| My caliper can measure accurately down to 0.001". The largest gage difference translates to 0.0002" which I'll definitely not be able to recognize even measuring with the pointy end of the caliper. However the FSM requires > 0.0016" to the limit and I can measure that much easily between the caliper and plastigage. I found that measuring with the pointy end of the caliper I was leaving scrape marks in the soft bearing coatings. With the coating material being so soft it's not surprising that measurements and tolerances given in the FSM wouldn't be too accurate. I think for my purposes going ahead the new bearings are close enough. If I was planning on pushing this build beyond 7K rpm I'd be more interested, but for now I've already got bigger fish to fry. Please get back to me on whatever you find out regarding the stamps. I think you're right that the color is much more important than anything else as I'm imagining the differences in the bearing grades might come down to additional coating seen in the wear patterns of my originals and those would be appropriately marked with the colors and not the stamps. Because the bearing coatings don't wear linearly differences in grades might increase longevity by 10-20K miles, but under normal ops you'll never notice this difference until you've accumulated over 150K miles. I expect the main bearing wear to be very similar to the conrod bearings. I still believe based on my measurements and as knarly as these original bearings look neither they nor the mains needed to be replaced. Unfortunately the turbo bearings are MUCH more sensitive due to the super high speeds and temps involved, and the failure of which brought me to this conrod bearing replacement in the first place. Your posts have been very helpful in my understanding and I much appreciate it!
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