Insert Bearing Connecting Rods

[CT Jack]

I am getting readily to order new connecting rods with insert bearings. The crank will be precision ground to properly mate with insert clearances.
Question: Is there only one resource for these parts and if so are they suppling all the parts dealers?
Are these parts all made in China and/or India?
Has any one had quality issues?

[Synchro909]

The big ends rarely give trouble so long as the clearances are right to start with. To answer your question, I don't know where the various parts houses get their bits from but I don't think it matters too much - Likely they are all the same anyway. I have run inserted con rods for years without a problem.
As for made in China/India that doesn't matter either. Both countries are capable of making high quality widgets. The bad reputation they have is largely because when ordering from them, often the specifications for the widget are not stringent enough and quality control is lax both over there and when they arrive at the customer's warehouse. A good importer will check that what they get is what they ordered before putting it on the shelf. I've seen poor specifications when ordering lead to delivery of an inferior item and early failure even though they were made to the specs.
I don't think you will regret putting in inserted con rods.

[JohnLaVoy]

Antique Engine in Skokie IL is one manufacture and we have used their rods and they have held up well with over 40,000 miles on that engine. SCAT scatenterprises.com makes a nice looking rod, we have a set being installed on an engine. We posted a video on our You Tube channel showing the rod we will be using. Turlock Machine visit is the name of the video. So go to YouTube.com/modelatimes and look at the video you can see the rod.

[BRENT in 10-uh-C]

Originally Posted by JohnLaVoy

Antique Engine in Skokie IL is one manufacture and we have used their rods and they have held up well with over 40,000 miles on that engine. SCAT scatenterprises.com makes a nice looking rod, we have a set being installed on an engine.

Snyders is yet another manufacturer of rods.

[colin1928]

Over time have used AER Synders Scat Crower REM and a few others they have performed well
I use AER and Synders in stock and semi stock engines never any problem

[Aerocraft]

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Rich Fallucca, Antique Engine in Skokie, IL, recently held a seminar covering his business. The video of his presentation is available on Youtube, Although long, it is very interesting and well worth the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5kDrtTJGsU

Gar Williams

[Bob Bidonde]

Connecting rod bearings have the highest loading due to the nature of their start - stop motion, and due to high cylinder pressure during the combustion phase of the cycle. In my opinion, insert bearings in the connecting rods is a very good idea.

However, converting from babbitts to inserts should necessitate having the engines rotating parts dynamically balanced because of the change in mass of the connecting rods.

[MikeK]

Two comments-
Most all rods, including modern production engines, use the machined steel or aluminum sides of the rod as the lateral (width) clearance interface with the sides of each throw journal.

The original Babbitted rods had wrap-around Babbitt that was machined each time the rod was rebuilt to set the width. The Snyder's insert rods are sort of the odd-man-out. Their rods have inserts with wrap around sides to set the clearance. This adds rotational mass to the assembly and makes the inserts very expensive. For this reason I won't ever use them.

About dynamic balance- An inline four flat plane crank is immune to rod big end mass influences while being dynamically balanced. The crank is balanced without bob-weights and any rod set can be used or swapped as long as the rods within the set have matched overall and big end weight.

Only a multi-plane crank like a V8 requires re-balance with different bob-weights if the rods are changed to another type.

[Flathead]

That engine rebuilding seminar video was great! Thanks for the link.