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Grooved Main Saddles and Drilled Upper Crank Bearings?

Discussion in 'Street/strip 400/430/455' started by knucklebusted, Jun 4, 2025.

  1. knucklebusted

    knucklebusted Well-Known Member

    Noodling some ideas.

    I just watched a video on some guys grooving the block main saddles and then drilling the upper crank bearings with extra holes. Supposedly, this is for better oiling. I don't disagree with it in general, BUT, why would you groove the saddles and drill the bearings on both sides of the oil hole?

    It would seem to me that the direction of rotation would be where you would need more oil, as the crank is going toward the bottom of the power stroke. Coming up on the compression stroke isn't nearly as harsh as the down stroke. Also, it looks like it would bleed more oil flow and pressure with more holes and more groove.

    As a follow up to this idea and making the center bearing hole larger to better align with the chamfered block feed hole, would making the center hole a tear drop with the point of the tear leading to the direction of rotation be a less labor-intensive way of getting more oil to the crank?

    What we are looking for is more oil to the crank so it never starves. There's only one feed hole in the block saddle. Seems like I remember some fully groove main bearings in the past. Did they fall out of favor? Am I missing something?
     
    knucklebusted, Jun 4, 2025
    #1
  2. Stage 2 iron

    Stage 2 iron Platinum Level Contributor

    KB had the fully grooved main bearings back in the day, seems to be a consensus that they took away too much crank surface. So they went to three-quarter groove main bearings. If you want an answer to your main question, contact Rob C at stage one automotive he has his machinist groove the main bearings saddles, on some of his engine builds. There’s one on YouTube that made over 600 hp. GM currently does that practice on their LS engines.
     
    Last edited: Jun 4, 2025
    Stage 2 iron, Jun 4, 2025
    #2
    Kingfish, Max Damage and knucklebusted like this.

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