Getting ready to add a few parts to my 6.0,
just want a good list of stuff to change up to help avoiding the spun bearings.
I've heard about drilling the lifter carriers and porting the oil pump. Anything else to help?
Also what oil are you guys using, I like heavier oil for the summer.

 

well this could be wholly my buddies fault for not getting it pro tuned and trying to do it himself, but he had a nicely built 6.0 h/c/i that we put into a lsx s-10 that we tore down and rebuilt from the ground up installing nothing but tubular suspenion,etc. etc. etc. anyways, he tried tuning it himself and was having a hard time getting the tables right. well he would drive maybe once a week on a stock 5.3 tune, about 50 miles to and from work and did that for about a couple months. one day on his way home it spun a bearing, with fresh bearings, fresh rings, fresh everything other then the rotating assembly. he said it was caused by driving it too much under a lean condition. could be, could not be, could be alot of things, idk.

 

The more oil the better. When the engine is running the crank doesn't even touch the bearings it rides on the thin film of oil, thats why the cleareances are very important. The only time the crank touches it are under extreme loading and cold starts. Cold Starts

I am a firm beliver in AMSOIL I have it in everything I own. When I had my Duramax I would send my oil out to the lab to be tested and could get close to 20k miles on a oil cange.

 

are you using synthetic or sae 10/30 or?

 

All AMSOIL is synthetic they dont have a dino oil but yes 10w30. Sometimes 5W30 or 0W30 in the winter.

 

just make sure your bearing clearances are not to tight.

 

These will not influence spun bearings from occurring or not.

 

Running an engine lean is risking seizing the pistons to the cylinder walls . Yes clearances are by far the most important issue to avoid spun bearings aside from having clean oil to the full mark of course all this under normal conditions. Racing brings up new issues .

 

These are just things to keep the engine from being starved of oil.Heard it helps get the oil back down and out of the lifter carriers. And the oil pump porting just to move more oil.
Seems like with so many spun bearings on these motors there must be problem that keeps getting repeated. Besides 7000 rpm runs of course.

 

This is 6.0s specifically? Or lsx motors in general? I have heard about a lot of spun bearings but.. I figured they were all abusing/had oil pump failures.

 

The main thing is when you put the bearing halves in, make sure the tangs are lined up correctly, and that the bearing is in its correct position, mine were marked upper and lower also right before I put them in, I wipe the bearing and saddles down with brake cleaner, it needs to be absolutely clean, then you need to check your clearances. No magic oil or tricks are gonna help if the bearing is not installed correctly and checked.

 

Proper assembly clearances & use of ARP or any higher tensile strength rod bolts. Higher tensile strength bolts hold caps together better during high RPM pulls.

Sounds more like a bearing clearance issue.