So, my daughter put together the bottom end of the engine today... assembled the rings (she'd actually done that a week earlier), and we installed the main bearings, installed the crank, installed the main bearing caps, and installed all the pistons facing the right way with the rings all properly spaced etc... and torqued everything down to spec per the service manual.
The ONLY thing that made me somewhat uncomfortable, were the Mahle / Clevite main bearings. The set we ordered was Mahle/Clevite MS-1733P. We got them from Rock Auto, and they're advertised everywhere and the 1985 Fiero 2m4 Iron Duke is one of the engines listed as being compatible... which is why I ordered them. They show them as good for all 5 years of the Fiero. Anyway, the issue I'm concerned with is that the large circle opening for the oil passage did NOT properly line up with the hole on the bearings. I'm attaching a picture below of the bearing set (basically exactly what I have):
As you can see in the image, I put a red circle where the oil passage hole in the block lined up with the bearing. Make no mistake, oil absolutely can get into this passage and will spread around, etc. The hole from the engine block lines up properly with this long "open" slit that goes down the center of the bearing surface. But just eye-balling it, it seems like only 80% of the oil will properly flow through there. The other two large holes you see in the bearing... they don't line up with anything on the engine. It makes me think that they've designed this bearing set to basically work with several different kinds of engines.
Am I OK?
Note, when I look up other sets of bearings on Rock Auto (cheaper ones), the holes in the bearing surface are actually smaller than the holes that I'd get from the Clevite bearings...which makes me think this is all totally intentional.
Thoughts?
(here's an image of a shitty set of Engine Tech bearings. Note how small the hole in the upper bearing is, which effectively is actually smaller, if not almost the same size as the Clevite that I installed)
Thanks guys... comparing to the ones online... I think I'm actually "OK" ... but just want to know what you guys think...
[This message has been edited by 82-T/A [At Work] (edited 03-17-2024).]