Inserts or regular babbit bearings

M

Mongo

Member
What are folks experiences / opinions running original babbit vs insert bearings -- which is better. What should a person consider prior to making that choice.
 
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Modern vehicles use them. I have them in my '31. I only have a few thousand miles on them but no issues so far.
 
A lot depends on what you want the engine to do. Are you building a stock low compression motor with splash oiling? or a high compression fire breathing 4500 rpm turning pressurized race motor?
 
Mine is a morph: Inserted rods, Babbitt mains. Rods have about 1,500 miles on them, the mains have about 2,000 miles on them. So far, no problems with this set-up.
 
Either way will work, the attention to detail, accurate crankshaft grinding keeping the flywheel flange and timing gear surfaces true to the bearing surfaces is important.

When it comes to bearing failure Babbitt failure usually doesn't damage the bearing surfaces of the crankshaft, insert bearing failure usually has crankshaft damage requiring refraining the crankshaft, and if it spins will damage the block or rod.

With Babbitt the Babbitt is made the size of the crankshaft, with inserts the crankshaft is made to fit the size of the inserts you can get--- or replaced

Babbitt is forever, is still used in many machines and can be made any size, inserts need to be made special for that application and can become obsolete and not made anymore.
 
I have one of each. An OHV (babbit) and one with a high compression head (inserts). Can't really tell the difference. However, the babbit engine has a 5 speed and thus puts less strain on the engine IMO.

OK, Brent, jump in here!
 
28Acoupe , I went with Inserts and should be better down the road .IF they were better then all these cars would be converted.... The price comes to mind.... Have you priced out the difference.... I had 2 engines done from soup to nuts by Schwalm's in P.A. .First reason is ,i have heard that his work is well done .Second reason was i dropped off the 2 engines to him at Hershey A.A.C.A. meet and when they were done i made 1 trip down and 1 trip back. $5,000.00 apiece.
 
Steve at Bert's explained it to me this way... insert bearings are essentially the same technology used in modern engines. They don't require the same break-in procedures as Babbitt, and are more durable. He uses the same basic technology in his race engines. I hope I'm not putting words in his mouth, but that's the upshot of what I got.
 
I am going to go with babbit again. I see no reason to go otherwise. I will also be doing the babbit job myself this time rather than having a shop do it.
 
The problem with babbit is there are few people doing it now. There used to be people locally you could take you engine to to have it babbited. Now you have to ship off a heavy engine, usually hundreds of miles, to have a shop babbit the mains - $$. I think my next engine will be inserted as we have a Fordbarner local to us (Dave Gerold) that has done over 100 inserted engines (I think).
Rusty Nelson
 
New engine with all the bells and whistles came home Friday last. The builder doesn't do babbitted bearings so it was inserts - the choice was easy.
 
What happens when, as with the Burlington crank, these inserts are no longer available? Once you go to inserts, you cannot go back, least wise not in my shop. Also, there are no shims with inserts so, no adjustments down the road and, in the case of a catastrophic failure, ie: spun bearing, you start over from scratch. I have done many insert engines and don't have a problem building one but I prefer babbitt and think it is the way to go.
 
James Rogers , If i should get a spun bearing[knocking on wood 3 times] or no longer that size inserts available [ which are i believe Chevy rods and bearing] with i don't think they will ever run out i do have 3 complete engine's to fall back on. Thank you on your feedback..It is always welcome with your knowledge.
 
The old inserts I use to use in the Rods, were Wisconsin VE4 engine. They were a air cooled engine used on farm equipment. You had to use two sets for each rod. Mains I think were out of a TR4

I have been using inserts since the late 80ts. Only because I could not find any one to do the Babbitt the way it should be done.

I'm in the process of putting a new Burlington crank in my sports coupe. Not because it needed it, because I wanted one. The bearings I took out had 17000 miles on them. They looked so good I'm going to put all the parts from that engine in to a spare engine I have. Those bearings were the VE4 and TR4
 
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peters180a/170b said:
James Rogers , If i should get a spun bearing[knocking on wood 3 times] or no longer that size inserts available [ which are i believe Chevy rods and bearing] with i don't think they will ever run out i do have 3 complete engine's to fall back on. Thank you on your feedback..It is always welcome with your knowledge.
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Pete, they are probably not chevy but are the inserts from AER. If not, they are from any of several different engines including Contenental, MG midget, Wisconsin and, others. Problem is, when you use one, none of the others are compatible. This is one reason I prefer babbitt.
 
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