Quote:
Originally Posted by DLucian
Hi everybody,
Was looking over this post and tried to gather as much information as I could. I hope I am not asking what has been discussed, I did read a lot through this thread although not 100% since it is really long. I am looking to do my rod bearings and I still have no idea what would be best way to do this:
- King bearings standard size?
- KOLBENSCHMIDT - one size? - something that I didn't hear about as much but they seem to be an OE Manufacturer for these.
- OE BMW bearings with color matching?
I am really prioritizing a good job here and I am looking for the best way to do this. Car is a standard E91 N55 with BMW power kit and I am not planning on getting any more power since I don't feel these engines are that strong on tunning.
Can anyone shed a little light over what seems to be the best choice, given all this discussion here? Thanks!
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Kolbenschmidt makes good bearings and was OE on a lot of older engines like M50's, etc. In this case, I'd probably go either for King or OEM as they're more commonly used so they have more of a track record, though probably any of them will be fine.
I went for King's in my N54 simply because it's what the shop who did it recommended. I believe King splits the difference and makes them all the same size rather than the color coded way like factory. In my head this seems slightly inferior but there are a lot of people running the King bearings, myself included, with no problems at all.
Another school of thought is that running high performance engines slightly looser is the way to go, and if replacing only the rod bearings and not the mains (which is what pretty much anyone would do), looser may be a better match to the already worn in main's. It get a bit complicated and there are few definite answers but the short version is new bearings are better than old ones so go with whatever you like. Either will be just fine.