[Tom Vaught]

Originally Posted by Jack Gifford

I had never seen that configuration of sides of the big ends. Is the main purpose to increase lube flow out of the journal/bearing to carry away heat better? Can you run less side clearance because of it? Does this design have much of a "track record" of success? Thanks.

We did some Bearing/Rod testing one time, Jack, in our "Components Lab" with full instrumentation of the connecting rod bearing and the oil flow.

It was truly amazing how the bearing temp number "grew" as the RPM the bearing saw increased. The oil and temp at the bearing surface massively increased for a doubling bearing journal speed.

We tried the different oil feed locations in the bearing and found that once you had the hydrodynamic film established it was just a matter of keeping the flow volume proper as the rpm increased.

Allowing the hot oil out of the rod bearing was studied and spacers similar to the rod mods Mike has made helped remove the oil both between the rods and on the side closest to the crank fillets. You could remove the oil on both sides of the rod (even with a "paired rod" set-up). I like your Carrillo rod mods better than our spacer deal.

Nice Job, Mike. You are making a lot of good decisions here obviously.

Tom V.