Quote:
Originally Posted by waynieZ
Tim, do you know anyone who is using these already and what they think of them?
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I don't personally know anyone that are using them but have read some posts on forums from folks using them with positive feedback on the CHE ones, the Straub kit is new and much more affordable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Che70velle
CHE has been doing this with bushings for 5 years, so it's not a new thing for LS engines. I ran bushings in my shaft rocker SBC dry sump race engines 15 years ago. The technology is sound, so don't shy away from it...however...this is really only necessary for "all out race applications" or a build where the owner is always up around 6k to 7k rpm, with a valve train that is brutal. The typical aftermarket bearing trunnion upgrades are fine for the average street car that sees an occasional blast. I did my trunnion upgrade, with bearings, at 80k miles, and my shafts were perfect, with no wear.
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I don't think this is an "all out race" problem, if you track your car with any regularity you're going to eventually have this problem. That shaft I posted in the pic of has 4,500 miles on it with mixed street and a few track days. The cam is in the .620 range which is pretty common nowadays, so it's not some monster crazy cam with crazy spring pressure. The aftermarket needle bearings are narrower than the factory bearing so it has less area to spread the load out. I think the bearing is where the problem lies since it looks just as bad, if not worse than the shaft. I've tried pretty much every companies needle bearing upgrade kit out there, they all eventually fail. The bearing used is the same regardless of whose kit you buy which is where I believe the problem lies. I've sent the shafts out to be Rockwell tested and some are harder than others, there's also some that have different designs on the shaft to feed more oil to the bearing.
Now that Straub has a bushing kit that's the same price ($150) as the needle bearing kit I see no reason to not go that direction if you're going to do a trunion upgrade. The CHE upgrade is expensive ($420) and you have to send them the rockers or exchange yours, they will not sell you the shafts and bushings. I'm going to try both companies and see if there's any difference in durability.
I'm not selling any of this stuff, I'm simply sharing the info from my own experience, everyone should make the choice they feel most comfortable with.