#1 Rod Bearing

[tarmon8r]

Has anyone had oiling issues with their #1 Rod bearing on a 393/351W stroker?
I keep eating the #1 rod bearing. This is the second one. see 1st pic First one took some crank with it, see last pic. Had the crank turned 10/10. Got new bearing and replaced the rod, it was to far out of round to fix. Had less than 5000 miles. I spoke with Tim at Coast High Performance. I sent him my orginal rod, which also was from CHP, and he matched me up with another rod since my rod was a few years old. However, since my motor was internally balanced and an older rod, they only had "lighter" weight rods instock. After some deliberation between Tim and my machinist, it was decided to "weld on the end cap" to get the rod to match my weight requirements. see pic. When I reassembled the motor, I double checked the clearances. Spot on. 0.0015
I checked all rod and Mains. Proper torque sequences. ARP Mains 88# w/moly. Rod bolts 63# w/moly as specified by the manufacturer.


Well, after I did all this, the motor started up easily and idled great. ran great. And slowly, the idle got worse. The motor would get harder and harder to start. Then a tranny bearing went. Got that taken care of, put the tranny back in, and the damn thing would not start at all. I did everything. Decided to pull the motor and put the 302 back in just to get it out of my garage so I can do the other things I need to do. This project has taken over year since the first bearing incident, then the tranny, and now after inspection again of the #1 Rod bearing I need some help. It does not appear to gotten to the crank yet. I WILL be taking the crank back to the machinist to get it mic'd for roundness and see what he says. As far as anything else I dont expect much help from him.