Doesn't a stroker crank and matching rods end up with a smaller journal diameter and therefore completely different big end bearings? Am I missing something? How was it possible to reassemble the engine with the old shells?

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May I please have the stem from that valve?

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Doesn't a stroker crank and matching rods end up with a smaller journal diameter and therefore completely different big end bearings? Am I missing something? How was it possible to reassemble the engine with the old shells?

Is the crank/rod stretch by 2mm? Lets for argument sake use this number and grow the parts.

Rod: I stretch the rod 1mm. I leave the inserts the same part number as across the board from 2006-2016.
Crank: I grow [all] crank journals 1mm. I leave the rod journals the same.
Insert: I now have a different part number for a 1mm growth at the crank journals between gen1 and gen2 engine cases.

How is a reassembly with old shells the cause? IF... a holed insert was swapped with a non-feed hole insert. This non-holed insert now covers the case with the oil feed hole. I've seen it happen before. Is this the case?... no pun intended.

* Last updated by: Hub on 11/5/2015 @ 7:07 PM *

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There was little indication of the engine acting funny leading up to the seize. I bought the bike used off a guy from my old squadron who didn't have the time to ride it anymore. He was an older dude, a retired master sergeant who bought the bike new back in 2006. Dealer serviced with all the scheduled maintenance, and he put some mods on it, but it's largely unmodified. I picked it up in 2012 with 22K on the odometer, and I didn't even make it to 23K when the engine crapped out (which was about six months after I bought it). He said he never had the valves shimmed, however I doubt it was the valve shimming that caused this problem in the first place. I thought about going turbo, but this engine is finicky enough as it is and I don't have the patience to add a turbo to my list of things to tweak and adjust. Besides, with race cams, 230-240bhp is way more than enough to do something stupid.

On the note of the bearings: anyone have any advice (or know a guy) on sourcing and fitting these damn things in? All the places I've seen online have them as non-returnable, but the shops I've talked to out here have said when they do a bearing job, they order all 4 sets of bearings in all 3 sizes, Plastigage them and see what fits best, and return what they don't use. Taking it to a shop is out of the question, they want $2K just for the labor alone, and I just don't have that kind of scratch, not to pay some jabroni to do something I can do myself.

* Last updated by: VigilanteZERO on 11/6/2015 @ 11:02 AM *

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anyone have any advice (or know a guy) on sourcing and fitting these damn things in?

Just cross reference the case to crank and rods numbers/letters and fit them in that way. Crank is used, but not that worn out you have to pastigage it. The cross ref is close enough... no harm no foul.

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Reading this posting reaffirms why I bought my 2012 ZX14r brand new. No one but me has been riding it.
Didn't 2006 & 2007 have some cracked Frames, too?

Don't let anyone assemble your engine that is still using Plastigauge. There are precision instruments that will get your tolerances within a hundred thousandth when done by a professional. Stay far far away from the man that says he orders ALL the bearings because he doesn't know what he will need. Shadetree hack job is what that will be.

Right on Maverick. The last engine I built (LS1) I tested out plastigauge vs actually doing it with the proper tools, and found the plasigauge to be off by .003".Being that bearing clearance was .0015 that was way unacceptable.

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I used plastigauge to test my camshaft journals. It might be ok for getting a rough idea if that's all you need. If you have to have it perfect...well you can tell right away by looking at a squashed film of plastigauge--it aint perfect.

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Way back in the day plastigauge worked just fine because bearing clearance wasn't as tight as they are in modern engines.

Imagine if I'd trusted the plasigauge when I was building my buddies LS1. Actual clearance as measured with my calibrated tools that I use at work was between .0015"and .002". Now the plasigauge showed me as having.005". If I would have gone to a .003"oversized bearing...spun bearings would have been the result.

* Last updated by: Nastynotch on 11/12/2015 @ 4:28 PM *

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Given the choice, I'd rather use known instruments to measure the dimensions and perform the requisite arithmetic.

The Plastigauge is a nifty idea but I've no reference regarding their quality control. A slight variance in their material equals a significant change in indicated clearance.

If they operate under ISO quality control it would alleviate a lot of my concerns.

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