ACL or OEM bearings for D16a6?

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89' Project Civic

d16a6/d16y8 "mini-me"
I'm wondering if I should use ACL or OEM main bearings on my Stock D16a6 rebuild. Any advice will be greatly appreciated.
 
OEM bearings are good, ACL are also good, lot's of people use ACL race bearings when rebuilding. I used standard ACL bearings on all my builds and they've done just fine in all cases.
 
Use OEM! Honda uses a nitrate coating on the crank and bearing surfaces, hopefully you didnt have the crank turned. Do I have to get out my "ACL carnage" pics?
 
What do you mean by "crank turned"?. No, I already saw them which inspired me to post up this thread to see other people's experiences, but I will take your advice considering your experience wasn't so good. I will get the OEM bearings but they cost $136 plus taxes for just the rod bearings. That isn't including main bearings!.
 
Get ACL, they're all "Green"-spec. Install them, check all clearances; disassemble, and replace bearings that are out of spec with Honda bearing. Way cheaper to go this route and ACL bearings work just fine.
 
ACL FTW! listen to the guy who rebuilds Honda Engines on a weekly basis with 0 that's right Zero customer bring backs this far.
 
Well I dont like ACLs.
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As stated before, it's all in the clearance. You can't just throw in ACL's and call it a day; you have to check the clearances. It's the oil that keeps the rod from touching the bearing/journal.
 
I went to drop my stuff off at the machine shop, and I got talking with my machinist. He asked me if I was still thinking OEM, then suggested some Clevite bearings for my build. He knows his shit obviously so I told him to go ahead and order me some. I will take your suggestions and check for clearance issues and if any are out of spec replace with OEM. Is mixing bearings an alright thing to do?. Thanks for the input so far, guys!.
 
Clevite makes very nice bearings; but didn't know they had anything for the SOHC D-series.

Yes, it is perfectly OK to mix bearings; it's just imperative that you have the correct clearance. Clearance is everything when it comes to the lubrication system.
 
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That is really re-assuring to know they are good quality bearings. Although I am doing a stock rebuild I still want the engine to goto 400-500k, but by then I will have my B20:), I hope:p.
 
As long as you maintain your car(not just oil changes, but replacing "wear" parts for given intervals), it'll definitely be able to reach your goals. Some guy hit like 1200000 miles(yes, 1.2 million) on his 92-95 Civic coupe; and it was running perfectly fine when he sold it.
 
Clevite makes very nice bearings; but didn't know they had anything for the SOHC D-series.

I usually hear Clevite in association with domestic engines.

I've always used OEM bearings on my builds, but I've considered using ACLs for my D series. I had to have my clearances perfect, so I always had my stuff put together with nothing but Honda bearings. OEM has the widest selection. Most of the time though, the ACLs will give you clearances within spec without having to get too many replacement pieces. If you want to be a dork and have all your clearances match to the .0001, then you'll have to go OEM. :D
 
Haha, I will be willing to be that dork because I want it done right the first time:p. I don't know if he knows that the company even carries them for the D-Series engine. He has done work to a lot of motors in his time I'm sure. When I was there I saw a block with only 3cylinders. Is that normal?.
 
Probably Geo Metro engine or something.

I don't think the Plastiguages are thick enough to measure without a bearing; so you'd still need ACLs or something to work from.
 
Haha, I will be willing to be that dork because I want it done right the first time:p. I don't know if he knows that the company even carries them for the D-Series engine. He has done work to a lot of motors in his time I'm sure. When I was there I saw a block with only 3cylinders. Is that normal?.

It's not a question of doing it right- the ACLs will still be "right", but the Honda OEMs just enable to you to be an even higher degree of "right" if you're willing to spend the cash to keep buying bearings until you get the perfect fit. ACL built engines last just as long as OEM bearing engines.

Probably Geo Metro engine or something.

I don't think the Plastiguages are thick enough to measure without a bearing; so you'd still need ACLs or something to work from.

Geo Metro, Suzuki Swift, Honda Insight, smart fortwo, any number of oddball European cars or Japanese kei cars (Saab Sonnet I think)- loads of 3 cylinder engines out there. I saw a nice inline-3 in a monster build once in Houston- it was an 18 liter engine.

You definitely need the bearings to Platigage the engine.
 
Yeah, that's for sure. Another question though, when I get this block back will I have to buy my own measuring tools to do the job?. The machinist says he is going to measure everything and telling from his tone of voice and what he was saying, I think he will have all the measurements done for me to just torque/plastiguage everything to specs. and get it going. Is this presumption correct or do I still need the measuring tools?.
 
That's between you and how much you trust your machinist.
 
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