[gtofreek]

Bruce, the rings are Akerly and Childs. The top ring is a heat treated ductile iron ring. Basically, Akerly and Childs version of the "Hellfire" ring. Coated rings like inlaid moly or Plasma Moly or Chrome, can have issues with the face coating coming off in boosted or nitrous apps, so the best bet in boosted and nitrous apps is this ring or the Hellfire ring. It's heat treated and very tough, and can withstand the punishment these apps dish out with nothing to flake off the face.

The main bearings are Federal Mogul 113M. They are the 3/4 groove race bearing. Cleavite's main bearing offering is full groove and I don't like that, especially with an engine of this power level. The rod bearings are Cleavite 758 HN bearing. It is the race bearing but unfortunately, nobody makes a Pontiac rod bearing with a hole in it for aluminum rods. So we had to make a fixture out of an old rod cap to locate the lower bearing shell so we could get the hole in the right place. That was not very easy. Took a couple of hours, and a few bearing shells to get it right. Wasn't as easy as we thought it was going to be because of differences between the aluminum rod and the stock rod we made the fixture out of. Also, the old stock rod bearings were a different width so we had to do it mathmatically, but it wasn't working right. But hey, we have a bearing drilling fixture for Pontiac's now if anyone needs some holes drilled. Jeff made it, he is far better with the Bridgeport mill then I am. He can make about anything in that.

These main bearings already had oil pockets in the thrust face but they cut them all the way through. Seems to me they would have been better if they stopped short of going through, but hey, I never claimed to be a bearing engineer!

Billet cranks are nice because you can make anything you want with a chunk of billet stock, but most people agree that a good forged crank is stronger because the grain is not running in the same direction like a billet. Bottom line is, they can both break. For this 3 3/4" stroke, I think Mark made a good decision. It opened up a lot of money for other things.

Your welcome for the tips.