ACL bearings - no tang

[bentvalves]

Installing a set of ACL race rod bearings in a turbo v6 engine.

this engine is going to make some steam.

the bearings don't have the locating tangs, and although I know the tang is NOT there to keep the bearing from spinning it just seems odd that they aren't there and it has me a bit worried.

anybody have any poor experiences with ACL bearings that are lacking the tangs?

what say you speedtalkers?

[BillK]

What engine ? Did the original bearings have tangs ? I did a Mazda engine about a year ago that did not have them from the factory. No slot in the rods for them either. The biggest hassle was making sure you had the two halves located correctly to each other.

[bentvalves]

hyundai engine.

viewtopic.php?t=25283

the crowers have the slots, the ACL's don't have the tangs.

gonna run 'em.

[rebelrouser]

I attended a conference a couple years ago, and they said manufactures were going to phase out bearing tangs. Had not run into it yet. I read 4.7 mopars stopped using them a couple years ago.

[PackardV8]

Same here. I spoke with a Clevite rep several years back and he said tangs were so blind people could assemble engines. He also said several more recent engine designs don't have tangs. Saves at least three cents on machining.

FWIW, since Clevite has dropped the Studebaker V8 from their catalog, if we want race bearings, we have to resize the rod big ends to small journal SBC diameter. The first guys to try this thought they had to machine new tang notches in the SBC location. I was the first to just grind off the tangs. Sometimes it causes a problem because a few customers just don't want to believe tangs aren't necessary.

[jake197000]

i would tell the cust.from the start.educate him.he brought the engine to you for a reason.he must trust you judgement.

[ProPower engines]

I attended a conference a couple years ago, and they said manufactures were going to phase out bearing tangs. Had not run into it yet. I read 4.7 mopars stopped using them a couple years ago.

I have not seen bearings with tangs on them in the 4.7 mopar stuff ever. Just saying that the trend of the manufactures
to streamline manufacturing costs is the absence of the locating tangs.

I do it quite often on honda stuff where they only have a single rod bearing option after a crank has been machined
to save a stock crank. They are like legos and a lot of interchangeability was though by the manufacture.

There are assembly jig's available for the most common engines for installing tang less rod shells correctly.
The real issue is a customer that is trying to assemble a engine that is using a race bearing and don't get it when you tell them there is a specific upper and specific lower locations for the shells. Till they assemble and get 2 rod in and it
won't rotate. And they blame the bearings.

I had to fix a customer up with this same issue today.

FWIW I believe KING has the best selection of bearing options to date for either stock moderate and full on HP builds.

[dwilliams]

Slant Six and small block Mopar rods often had the tang slots positioned so the shells were substantially out of alignment with each other, top and bottom...

The first-generation Ford flathead V8s didn't have tangs. The bearings were babbitted on both sides, and floated between the crank and rod. Bruce Crower did that with wristpin bushings on some of his Indy motors.

I've taken apart too many motors where detonation had caused the bearings to clock out of position, even *with* tangs. Almost always rod bearings, granted, but consider if it happens to a main and the oil holes get out of alignment, things could get sharply more expensive.

Some engines... I talked to Joe Fontana while building an engine using one of his aluminum blocks. He said to drill and pin the main and cam bearings if I expected them to stay put.