guillaumeber

Hello guys!

Looking for help/advice here!

I must admit that my car is actually a Camaro, but it has a 327 from 1968 so I often get very worthy advice from the corvette community.

I'm in need of your experience and opinions on this one.

I'm actually refreshing my camaro engine. It's a small block 1968 327 chevy converted with a 350 crank. It will be near stock, with a small cam upgrade, 4bbl carb, stock intake, no headers. I do not have an unlimited budget, which is already busted a lot. I would just put the higher-end bearings and not care about it if I could...

I would be ordering from summit (or elsewhere if recommended). For the moment, I have came across : King, sealed power, and clevite (which starts to get more expensive...) those brands also have different series... for example, Clevite price range for main bearings goes from 40$ to 260$ for the set! What a difference!

I have also came accross the ''summit'' house brand... which is very inexpensive, and this got me questionning. However, I have heard only good things about the summit house brand; from cams, lifters, to rings, etc...

Even saw some ''engine tech'' bearings from rockauto for less than 10$ a set...Ishh

I was also wondering, I know that they are selling 0.01, 0.02 and 0.03 oversize bearings for re-grounds journals, but what about the 0.001, they are usually more expensive... and I don't think it's possible to grind only 0.001 from the journal.. or is it??

I would like to hear about your experience with '' inexpensive'' bearings or anything that is not the TOP HIGH END HIGH PRICE ones. I know that a lot of people could say: I went with the most expensive, and I had no problems... Yeah...I hope so!
But like i said, I am looking for a quality/price compromise... the best ''bang for the buck'' for a non-performance, non-racing engine which will probably do 500 miles/year

thanks a lot!
(This is a re-post from camaros.net, sorry for those on the 2 forums...)

g.b.

guillaumeber

122 views, no opinions? come on!

dugsgms74

Cant really help you with the brands, I just use the basic clevite stuff but I can help you with the .001 oversize. They are for fine tuning the oil clearances, if you measure and find you have a bit too much clearance they are for fine tuning to get the exact clearance you need, more of a racing thing.

Jughead

Bearings is something you don't want to redo....clevite for me. I used only brand name stuff in my build

blue427

I think it would be better for the long haul if you drop the crank and take it to an engine builder(ask around and try to find a local honest one).They will measure it and cut the crank if needed.They can also supply you with the correct size bearings(their price usually falls in line with a retail supplier).The bearings will be of good quality and you will have piece of mind that you bottem end will last.They also check it for straightness and flaws.If it doesn't need cutting they'll just polish it.The cost will be well worth it,their prices usually are very reasonable.This is not the area you want to make a mistake on.

tfi racing

If you need machine work done,just buy the bearings from the machine shop,just make sure they aren't slipping you some of those no-name parts that you referenced.Sure you can save a few bucks by buying them elsewhere,but why risk pissing off the guy that WILL make or break your engine build,an annoyed eye can be sometimes hard to focus when dealing in thousandths of an inch...