Breathing new life into the 318 in the Scamp!

Reused the factory rod bolts on the rods they came off of.

I'm starting to debate a rod bolt issue and I think I may have had a heat vs bearing issue.

It broke in just fine. No issues at all. Minimal smoke on start up, burning all of the assembly oil in the chambers. Timing was fine. It ran really smooth. No vibrations or misfiring, even after I broke in the cam for 20 min and set idle. I was able to trim 30rpm on the idle speed. It is a very responsive engine.

The one thing that surprised me, though was that I didn't get any reading on the temp gauge.

I checked the lead and it works when grounded out, so the temp sending unit that was on the intake was locked open.

I didn't think anything of it, but the engine did get hot as I suspected it would, during break in, but I have no idea how hot. I'm thinking now that was the culprit, coupled with the bearings I chose.

I used a set of King Si Aluminum bi-metal, because the elasticity is supposed to be more forgiving on the shape of the rod/ cap, like you are talking about, Mr. Ireland.

What I didn't know, until now, after some further research, is that the embedding tolerances of bi-meta constructionl bearings are far less than the tri-metal ones that Clevite, Federal Mogul and other companies use with copper/tin/lead construction.

Newer cars all use bi-metal bearings, because they are supposed to have better reactionary properties, but they are less forgiving. I suppose with the newer iron and CNC RMS inspection surfaces, they can get away with it, but I don't think I'm going back that route.

I think that another crank and maybe even just one replacement rod could do the job with fresh rod bearings. I have access to two cast cranks that haven't been cut, one set of cast connecting rods and one forged crank, balancer and it's matching rods that haven't been cut.

I'm going to pop the caps on the mains anyway, at which point, I'll inspect those bearings and mic those journals against the new crank and see if they need replacing, too, although I doubt it, as long as the new crank is the same, according to the mic.

It was running for less than 10 seconds before I shut it off.

I'll be sure to check the new rods or replacement single (if I go that route) and use a tri-metal bearing, this round.

The good news is that the cam doesn't need broken in.