Thread: SR20DE engine rebuid time questions thread

no need to find out bearing sizes. Upgrade to acl standards and plastigauge the rods and mains to see if they are within tolerance

if you want to keep it plain and simple.

Change out the rod bearing that is screwed up most likely number 3 and button it back up

Thank you for the advice guys. Yes, yes... the VE swap was often contemplated. But my goal is to keep it as original (just OEM+) as possible. Just to enjoy the car as it was for the next 25 years I own her. In addition, the VE's are getting up there in miles.
My rod knock is from the #1 bearing. Did the pull the spark plug wire and rev test. I still think it was a result of oil starvation on my 66K mile motor from the high G forces on the track. Is there any way to get more oil pumped through the engine? Higher capacity oil pump perhaps? I still plan on tracking this car from time to time...

No sense in throwing away parts that can be fixed or upgraded. Some of the machine shop repairs are cheap. He can always decide to upgrade the bottom end if he wants while in there, and even slap on a VE head for more power.

If it's already knocking you probably need to have it all checked at a local machine shop or start gathering stuff to measure everything correctly. I doubt you are going to get many miles throwing rod bearings in a knocking motor. I bet you need at a minimum a crank polish. Anything with over 100k-125k that I mess with gets new rings and a ball hone now. Ball hone and cheap rings are less than $90. Learned that one the hard way.

I think in '93 or so that Nissan improved the oil squirters on the cams, slightly larger opening to the holes. If you can pick up a the revised part (local salvage yard) from a later model year, that should help. Or you can very carefully enlarge the oiler holes in the one you have now.

There have been more than a few threads on oil starvation, common fixes are larger oil pan, baffled oil pan, crank scrapers (reduces oil mist flying around the engine and puts more back into the pan), even adding an oil cooler (which will automatically increase overall capacity, as well as cooling).

I've searched and can't find any baffled or larger oil pans. Anyone with ideas? I'm also thinking of adding an Oil Accumulator. Read about one in Grassroots a while back. Makes sense to have the extra insurance!