damaged bearings

[dirtbasher]

hi guys,
i recently bought a new OSspeed 21 vzb spec2 for my 1/8 buggy. did the normal break-in process. after break-in run a few tanks ther was unexpected noise coming from the crankshaft. i open the engine n found out the rear bearings has no freeplay as i turn it wit my fingers. i assume that the bearings was damaged.
this engine is using ceramic bearings for the rear. somebody told me i shld not use after-run oil for ceramic bearings, some say that is not true.

change the rear bearings to a new one but is steel bearings cause the ceramic was out of stock. somebody told me i wil loose 10% power cause of the steel instead of ceramic bearings. but wen running it wit the steel bearings i did not feel any difference, mayb cause I'm stil new at this hobby.
my questions:-

1. did the after-run oil damage the ceramic bearings?
if not wat is the cause of the damage?

2. wil i loose power cause of the steel instead of ceramic bearings?
if loose power by how much?

 

[Lunar Wolf]

someones telling you a whole load of nonsense.

There will be very little difference between the perfromance of a ceramic bearing, a steel/ceramaic hybrid and a steel bearing when all are new, its over time that the ceramic bearings come into their own and the weight reduction/rotating mass in the engine.

ARO will not hurt ceramic bearings, I'd love to know the logic behind people saying otherwise, does it disolve glass or something?

What you do need to make sure is that your engine bearings do not have tollerences higher then Abec1/C3, any tighter and when the engine heats up and the bearing components begin to expand they will grind

 

[dirtbasher]

don't understand 'tollerences higher then Abec1/C3'. I'm new at this...
thx Lunar Wolf

 

[Lunar Wolf]

No problem, here you go have a read of this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABEC_scale

Basically the higher the Abec rating the less space there is between the bearing parts (tighter) and the faster it will go (so Abec 9 is the fastest, tightest bearing in the scale). The downside is heat causes thermal expansion that will cause the parts in the bearing to expand, using up what little space there is in the tighter bearings and cause them to wear quickly.

That's why company's like Boca only have Abec 1 listed for their engine bearings and why larger engine bearings are marked 'C3' which effectively means the same thing.

An Abec 1 bearing has a little play in it, it will almost feel like it isn't a quality bearing as you could spin it round and see that the balls aren't moving properly. This is just down to the bearing not being in its proper operating temperature and part of reason why we should not hammer our engines until they do reach their proper temps. Some also make the mistake of seeing the normal play in Abec 1 bearings as wear and change them out when they were still fine...

 

[dirtbasher]

understood. juz checked out boca website,awesome! my next bearings will b boca full ceramic.