My son and I are pricing out parts to put a 400 sb together. Looking a Jeg's the have CL77 main bearings for about $45 and Speed Pro for $92. Are Speed Pro bearings that much better or has CL77's been degraded to econo bearings. What are some good brands and what should we be looking in bearing these days?

If you're running a forged steel crank with the larger fillets, the Speed Pro bearings are the way to go, they are narrowed to clear the fillets. If you are using a cast iron or cast steel crank the cheaper tri metal bearings are all you need. Stay away from the aluminum construction bearings.

Whats included with the bearings? It sounds like the CL77 (clevite 77) come with just the main bearings. And it sounds like the SpeedPro come with main and rod bearings.

Read the description and tell us what it says.

The description only mentions main brearings. Speed Pro Duroshield Competition Series Coated Engine Bearings is what I'm looking at. Only using a a stock cast crank, so I just need regular brearings from what Rustbucket says. So unless there is a lot of booing and hissing from the crowd I'll just go with that.

booing hissing booing hissing booing hissing booing hissing .........J/K

ok,ok i'll go back in my corner....gezz

Yuppers!! I just dropped about 4 bills on rings and inserts... this stuff is getting expensive!!:eek:

The wise man would spend a little extra and get coated bearings from PolyDyn (http://www.polydyn.com/) they don't list them on the website right now; but if you call they sell coated rod and main bearings

Look into King's from Powerhouse!!

Here.........

http://www.kingbearings.com/

Darn good bearings, imho!!

pdq67

Alecular=aluminum=crap on the website, listed as OEM style. :rolleyes:

With the millions of engines operating perfectly out in the world with non coated bearings, that is a waste of money for his application. When we pull apart various race engines and the bearings could be reused, why bother with coated bearings? (I do reuse my FM race bearings, keep them in the same location, new bearings would only cost me money I don't need to spend)

Since the majority of bearing wear happens on startup when there is no oil pressure, a coated bearing should last longer, and if there is ever an oil starvation issue they'll give you a few extra seconds of buffer time.
Its cheap insurance

Since the majority of bearing wear happens on startup when there is no oil pressure, a coated bearing should last longer, and if there is ever an oil starvation issue they'll give you a few extra seconds of buffer time.
Its cheap insurance

True enough in regards to insurance, but the one time I looked into buying them, "cheap" didn't really apply to what the coating costs. LOL
As long as assembly lube is used and the oil pump is well primed, there shouldn't be any issues. What would be interesting is if anyone has done a test to see how long the coating lasts in a oil starvation environment compared to an uncoated bearing.

I have had two experiences with issues while running coated bearings that although nothing like a test at least gave me some comfort in the extra cost.

Around 4 years ago I lost the bottom of the oil pickup at the strip. Went through the traps and looked down and zero pressure. Drove back down the turn down lane and less than 5 PSI. Shut the car down checked the oil, restarted and 20 PSI. Added 2 additional quarts and drove home, 1.5 hours. Had very low pressure the whole way but it never knocked. On teardown the bearings were in VERY rough shape with some way down into the copper. None of the coatings was really left on the mains but the rods were scraping into it pretty well.

Two years ago I sucked an intake gasket (burning oil and leaking water) and developed a leaking head gasket (water into the crankcase) on Power Tour between Springfield and Nashville. In Nashville it was a no go on finding replacement parts so bought two cases of Royal Purple Racing oil, and fillled two gallon jugs with water and started the 10 hour ride home.

Stopped for gas not when we needed to but when the water temp gauge indicated we were running real low on water. Filled the radiator, added a quart of oil to the milky concoction in the crankcase, topped of the gas, filled the water jugs and kept on a truckin.

Made it home and tore the motor down. All the bearings looked poor for sure BUT in this case all the coating was still on although it was quite a rough scuffed surface. In this situation I don't think standard bearings would have survived.

At PRI this past year I had the pleasure of talking about coatings with the Dart Company, over quite a few bears after the show. Dart now provides a coating service and the guy I was talking to used to be one of the principals for Polydyn I believe, or Calico I can't remember. Anyway, of course he's a big proponent of the coatings. His most interesting story though concerned the work they do with Top Fuel and Kalettas cars in particular. Top Fuel I guess has an issue of so much heat being creating in the clutch pac that they burn up mains which can cause engine failure, of course. They began coating the bearings and this provided that extra protection where bearing issues have now been solved, at least according to him.

From a power standpoint I can't say we see any difference on the dyno with coated versus non coated bearings. With the fully coated motors we do, crank, pistons, heads, oil shedding and so forth, we see considerable gains, 20 to 30 on the Late Model motors.

This past fall I went with a fully coated piston due to piston pin sticking issues and crushed ring land issues, I'm suspecting due to my tall pin height in combination wtih mild (so to speak) detonation, and that eventful Power Tour trip home burning antifreeze, oil, gasoline and air. Will be interesting to see if there is a difference after a year or so. There dam well better be is all I can say for what they get for the coatings.