351w crankshaft help

new tank. pumps lines, carbs. all new. he said...he set both engines too tight because he didn't figure the 140 degree thermostat...

not buying. but fingers are crossed

ok...we swapped in a new crank. all is good. testeded boat up to 50mph/4000 (needs more prop I believe), and the port engine stuck a valve!

back to machine shop, redid valves on that engine (too tight in guides) and hope to never go back there!!!!

now sorting cooling system. waterpump vibrates and off comes hose to engine. questioning mounting as the factory setup is a real 'Debbie Downer' because of the vdrives and deep v

new development...just heard results of magnaflux of crank. 1-1.5 inch crack. I'm guessing caused by dropped valve of 1st engine...but dunno

sounds like the cause of whole mess.

Best news I've had in a few weeks.

Since the Crankshaft is aftermarket you might consider having it ground .010 undersize.
Any oddities would show up on the crank grinder.   A crank polish will probably cost $40 while a grind and polish might be $100-$120. Money well spent to have peace of mind.
This crank ate a set of main bearings o the surface is compromised right now and will at least need a polish so a grind/polish is not a big step up.
AER in Dallas is well known and builds thousands of engines for GM, Ford, Chrysler, Nissan and Mazda.   They know how to grind a crank with proper finish.
For many years most of the GM rebuilds sold at the GM dealerships were built by AER.

edit: I posted this before seeing the above post, yet I still stand by my post. Duane

MrMcD wrote: The engine turned hard right from the machine shop

There is NO way that .001 out on the crank scrapped this build. I doubt that the builder could duplicate his .001 error in the crank checking it the way that he did. Guys .001 is nearly nothing in a span of 24 inches. I still feel that there are two contributing factors that must be resolved before another build is performed.

1.   Verify that the block is straight. I highly suspect there in lies the problem (needs align bored) At the very least it should have be deemed a good block to build on.

2.    Have someone check this guys work or take it elsewhere. He obviously dropped the ball when he sent an engine out the door that was destined to fail.

Tight rotating assemblies don't get better.   They get hot and seize. This guy holds all the credentials to be a "back yard hack" (in the words of our Grand Wizard)

Warranty or not I would not be comfortable with another job from that assembler. NO good builder will ship an engine that is "tight" on rotating.

Common man? The engine assembler has a responsibility for his work. If the dang thing won’t turn, it is clear to me he failed to do what he was hired to do. A common man has little to no knowledge as to what reasonable resistance to turning over the engine might be. I don’t think there’s shared blame. I think it’s poor workmanship X 10.

Get a jury of common men—they will help plaintiff prevail.

I guess I could have read it better. I'm sure they know better than I, Good luck and thanks for keeping everyone informed.

Quick question. When the block came home from the machine shop did you guys pull all the oil plugs front and back to wash them out before building? I think Ford has them yes? The plugs that fill the ends of the oil passages in the block. I blast a few whole cans of brake clean thru those and the crank ever since I lost a new build to dirt 30 years ago. Never assume that because it was tanked that its actually clean. You would be surprised at the *************** that comes out a "wrapped and ready crank.".

yep

my hindsight is 20/20

Gary S wrote: Just to clarify Craig mine is not a stroker but a standard LH 302 automotive crank now running RH

👍👍👍

ok...so engine idle oil pressure kept going down.. 4/38 vs cw engine 40/60.. Finally pulled at 5 or so hours. never over 3k. Of course, Duane says anything of 5 seconds is gravy!!!!!

machine shop says looks like crank surface is destroying bearings.

Crank shop says main #2 out 1 thousandths. magnetic.

several places say grind/polish directionally, including Clevite.

2 marine engine builders I was referred to commented about the directional polishing. One of them (and Mr. McD) said only debris would cause damage that quick.

I visited with mechanic that set up the marine stuff and worked with running engine on stand and such (with me). This motor was difficult to turn over from the beginning. required special cables, and made us question batteries when on our jerry rigged test stand.

Several folks are running auto stroker kits in their sbf ccw applications over several years. GaryS. TrBenj. one of the marine engine builders from the far North. Apparently non issue.

AND...this was the third motor, as the 2nd grenaded on cam breakin. Machine shop thinks dropped valve.   I think holed cylinder. He warranted. 25 minutes run time.

So, in light of all this....slight bend in crank combined with wrong polishing direction caused issues imho. Grenadine of second motor may have caused bend in crank.

get crank ckd and directionally polished and straightened.
closely ck block, line bore as necessary.
replace oil pump (and bearings and redress custom cam)

that's what I plan to talk with machine shop over. btw, he assembled both (well, all 3) long blocks to oil pan and intake.   Boat restorer, his mechanic brother, and I took it from there. They are both friends of mine. Although I rebuilt the 390 in my Ranchero, I was so overwhelmed with the dollars being spent on the restoration of the boat, I decided to get expert help on the engine assembly.

Thank y'all so much!
Craig

Duane in Indy wrote: [QUOTE=428CobraJet] My ccw (reverse rotation) csst stroker 351w is eating its main bearings in 5 hours (less than 3000 rpm)./QUOTE] For the last 10 years, and hundreds of engines, our engine life expectancy average was between 4 and 5 seconds. We buy pistons 100 at a time .   I think you are doing great at 5 hours. (had to add a little humor to your issue) Good luck on the next build, hope your guy finds the source of the failure.   Duane

8,000+ HP would be an amazing experience -- even if it was just 5 seconds...

let me visit machine shop first!

thanks again for all your input. And Mr.McD, thanks for putting so much into your response.

I think we've got a plan.

I'll hopefully be posting happy news in a few months.
Craig

Work had me on the road this week and missed this thread.    
I can share some engine bearing experience.
Grinding and polishing are normally done in reverse rotations.   By that I mean the grinding would be normally in reverse of rotation and the polishing favorable to rotation.
When grinding the procedure leaves micro sized saw teeth on the surface of the crankshaft journals.
These saw teeth look like teeth on a hack saw but only show under a microscope.
When they polish normally this is done in reverse so the saw teeth get smoothed over and your surface is more friendly to the engine bearings.   This is known as a favorable polish. Favorable to the direction of rotation of the crankshaft.
This takes those saw teeth and faces them away from the direction of rotation and the polish smooths them even more so under load they are not breaking through the oil film and causing issues with your bearings. The bearings should never touch the crankshaft in normal operation the bearings and crank are separated by an oil film.
Modern technology has most engines set up at .0015 to .002 engine bearing clearances.
Old School had Main and rod clearance at .0025 to .003..
The modern clearances keep good oil pressure at idle.   Old school oil pressure at idle would typically fall off 10-20 lbs. The loose bearings would leak that much oil dropping oil pressure unless you installed a high volume oil pump to mask the leaks.
Tighter oil clearance has the side benefit of reduced oil on the cylinder walls which helps your rings control the amount of oil burned in combustion. Rings can only control a limited amount of oil so tighter rod clearances help build an engine that does not burn oil.
As far as your failure it seems the diagnosis so far is all over the board.
Engines are simple.   If the crank is straight and ground properly, you have a good oil supply they work. When they don't work you look at the parts and the parts tell you where to look for the problems.
The Main Bearings should have been numbered as they came out and laid out in a line.
The crankshaft should have been laid next to the bearings and you study the bearings to see what can be learned.
Don't look just at the face that touched the crankshaft turn the bearings over and look at the bearing backs.   The backs should show no movement marks. They should look new.   If a bearing moves in the block while running it is not properly sized to have proper crush.   Any movement marks tell you the bearing was not crushed in place properly.   The tangs on the bearings do not hold them in place, crush holds them in place. You can build an engine without the bearing tangs and have zero bearing issues.
The tangs are only there to help the installer put them in the block properly. Once torqued the tangs do nothing, crush holds the bearings.
When looking at the bearing faces, all your lowers on the bottom, all the uppers on top you will see if debris went through the engine, the bearings will show everything that went through. Large grooves, big debris, small grooves show small debris.
Studying the uppers and lowers will show contact and wear by journal. You will see where your problem was.   Go back wards from that to find out why that area had an issue.
If it is an oiling issue the problem shows more far from the oil pump and less close to the oil pump.
Now the bad news.
If your engine has an oil cooler and oil cooler lines and this engine with this cooler had a previous engine failure that contaminated your oil supply with debris you need to trash the oil cooler and the oil cooler lines.   In the engine business it has been proven over the years that a oil cooler and the cooler lines will trap small metal particles from an engine failure and if not replaced these metal particles will start circulating in the new engine as soon as your oil gets hot.
This is true for all engines, Gas, Diesel and Performance.   No business has yet figured out how to properly clean the lines and coolers to avoid this type repeat engine failure.
From what you have said your bearings are down to the copper.   This should not have happened for 200,000 miles of normal engine wear with clean oil supplied. You have a problem.
This engine bearing failure material is now in your block and in all the oil passages.
The oil gallery plugs should be pulled and all the galleries cleaned with warm soapy water, Dawn dish soap works very well in warm water.
The warm soapy water works to break the magnetic effect in the block holding your debris in the oil galleries.   
Your engine, pistons, crankshaft, should all have been thoroughly washed with warm soapy water then dried, blown out with air and wiped down with oil to keep rust away prior to assembly.
I have seen many engine bearing failures because the customer paid for a crankshaft grind and installed that re ground crankshaft without washing it. Even in the crankshaft there are oil passages that have to be washed with clean warm soapy water.
You can wash out the oil galleries using a rifle brush with the soapy water, this works in the crank galleries and in the engine block galleries and is mandatory prior to assembly.
Crank grinders are busy machining crankshafts to make money, cleaning for assembly is up to you.
If you don't do this on initial start up the metal material from the grinding process will flow into your main bearings on initial start up, as soon as the oil gets hot the metal starts flowing .   The bearings will try to save you by letting the metal embed in the bearing material, this works for small amounts of debris but a large amount will cause bearing failure.
For Engine Bearings today there are now Silicone Enhanced Aluminum engine bearings.
Federal-Mogul sold these as A500 material and that I believe is now upgraded to A600 material.   I mention these new bearings because with the silicon enhancement the aluminum can now polish the surface of your crankshaft while you run the engine.
With the new material a crankshaft can go in your engine with an RA of 25 and come out after 100,000 miles and measure perfect with an RA of 10-15. These bearings are magic for this. No copper bearing could offer anything like this.
The A series bearings are bored so the surface is like super fine threads or the surface of the old fashioned record.   These grooves hold oil and help it flow, they also help move any debris out of the bearing surface so the particles will make their way to your oil filter hopefully and not imbed in your bearings where they cause damage later.
If you engine is less than 500 HP I would certainly run this technology.
Ford started installing this A series bearing in all there vehicles in the early 2000's.
I know machine shops that received engines in for rebuild at 150,000 miles with these bearings in them and the shop owners could not believe how perfect the crankshaft finish was. If you are bored take time and read about these bearings, they are almost the same cost as copper but offer a lot more for your buck.
The technology has not proven to be tough enough for Diesels or very high horsepower cars yet but anything under 500 HP these are a no brainer.
Study your used bearings, learn what you can, clean all your parts. Assemble the crankshaft in the block with all the bearings oiled. Before torqueing the caps rotate the crankshaft, it should spin freely.   Start in the middle main bearing and torque to 25 lbs or so.   Then work your way to both ends doing the same, alternating left side then right side.   You are trying to bring the crankshaft and bearings into place evenly with no adverse torque on the assembly.   At 25 lbs torque on all caps spin the crank, it should be smooth. If not take a brass hammer and rap all the caps down and try to spin the crank again. If it had a little drag before this normally fixes a normal alignment issue.
Now torque to 50 lbs on all caps, start at the middle and work out again.   Rotate again after the 50 lb torque it should be just a smooth rotating.   If it is tight rap the bearing caps again with the brass hammer and spin it again.   Normally this is enough to make it spin smoothly.   Maybe 1 in 10 engines need this tap to help the caps seat.
Bring the mains to full torque now, again, middle first work your way out. Torque it like a head gasket. Bring the caps down nice and even and straight so you don't create any alignment issues.
If you have a line bore issue or a crankshaft that is not straight it will show up when you torque the bearing caps.
A line bore issue will squeeze the crank and it will be tough to rotate all 360 degrees.
A bent crank will have tight and loose spots in the 360 degree rotation.
There is a lot more but this is the basics to start.