Butters "Winter Upgrades". . Starting a Little Early
Forgot to update this page after this past Sunday... Be prepared for an education in bearings.
I finally got some bearings and main caps installed, so I could begin the process of checking bearing clearances. I also wanted to assemble 1 rod and piston, so I could recheck rod to block clearance.
Before sending in for machine work, I sat the Manley crank down into the block, using the old main bearings. Then I stuck a new set in one of the new rods and attached it to the crank, so I could rotate it and find interference spots. Could't put on a piston because it was still a stock bore and the pitons are .010 over.. So I just kinda held the rod end in the center of the bore for a close enough guess. cyls 5 & 7 were the hard hits and then a few areas needed some lighter clearancing. Since I was having it bored and then cleaned, I didn't want to sweat getting chips all in everything.. In hindsight, it doesn't really matter. I still ended up cleaning the snot out of it after coming back from the machine shop. They didn't pull any of the oil galley plugs, so it still needed a deep clean. Big thanks to Tim (RacerJoe) for the cleaning tip to use mineral spirits and a wash down gun. I would normally just use hot soapy water and a pressure washer, but I don't have easy access to hot water at my shop building and I'd have to run about 100' garden hose.
Bearings, bearings, bearings! I really ended up in a rabbit hole on this one. I guess if you know, that's great.. but it was new to me. These are all Clevite #s btw. With a new stroker kit from Manley, you a set of MS2220P main bearings. Once I had them in, I torqued some caps, Mic'd my crank, set the dial bore gauge and had a look to see where things were at. My db gauge was being real finicky .. reading right around .0015 and sometimes a little lower, higher or dead on .0015 again. I'd reset my mic and go through it all again. I just couldn't get it to read consistent and pretty much lost my **** at that point. I then checked with plastigage.. coming in around .0015. At this point, I just ordered a new db gauge and a set of + .001 bearings. The rule of thumb (for race motor) is .001 clearance for every 1" of diameter of shaft. Ideally, I'd like to be just a fuzz under that since trhe car sees way more street time. All of this is so debatable.. some deep conversations have come from this topic.
The rabbit hole was which bearing.. The bearings I are MS2220P that Manley sent with the kit. I initially thought "I'll just HX in place of the P" H meaning narrowed and X is an additional .001 clearance. So a MS2220HX. They're also a little better bearing. They're tri metal, Nasacar design yada yada. Ordered a set through Amazon , along with a fine reading DB gauge. Later in the evening, I began to question what bearings I had ordered, even tho it only made sense to just change to HX. Afterall, the MS2220 is what Manly supplies with all their Gen 3 strokers and they only have one other option and that's for the H bearing (narrowed). It just seemed to easy, so I started asking some questions. One builder told me that the correct bearing for a 6.4 was a MS2296 in either a H or HX for narrowed or .001 over. I found it confusing because nobody could tell me the difference and they all literally spec out the same.. I even called Manley and they said they only stock what was sent for all Hemis. I finally figured out that the 2296 has 2 holes in the top bearing and the 2220 only has 1 hole. The 6.2/6.4 blocks have a groove under the bearing that supplies oil to that secondary hole. I just couldn't figure why Manley only does the one bearing.. was is due to something different with the crank or what. Turns out either will work but the correct 2 hole is better. Whew! SO I have a different set coming now and returned the others to Amazon. Just hoping the new db gauge doesn't show that they're .001 too big now!
Forgot to update this page after this past Sunday... Be prepared for an education in bearings.
I finally got some bearings and main caps installed, so I could begin the process of checking bearing clearances. I also wanted to assemble 1 rod and piston, so I could recheck rod to block clearance.
Before sending in for machine work, I sat the Manley crank down into the block, using the old main bearings. Then I stuck a new set in one of the new rods and attached it to the crank, so I could rotate it and find interference spots. Could't put on a piston because it was still a stock bore and the pitons are .010 over.. So I just kinda held the rod end in the center of the bore for a close enough guess. cyls 5 & 7 were the hard hits and then a few areas needed some lighter clearancing. Since I was having it bored and then cleaned, I didn't want to sweat getting chips all in everything.. In hindsight, it doesn't really matter. I still ended up cleaning the snot out of it after coming back from the machine shop. They didn't pull any of the oil galley plugs, so it still needed a deep clean. Big thanks to Tim (RacerJoe) for the cleaning tip to use mineral spirits and a wash down gun. I would normally just use hot soapy water and a pressure washer, but I don't have easy access to hot water at my shop building and I'd have to run about 100' garden hose.
Bearings, bearings, bearings! I really ended up in a rabbit hole on this one. I guess if you know, that's great.. but it was new to me. These are all Clevite #s btw. With a new stroker kit from Manley, you a set of MS2220P main bearings. Once I had them in, I torqued some caps, Mic'd my crank, set the dial bore gauge and had a look to see where things were at. My db gauge was being real finicky .. reading right around .0015 and sometimes a little lower, higher or dead on .0015 again. I'd reset my mic and go through it all again. I just couldn't get it to read consistent and pretty much lost my **** at that point. I then checked with plastigage.. coming in around .0015. At this point, I just ordered a new db gauge and a set of + .001 bearings. The rule of thumb (for race motor) is .001 clearance for every 1" of diameter of shaft. Ideally, I'd like to be just a fuzz under that since trhe car sees way more street time. All of this is so debatable.. some deep conversations have come from this topic.
The rabbit hole was which bearing.. The bearings I are MS2220P that Manley sent with the kit. I initially thought "I'll just HX in place of the P" H meaning narrowed and X is an additional .001 clearance. So a MS2220HX. They're also a little better bearing. They're tri metal, Nasacar design yada yada. Ordered a set through Amazon , along with a fine reading DB gauge. Later in the evening, I began to question what bearings I had ordered, even tho it only made sense to just change to HX. Afterall, the MS2220 is what Manly supplies with all their Gen 3 strokers and they only have one other option and that's for the H bearing (narrowed). It just seemed to easy, so I started asking some questions. One builder told me that the correct bearing for a 6.4 was a MS2296 in either a H or HX for narrowed or .001 over. I found it confusing because nobody could tell me the difference and they all literally spec out the same.. I even called Manley and they said they only stock what was sent for all Hemis. I finally figured out that the 2296 has 2 holes in the top bearing and the 2220 only has 1 hole. The 6.2/6.4 blocks have a groove under the bearing that supplies oil to that secondary hole. I just couldn't figure why Manley only does the one bearing.. was is due to something different with the crank or what. Turns out either will work but the correct 2 hole is better. Whew! SO I have a different set coming now and returned the others to Amazon. Just hoping the new db gauge doesn't show that they're .001 too big now!