[HWYSTR455]

Originally Posted by Verdoro 68

The extra clearance King main bearings (MB5511XPSTDX) got here today, and I had the day off, so I spent the afternoon in the garage prepping the block and fiddling with the crank clearance.

The first thing I did was carefully clearance the block for the stroker crank counterweight. Tin Indian says they go for about .080, so that's what I did.





After that, I cleaned the block and went back to fitting the crank. The King bearings loosened things up exactly as advertised. I'm now on the tight side of the spec Butler provided for bearings 1-4, but the rear main cap seems to have much more clearance at .0034. I'm using ARP's torque recommendation for the studs w/ ultra torque lube - 110 ft/lbs on 1-4 and 140 ft/lbs on #5.

1: .0025
2: .0025
3: .0024
4: .0024
5: .0034

I double checked all the mains with plastigage, and they came out to within the ballpark I measured. The rear main looked a closer to .030 with the plastigage, but I trust my mic and the dial bore over it.

I put the Clevite back in and measured at .0015 - as it did the first time. I swapped shells back and forth and remeasured several times and got the same results. As a last resort, I measured the thickness of the shells and the King is .001 thinner than the Clevite (.0974 vs. .0984), that's probably where the .002 difference came from.

So I guess the question is, do I get a standard King set to see if I can get the #5 journal in line with the rest or roll with a looser journal?

With the mains all torqued down, the crank spins easily when you grab it by the snout. It's not a "two finger" spin like Cliff mentioned in an old post, but it takes very little effort. I couldn't even get the in-lbs it took to spin it to register on my digital torque wrench. No indication of tight spots from a few spins around.










Curious how you net out here. I could probably get away with that 236/242. I kept it conservative due to the A/C and power brakes. I also had my eye on making sure the retainers would't hammer the valve spring seals with a higher lift cam, like they did on my #16s. I could be wrong, but I think you can get away with more lift on the Edelbrocks?

Pretty sure the OE spec for #5 is a higher number than the rest, and believe the last 2 engines I had were at 30/32, and the one Olds engine was 35, none had any issues. But I would again suggest speaking to Butler.

As an example, a ran the equivalent to the road paver in a car with PB & AC, no problems, at around 12-13" vacuum at idle. Granted, I did run a dual diaphragm 8" booster, but just to give an idea. Again, granted, that was with E-heads, but you could check, and adjust for the higher lift.

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