting up goals and having a plan can be difficult if this isn't something that you do every day we've gone ahead and made this build folder and once you fill out the questions on the front of the folder you'll have a clear directional what parts you need to achieve your goal so let's look at an example if you have a desired maximum horsepower of 800 horsepower and you have a four-cylinder engine you'll be making 200 horsepower per cylinder so if you look at the chart on the left there's a break point for 150 to 200 horsepower per cylinder upgraded wrist pins are strongly suggested and stepping up from a standard h-beam rod with an upgraded rod bolt is a good idea also essential be making 200 horsepower per cylinder pump gas is not a good idea and we'll be using e85 won't be racing in a class but we will be doing some drag racing with a displacement of two liters the options below upgraded wrist pins and the rod bulb upgrade in the upcoming we're gonna use these answers to pick up the right parts for your build if you can't answer these questions yet there's going to be a confusing amount of options that will all fit a different engine application but without a real goal in mind it's gonna be hard to know which parts are the right ones I mentioned power and fuel together because these to operate hand in hand for those of you that have easy access to ethanol erase cast you're going to be able to run higher compression and higher boost levels than someone that's restricted to a poor-quality pump fuel once you define the power goal and the fuel that you are going to run the engine on this process of selecting the right parts becomes really easy [Music] to start off the piston chapter we're going to talk about bore size the bore is the hole or cylinder of the engine block that the piston rides up and down in in order to have a healthy running engine the piston must fit the bore correctly not too tight not too loose I'll take this opportunity to introduce the phrase piston to wall clearance piston of wall cleaners is how tight the piston fits in the cylinder bore if the piston is too tight it will get stuck in the bore and if the piston runs too loose it'll rattle around now the margin of error here is less than a human hair so it's not something you're going to see with your eyes in a perfect world you buy a standard sized piston slide it in to your standard size block and everything would be fine however chances are the hole in your block has changed size shape and surface finish over time from running it these symptoms of wear will lead to an engine that has oil consumption pore ring seal and power loss [Music] to cure the problem of the SONA rapport that has changed size shape or surface finish over time is to take the engine block to a machine shop or they'll use a boring bar to cut away material leaving this slightly bigger perfectly sized perfectly shaped hole with an ideal surface finish for the Rings to seal on the more worn or damaged the block is the more material than machine shop off the cut away to get it right again and the bigger the hole you'll end up with but the bigger the hole the bigger the piston this is a situation that will call for a larger than standard size piston at this point one of the most common mistakes I deal with is people trying to avoid the downtime or the expense of the machine shop listen the clearances in your engine are roughly the thickness of a sheet of notebook paper it's not something you're gonna see with the naked eye if you purchase a set of standard sized Pistons and you put them in a standard bore block that's been run you may end up with a piston a wall clearance that is greater than what the manufacturer recommends and what this can lead to is a noisy poor ceiling engine so I only want you to buy standard sized Pistons if your machine shop says it's going to be ok remember piston wall clearance is something that you should set not something that you end up with some engines can be made considerably larger than they come from the factory to pick up power however all engines have their own respective limitations when it comes to a displacement increase due to the blocks deck height and bore spacing so the bore spacing is the distance between the centerline of two cylinders you can increase the bore size of the engine block but you can't increase the bore spacing of the engine block as you increase the bore size you'll get to the point where the one cylinder gets too close to the other there's not enough material in between and the block will fail because the cylinders have to have a certain amount of material to have the strength they need to do their job the other issue that you run into is those cylinders get closer and closer together you have a higher chance of having head gasket problems because there's enough gasket material in between the two cylinders if you're looking to increase power by increasing displacement you will be looking at much lower in stock pistons and/or a stroker crank keep in mind that most engine blocks cannot go 2 or 3 millimeters over bore without having sleeves installed installing sleeves is a very involved process and you should make sure that your local machine shop is capable before you order Pistons we recommend that you step up to the next service size with your bore what this is going to provide you with is a perfectly sized perfectly shaped hole with an ideal surface finish for your new rings to seal on when you go to the next service size in the bore you'll have a larger piston and then the sooner or will be machined out to fit that piston correctly leaving you with the correct piss in the wall clearance another benefit of only stepping to the next service size is you're leaving room for future rebuilds if your block is standard for now and you go to 20 and you run that engine for four or five years and then you go to 40 and you run the engine and and maybe it will go to 60 or maybe it won't but you get an additional rebuild if you take a standard sized block and you go to the max over bore you're not leaving any rebuilds on the table and then you'll have to search for a new block when it's time to rebuild your engine again to wrap up the bore size talk we recommend buying the next service sized piston have your block machine leaving you with the right piston a wall clearance for that piston and the correct surface finish for your new rings to seal on [Music] remember early on when we talked about goals and what fuel you would use to achieve those goals this is important when selecting the correct compression ratio for your build the compression ratio of the engine is the volume of the cylinder with a piston at the bottom of the bore divided by the volume of the cylinder with the piston at the top of the bore if you built two identical engines except for one was a high compression ratio engine and the other one was a low compression ratio engine what you'd experience is the high compression ratio engine would make more power have better response and spooled the turbos sooner however higher compression ratio engines are going to make more cylinder pressure and require a higher octane fuel to avoid engine killing detonation this is a safe guideline to follow if you're just starting out if you're an expert in your community or using a highly efficient engine like a Honda K series you can use a higher compression ratio like 10 to 1 on pump gas with boost and not have issues if you add something older like a 6 bolt Ford g63 that came with a compression ratio in the 7.8 to 1 range you wouldn't want to just raise that to 10 to 1 on pump gas because you'd remove all your tuning safety in most cases the safe place to start is the factory compression ratio shown here are three different Pistons that will offer three different compression ratios in the same engine to the left is a dish piston which would be a low compression for a boosted pump gas engine in the center is a flat top which you used for a boosted application the I'd access to good fuel and to the right is a dome piston which you use for a high compression naturally aspirated effort [Music] but a dumb won't give you a high compression ratio on every engine for example an 11 cc dome on an RB 26 Nissan will be less than 8 to 1 compression ratio and on a Honda K 24 an 11 cc dome will be more than 14 to 1 compression ratio so if you have two pistons that are identical except for one of the dish and one is a dome the dome will always offer a higher compression ratio because it displaces more air as technology moves forward and you get into direct injection engines you're now going to see higher compression ratios mixed with supercharged or turbocharged applications however you won't be able to duplicate this in a pump gas environment with a port injected engine so for sake of this discussion we're gonna focus on port injected engines if you plan on running a higher compression ratio than stock plan on using a higher octane fuel so if you're building a fairly modern naturally aspirated engine like a Honda B series or K Series and you're going to use pump fuel you can run eleven to one or twelve to one compression however if you're working with an older engine like a Mustang 2 valve you'd want to stay around 10 to one the majority of our customers that'll be turbocharged for supercharged and running pump fuel who want to stay eight and a half or nine to one compression ratio if you have access to ethanol or race gas you can move up to ten to one compression ratio for what it's worth our white super that's been in the sixes in the quarter mile on ethanol is nine and a half to one compression ratio as you raise the compression ratio your margin for error and tuning decreases as the engine becomes more knocked prone so if you're looking at different part number pistons for your engine with different compression ratios and you're still unsure feel free to give us a call and we'll get you into the right set of Pistons with the right compression ratio the first time [Music] so in the world of performance aftermarket Pistons there's two different aluminum alloys available 26 18 and 40 32 the higher the number the harder the alloy unless it expands as it heats up during use so if you remember back to the bore size conversation we talked about piston to wall clearance the piston must fit in the bore not too tight and not too loose the cold measurement of your piston is different than what the piston would measure if you could measure it while the engine was running because it expands this is why piston to wall clearance is a critical measurement that must be done correctly during your build process [Music] 40:32 is harder and expands less than 2618 this allows you to run a tighter piston wall clearance to have a quieter engine that is less likely to consume oil however because it expands less it's more prone to cracking than 2618 which means the 2618 is the more popular choice for the performance aftermarket [Music] the crown of the piston is designed to reach the target compression ratio and allow for piston to valve clearance with the valve pockets however when you flip it over you'll see there are a few different options out there in the quest for lighter pistons that had less friction manufacturers began removing material from the pistons the challenge lied in their ability to remove material from the piston without weakening the part this led manufacturers to try to move away from the full round and build parts like the FS r and the x style forging classically we have the four round which gains its strength through the material that circles all the way around the bottom of the piston another 14 style is the FS r it uses struts to connect the piston pin boss to the skirt and crown of the piston another style of for Gina is the ex design it uses a single strut to connect the piston pin boss to the skirt of the piston this is the lightest design you'll often find it in high-end naturally aspirated engines [Music] if I were building an engine like a naturally aspirated B series or K Series I'd use the X tile forcing me because I want the lightest piston possible if I were going to turbocharged or supercharged that engine I'd use a piston with more material for added strength whether you decide on a full round or a struggle style piston is more of a preference unlike selecting the wrong compression ratio or bore size which is a critical decision piston selection is also dependent on the rod length and the crankshaft stroke we'll cover this later on in the rods and crank section [Music] the piston pin is a tube shaped piece of steel that connects the piston to the connecting rod it comes in different diameters and different wall thicknesses there are thick wall pins for high horsepower applications and thin wall pins for low horsepower applications the piston manufacturer determines what pin wall thickness are going to ship with each kit some piston manufacturers will include a thicker wall pin than others for the same application regardless of what pin wall thickness comes with your kit you do have the option to purchase an upgraded pin separately it's important that you select the right piston pin for your engine that meets your build plans goals because some Pistons may come with a pin that's only good for 125 horsepower per cylinder and if you're going to run the engine at 200 horsepower per cylinder you're going to experience a failure if you're building a turbocharged supercharged or nitrous engine you're experiencing the spoils of a lot of technology at your disposal and horsepower comes very easy nowadays it's best to buy the upgraded pins if your piston did not come with a set of pins that will live at 200 horsepower persona because you'll be there before you know it if your engines gonna make more than 150 horsepower per cylinder you need to take a minute and figure out what pin wall thickness and what material that pin will be made out of I typically go with a 230 to 250 wall thickness pin unless I'm stepping up in material which will give me the strength of the thicker pin without the extra weight if you're building an engine that's naturally aspirated wear a reduced weight is more important than added strength you may use the standard pin or even possibly a thinner than the standard pin [Music] now we're going to talk about connecting rods first we're going to talk about the difference between beam profile and the weight of the rod one of the most common questions we get about connecting rods is whether or not you should buy an H beam or an i-beam actually there are more options you can have an a beam or an X beam for something before you get too caught up in the beam profile let's talk about how much the rod weighs and how much power it was designed to hold [Music] typically connecting rods that are designed to handle more horsepower have more material and are heavier than rods that are designed for a lighter Duty the challenge of selecting the right connecting rod is often the balance between strength and weight the heavier parts are harder for the engine to turn but often a lighter part is easily overpowered when it comes to eye beams most of them and the performance aftermarket are for heavy duty use you will not find very many lightweight Eyebeam options if you put them side-by-side you can see where the heavy duty rod has more material to add more strength the location of the atom material is crucial the rods thought stronger because it's heavier is stronger because they've added material in the right places where the rod needs it the rod options you'll have access to may vary depending on your application may be the strongest rod for your application is an i-beam or even an X beam or it's just an H beam may be the strongest rod option isn't even necessary for your build to give an illustration of this we can look at a few different categories the first would be someone that's building a very high-powered engine and they need to choose the strongest part possible the other end of the spectrum would be someone that's building a high effort naturally aspirated engine where they want to build with the lightest parts possible and somewhere in the middle there's a guy that's going to build an engine that makes 150 to 200 horsepower per cylinder and there are a lot of parts available in that range [Music] when looking through a list of connecting rods available for your application pay attention to the weight of the rod as much as you're paying attention to the beam profile often you'll be safer on the heavier side of the list for high horsepower applications you can go lighter from there as your power goals decrease the rod bolts are what hold the connecting rod to the crank two halves of the connecting rod are bolted together by the rod bolts and that's what holds it to the crank rod bolts are not infinitely reusable the bolt can permanently stretch over time which will cause it to fail let's take a second and visualize what the connecting rod is doing inside of your engine the crankshaft pushes the piston up the bore with the connecting rod or pulls the piston back down the bore with the connecting rod so the connecting rods life is spent either being pushed or pulled the rod bolts aren't doing much work as the connecting rods being pushed however they're the only thing holding the connecting rod together when it's being pulled so as engine rpm increases the number of times the rod switches from push to pull per second increases this rapid change of direction is often what leads to a rod boat failure it's hard to pinpoint when a rod bolt will fail you have the horsepower of the engine the torque of the engine what RPM the engine is being used to the weight of the piston the weight of the rod the stroke of the crank there are many many factors that can determine when a rod bolt will let go [Music] if you have an engine that you're servicing often rod bolts will be something you'll want to replace you want to follow the manufacturers specification for length and always use the correct Lube and torque so you don't over torque the bolt causing it to fail prematurely the worst-case scenario is a guy that has an engine that has a lot of stroke a heavy rod a heavy piston and he needs a lot of RPM to make a lot of horsepower he needs to buy an upgraded rod bolt another scenario would be an engine that doesn't have a lot of stroke won't see a lot of rpm and we'll make moderate power levels he may get away with a standard 2000 bolt briefly about connecting rod length to then come back to it in more detail after we finished crank shafts but basically there are applications that you'll go to a non factory length rod because you've changed the stroke of the crank to add displacement or you've gone to a non factory length rod because you're trying to alter the rod stroke ratio [Music] moving into connecting-rod material most of the connecting rods in the performance aftermarket are made out of steel however there are some specialty rods made out of aluminum for most of you the right choice is steel it can handle a lot of power and will have a long life during the manufacturing process of a cast connecting rod liquid metal is poured into a mold when that cools back down it's roughly the shape of the connecting rod and it doesn't need a lot of machining to become a finished product the manufacturing process of a forged connecting rod is quite a bit different the steel is heated up and then pounded into the rough shape of a connecting rod from there there are many machining processes that get it down to the final product because there's so many machining processes involved to take it from the rough shape to the finish connecting rod the forged rods are more expensive however much stronger than a cast rod and that's why they're preferred in the aftermarket there are a few reasons why someone would choose an aluminum rod over a steel rod however these are generally reserved for max effort racing applications parts that are designed to handle a lot of power often heavier than stock parts because they use more material the more rotating weight in the engine the harder it is on the bearings aluminum rods are often lighter than the steel rods reducing this rotating weight the light of the parts means less abuse on the bearings the next thing we'll discuss with alumina rods is bearing life the heavy duty steel rod does not act as a very good shock absorber so all the force from the combustion is driven right down the rod into the bearing that's sandwiched between the rod and the crank a simple illustration of this is imagine you're placing the shock absorbers on your car with bricks and you're going to have to deal with all the vibration and harshness is transmitted from the road directly to the chassis in a max effort drag race engine that's using a lot of RPM and a lot of boost you'll find that the bearings in a steel rod engine will have a shorter life span than the bearings in an aluminum rod engine this is because the alumina rod acts as a shock absorber and transmit less of the harshness from the top of the piston into the bearing people that are racing high horsepower max effort drag racing applications often tear their engines down during the season to make sure they can get through their event successfully if you have one of these engines and you're experiencing accelerated bearing wear with a steel rod it may be a good time to move to an aluminum rod to get experience longer bearing life an aluminum rod will slowly change shape over time whereas a steel rod and a healthy engine will stay the same you'll often hear generalizations about how long an aluminum rod will last people will say it will last this many passes or that many miles this is really depending on how you're using the engine and often the aluminum rod will last just as long as the aluminum piston is attached to if you have any other questions about material or what's right for your engine build feel free to give us a call [Music] now we're going to talk about crank shafts the first subject is the stroke of the crankshaft stroke is basically how much the piston is moved up and down in the bore the stroke of the crankshaft directly affects the engines displacement for example we can take a mitsubishi 4g63 and go from 2 liters to 2.3 liters or a toyota 2jz engine go from 3 liters to 3.4 liters by changing the stroke of the crankshaft in the compression height of the Pistons some of these combinations will use a non factory length connecting rod but keep in mind the connecting rod length does not change the displacement of the engine increasing the stroke increases the engines displacement by moving the piston further up and down the bore you are effectively swinging the connecting rod in a larger circle along with this larger circle there is going to be more leverage on the cylinder wall the piston the rod the bearings and the crankshaft [Music] for those of you that have driven a car before and after a stroker kit has been installed you've experienced the enjoyment that the increased response and added torque offer the vehicle it's a very nice driving engine however if you're going to be operating that engine at its maximum engine speed and its turbocharger on its maximum output you get yourself into a situation where the increased stroke can cause longevity problems that you wouldn't experience with a standard stroke engine in some applications people even D stroke an engine this would be reducing the engine displacement using a smaller stroke crankshaft now that we've discussed Pistons rods and crank shafts we're going to talk about how their dimensions interact to fit in your engine blocks deck height [Music] during this discussion you may be asking yourself why don't you just increase the stroke of the crankshaft and the length of the connecting rod well you have to work inside of your block stack height the deck height is a distance from the top of the block where the head gasket lays to the centerline of the crankshaft main journal the deck height of the block is the maximum amount of room you have for your connecting rod length the compression height of the piston and half the stroke of the crankshaft if you were to increase one without decreasing at least one of the others you'll end up with a combination of parts that won't work for example if you increase the stroke of the crankshaft but don't change the compression height or rod length the Pistons will be out of the top of the block and you won't be able to put the head on or the engine won't rotate so now that we know the Pistons compression height the connecting rods length in the stroke of the crankshaft all have to work together in a given block deck height you may ask yourself the question where do we start the easiest place to start is to use your factory compression height connecting rod length and crankshaft stroke and from there you have some options some of the reasons why someone would consider a non factory length connecting rod is if they're altering the displacement of the engine by changing the stroke of the crankshaft or if they're changing the connecting rod length to alter the rod stroke ratio if you're looking to increase displacement of your engine for improved response and increase torque you'll use a longer than factory stroke crankshaft it's possible that there are stroker kits available for your engine this is a prepackaged set of measurements that fit inside of your factory engines deck height but increase the displacement of the engine if you're trying to visualize how an increased stroke crankshaft increases the displacement of the engine just imagine the piston traveling a further distance up and down the bore since the piston is moving a further distance up and down the cylinder bore you have to accommodate this with a change in compression height or connecting rod length often you'll have a shorter compression height piston with a stroker kit to keeping the confines of the deck height of the block so this is another critical decision that you have to make and have made correctly because if you have the wrong impression height piston or the wrong connecting rod length or the wrong stroke you have a combination of parts that simply won't bowl together in function another reason why someone would change to a non factory length connecting rod or change the stroke of the crankshaft is to alter the rod stroke ratio if you're trying to find out what your rod stroke ratio is in your inch and it's easy you just divide the rod length by the stroke of the crankshaft so as we dive into rod stroke ratio I understand this is a long-running heated debate there are engine builders that build high rod stroke ratio engines because they feel that at high rpm the engine will have less internal friction and the solder head can flow better there are engine builders that build low rod stroke ratio engines because they're looking for the torque and response because of an operating range that the engine is run in my opinion on this is if I have a car that's going to be driven on the street with a synchronized transmission I'll take the increased stroke and deal with a lower rod stroke ratio and I'll have more response and more torque driving around if I'm going to the track with the car with the torque converter or a clutchless transmission I'll take a standard stroke or decrease stroke and use a long rod to get a higher rod stroke ratio to lower internal friction of the engine and increase longevity at higher rpm there are some engines that there's piston and rod combinations available that you can change the rod stroke ratio without changing the displacement of the engine it's also worth noting that changing the connecting rod length does not change the displacement of the engine unless stroke has changed also you can pick an engine like a four g63 Mitsubishi and have its factory combination of parts with a 1 7o rod stroke ratio or you can use a hundred millimeter crank and have a combination of parts that yield a won 500 rod stroke ratio or you can use the factory crank and a longer rod and end up with a 177 rod stroke ratio these different approaches are going to be good for different people if you have an engine that you're gonna use on the street most of the time and they're looking for a response you may end up with a 1.5 rod stroke ratio with your 100 millimeter crank however if you are doing land speed racing where the engine has to stay alive at 10000 rpm for a minute then you may have a stock stroke and longer wrong combination so if you're a bit confused and you don't know which way to head remember when we started talking we discussed our goals the goals are really gonna define what turbocharger you buy what stroke crankshaft do you use what fuel you run the engine on and and where you enjoy your engine at we can now touch on the top of crankshaft weight crankshaft weight it won't be much different than the connecting rod weight or the piston weight you want to have the lightest parts available that will survive with what you're going to do with them [Music] typically heavier crank shafts with more material absorb vibration and abuse better over time than lightweight racing crank shafts so if you have a naturally aspirated high effort engine you're gonna want the lightest parts possible and forgo the durability you may need if you have a boosted application just like connecting rods there's not a set horsepower that a crankshaft will fail at you have some determining factors such as stroke if you have an 800 horsepower turbocharged engine that turns 10,000 rpm with a hundred and six millimeter stroke crankshaft it is under far more internal stress because of the leverage versus the same engine with an 86 millimeter crank shot so it's important that you select the correct parts for your build because you don't want to miss match of parts they will work and that big stroker crank does have its place in the market but it may not be in your 10,000 rpm turbocharged engine [Music] so if you're torn between a standard weight crank and the light weight crank just look at it this way if you have a max effort naturally aspirated engine go with the lighter parts however if you have a boosted or nitrous application you'll pick the heavier crank shop because the extra material will offer strength and its ability to absorb vibration and harshness next we'll touch on crankshaft material almost all the crank shafts in the performance aftermarket are made of steel with the exception of some lower-cost cast iron units the differences you'll see in the main talking process of a steel crankshaft or some of them are forged into their basic shape and then the machines are used to turn down their journals to size the other way to do it is to start off with a cylinder of billet steel where the entire cylinder is then machined down into a finished crankshaft some manufacturers offer billet crank shafts because they feel that it offers them better control of the quality of the end result [Music] next we're going to move on to engine variants the first topic is going to be the size if you recall back to the piston chapter we talked about clearances well the bearing clearances in your engine is something you need to be control of because they're highly important bearing clearance is something that you want to be setting and not something that you just end up with whatever you get the bearings are placing your engine between the crankshaft and the block and the crankshaft in the rod the bearings are a cylindrical shape made out of a material that is softer than your block cranking rods their job is to provide an oiled surface for the spinning parts to ride on and not touch each other your engine Marines are aware item and the idea is that you'll replace the bearings without having to replace the more expensive items like your block crank and rods as you may have noticed engine variants come in different sizes even from the same manufacturer there are thinner bearings that will allow more oil to flow between the spinning surfaces and thicker barians that will allow less oil to flow between the spinning surfaces the specific amount of oil between the spinning surfaces is important because you don't want those spinning services to ever contact each other too much oil clearance you'll have a problem and too little oil clearance you'll have a problem so either way you can experience an engine failure if you don't have the correct oil clearance so the reason that the engine bearing manufacturers offer us the opportunity to purchase different size bearings is so that your engine builder can either provide you with the situation where there's more oil between the spinning services or less oil between the spinning surfaces [Music] there are two scenarios that would call for a non-standard sized engine marrying either you've had material removed from your crankshaft or you're altering the size of the bearings to alter bearing clearance the first scenario is if you have to machine the crank just like the Block in the Pistons the crank and the block have a relationship that over time can develop imperfections and the way to remove these imperfections is the machine the crankshaft down to a smaller size requiring a thicker bearing just like the piston bore conversation your crankshaft will be serviced in different size increments if it needs to be turned so there's a 10,000 20,000 30,000 s and so on incremental bearings set available for specific engines and this would allow the machine shop to take the minimum amount needed to get your crankshaft back to a proper surface the other scenario that you would use a non-standard sized bearing is if you are making an alteration to change bearing clearance there are bearings available that are going to be one thousandth of an inch difference so you may get a one thousandth of an inch thinner or one thousandth of an inch thicker and this is basically so you can tune the oil clearance there are engine builders that will use split sets which will have a h-x bearing on one side of the crankshaft and an H bearing on the other side of the crankshaft and this allows the engine builder to work in very very small measurements much thinner than even a human hair because the size difference is so small in this family of bearing they don't require machining so to recap if you're dealing with an engine that has a damaged crankshaft and instead of replacing it you'd like to have it machined you'll end up with a thicker than stock bearing to make up the difference that's removed to make the crank shots correct again if you're working on an engine that the crankshaft has not been damaged you can likely just get away with having the crank polished then you can decide on whether or not you want to get a bearing that is a thousandth thinner a thousands thicker or the standard size for me whenever I'm building an engine I'll generally grab a set of H in H expirience which allows me to step in between the thousands increment so if I have a target rod bearing clearance of point zero zero to five inches and I want to move it to point zero zero three inches I can just move from a splits of H and H X on one journal - an H X sighs and then I'll get the desired clearance I'm looking for [Music] next we'll talk about bearing material there are a couple different options on the market but the manufacturers keep it simple you either have a race or a non race variant available for you if you're not terribly interested in learning about metallurgy just keep in mind the variants are softer than the block crank in the rods so if something is going to where it's going to be the less expensive part to replace race bearings are usually composed of three different metals are going to usually softer than on race bearings non race bearings are two layers and are generally harder than race bearings the harder non race bearing is designed to be used in a factory application where the engine is to live hundreds of thousands of miles however this harder bearing is not nearly as forgiving in a race application where metal on metal contact is likely to occur [Music] now we're going to talk about fasteners fasteners are fairly uncelebrated part of your car however they play a critical role in the vehicle so whether it be the bolts that hold the bell housing on or the bolt that holds the crank pulley on it's a very important part and it needs to be used correctly nowadays you have vehicles that have bolts that are torqued to yield meaning they can only be used once and bolts that can be used over and over again as long as they have not been over torqued in their threads are in good condition it's important that you consult your service manuals to see if your car is using tor teal or the one time used fasteners if you're working on a car that's been worked on quite a bit it's possible that some of the hardware is damaged or have been over torqued so you have to look closely at the threads of the bolts and the threads of the nuts and whatnot and make sure you're not putting damaged hardware back in the car because it'll make it a real nightmare to work on or you can experience a failure due to bad Hardware with things like Maine sub kits or head sub kits it's easy because you can just purchase a brand new kit for your engine however when it comes to things like cam sprockets motor mounts bellhousing bolts fly wheel bolts things like that you need to carefully inspect them and make sure none of them are damaged [Music] when it comes time to reassemble your engine or car and you've purchased a new main stud or head stud kit use the supplied lube and the manufacturer's recommended torque spec in terms of your factory hardware a little bit of oil on some threads goes a long way and you want to use Loctite where necessary the point is you want to follow the manufacturer's tour specifications on hardware don't reuse damaged hardware and take your time when you're reassembling your car so it will be enjoyable and reliable for you and not turn into a headache now we're going to talk about head gaskets the head gasket is sandwiched between the engine block in the head and seals the combustion in the engine it also offers passages that oil and coolant can flow between the block and the head without leaking we're gonna break the head gasket down into bore size thickness the material used and its layers the bore size of the gasket must be at least as big as this owner it can be larger than the cylinder but it cannot be smaller than this owner you do not want the head gasket hanging into the combustion area of the engine it's general practice to order a head gasket that's larger than the bore size on the engine because the engines are cast and sometimes you can experience cylinder shift where the cylinders aren't exactly placed and then you'll get the cylinder where the head gasket is encroaching into the combustion area most head gasket manufacturers consider this the norm and they have the head gasket slightly oversized than the avert eyes bore size on the gasket to help you from incurring this problem [Music] next up is the thickness of the gasket the thickness of the gasket is critical to its performance the thicker the gasket the lower the engine compression ratio will be and the thinner of the gasket the higher the engine compression ratio will be however there are rules that need to be followed because if you go too thin of a head gasket you can create a situation where the piston contacts the cylinder head and if you go too thick of a head gasket the gasket will not be able to do its job well the top of the block commonly called the deck and the ceiling surface of the cylinder head often have to be machined to get you back to a flat surface with the correct finish for the gasket the seal on just like your cylinder bore the machine shop will remove material here to get you back to a flat surface with the correct finish if you have a scenario that your engine block has been decked more than once or a line board more than once it's possible that you won't have enough piston to cylinder head clearance this can often be corrected by a thicker than stock head gasket [Music] now we'll talk about the material using your head gasket then this popular choice nowadays in the performance aftermarket is the multi-layer steel gasket or MLS for short you'll also find some less performance oriented gaskets that are composite material or you'll find some max effort racers that are using a copper head gasket along with earrings to seal in combustion the multi-layer steel gasket has become more popular in the performance aftermarket because it holds up much better than a composite gasket onto the layers and construction of an MLS or multi-layer steel head gasket an MLS gasket is often characterized by the formed shape of its inner layer or layers as they are available in three four and five layer varieties the thin coated outer layers are going to seal the oil and coolant to both the block in the head whereas the formed inner layers are going to seal the combustion once compressed [Music] now let's talk about engine sleeves there are three reasons why you'd go to aftermarket sleeve in your engine the first one is that your engine cannot handle the horsepower that you're trying to make with the factory sleeves the second one is the factory sleeves cannot be bored out to the bore size that you're looking to use and third is your sleeves are not compatible with a 2618 piston in any of these cases what you'll do is you'll take your block to a machine shop where they will cut away the factory sleeve or bore leaving room for the new stronger sleeve that can handle more power and is compatible with a 2618 piston it's important that you understand that sleeve in an engine block is an incredibly invasive procedure it must be done by a machine shop that is experienced installing sleeves and preferably has a three or four access CNC machine if this process is done incorrectly you will end up with a bunch of junk in many engines it takes a properly engineered aftermarket sleeping system to be able to make three or four times the horsepower output the engine did stock and still retain good gasket retention and ring seal some engines will experience cracks in the factory sleeves from the added cylinder pressure that comes with increasing horsepower or from detonation caused by poor tuning or poor fuel quality upgrading to a stronger aftermarket sleeve is common in these applications a good illustration of this is the Hanabi series many common engines can't go over a forty thousand s over bore without compromising their strength in applications like this you can install an aftermarket sleeve that can support your horsepower goals at an increased bore size a couple examples of modern engines that get a big board treatment are the VR 38 and the newer GTR and Hanabi series there are some engines that have a solar wall that's not compatible with the 2618 piston this would be like the Honda s2000 or the Honda h22 these engines use a fiber reinforced for in engines like these an aftermarket sleeve will allow you to use a common 2618 piston there are three different types of sleeves available from the aftermarket the first would be a service or dry sleeve this is when you've damaged a cylinder but you don't want to replace the block and what you're going to do is have a machine shop remove a certain amount of the factory cylinder allowing the aftermarket sleeve the slide in place the second type is a flange sleeve a flange sleeve is installed in place of the factory cylinder liner for example if you had a Honda B series and you were going to install flange sleeves the machine shop would cut away the factory liner but leave the factory aluminum architecture in place to hold it so you'd still have an open deck block and your stronger thicker aftermarket sleeve would be held in place by the factory architecture the third type of sleeve is a wet sleeve they call it wet because all of your factory cylinder has been machined away and the aftermarket sleeve will have a direct interaction with the cooling system of the block the wet sleeve often has an integrated deck design which helps keep the cylinder in line at the top and offers the block more integrity thank you for watching this video we understand it's a lot of information and some of you may have to watch it more than once to kind of process it that's totally ok it's a lot to digest if there are any questions you have or if you just want to reach out and pass this to us and have us help you through the process feel free that's why we're here

Channel: REALSTREETPERFORMANCE

Views: 267,394

Keywords: engine, engine building, real street, real street performance, racing, drag racing, race car

Id: uFsC-N1CeyA

Length: 48min 19sec (2899 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 28 2019