Thread: Need your opinion on these worn rod bearings

thats a lot of wear for the mileage. I would agree with Ben that this motor had more miles on than you think.

This particular engine was bought early 2009. Besides it was very clean (and came with iridium plugs) which showed the owner cared for the car. Here's pic of it when i received it




On the other hand, this is what you typically receive from the big sun...




It seems owners in Japan don't change the oil from one point on, when they decide they will scrap the car to get a new one. That's why (at least here in Chile) it's not easy to get a hold of a clean one. Overall I think the engine had the 50k judging on things like wear on the distributor rotor and the overall color inside (Not black! like the second one) which I returned to the imported BTW.

I try to document everything for future reference. I think I did most of that damage. Although I don't have pics for the upper bearing, this were the bottom ones when I received the engine (and bearing checked it).

BTW, the car had UR DE modified Pulleys (The smallest/lightest of them all) and then the Gspec. I never ran it with the OEM damper and always with me Fidanza flywheel.

Sprung clutch, or solid?

Don't be sucked into the "all Japan motors are around 60k miles" myth. It's not true. Not even close.

Here's the 4th motor I put in the SE-R. It had ~100k miles.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/1916740_241999095099_1490906_n.jpg?oh=f0838c3c2f6087bc2759a53204490415&oe=54CE7C7C&__gda__=1422678173_368d76ce8a69256cabe06a63278aae77
https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/1916740_241999105099_4292597_n.jpg?oh=aff25f1054f569b740ded8105e66c34a&oe=54903AA2&__gda__=1418948931_44f096e41c454c205aa53e4346f2797c

Looks clean (And similar to mine). So, yeah... maybe it didn't had 50K but it didn't had 150K either. Maybe halfway sounds more real. It all depends on the maintenance (oil changes). The clutch was JWT pressure plate with B15 disc (nothing radical) Basically the first step above stock.

Would I've gotten away with slapping some ACLs and call it day on that crank?

Exactly.

The sprung clutch likely helped keep the harmonics from being worse.

Absolutely. Those bearings were certainly not bad enough for you to have seen damage to the crank (out-of-round journals from hammering) so barring any other issues a bearing replacement would have had you good for another hard 30-90k miles.

bearings looked pretty worn....
i've seen old engines with 150k miles look better.
Same with the staining of the engine on those pics. POOR oil change intervals.
My p10 was spotless when I removed the VC to do the gasket and install cams. That was 90k miles, all miles by me with oil changes often. Now happynole has that car.

Doesnt even look like wear. The bottom bearing looks to still have the coating that comes on them from the factory. Normally all that coating wears off and the bearing is shiny like the rest of them. Most of the wear would be on the upper bearing and those are all shiny which indicates the coating that is supposed to come off, is off. I see nothing abnormal about the wear. Looks like it was a healthy engine with lower mileage being like I said, the coating hadnt worn all the way off yet

Nº2 upper shows some cooper on the right side thou.