A&Q about 350Z
Q:
Having had the chance to whip the engine out to sort a few little problems( piston deck height and bore wash due to excessive cam overlap) I thought I'd take a look at the 2 piece main bearing thrust washer assembly as there been more attention brought to this setup again on the Vortex forums.
Main problem has been the failure of the face that thrusts most when the clutch is depressed.
1st pic shows the 2 side by side. The 2 peice intergral bearing has approx. half the bearing surface area on the thrusting face compared to that of an OEM bearing(OEM on the left):
Second pic show where the bearing sits against the thrust face. Its in the middle of the face about 3mm down from the top edge, and again 3mm up from the rad in the corner of themain bearing journal. You can see the darker top and bottom faces where theres been no bearing running, and the shinny centre where the thrust face has contact:
Now I've always used these in the past, but with the amount of failure of these, and seeing that it's only got half the contact area of an original bearing I'll leave you to decide which one you'd rather use in the future. Lets just say there's a new set of OEM's on their way to me!
A:
GSF sell the seperate thrust washers, you just have to make them get the KS book out and they usually take a day or so to arrive. These cost about £6 more than the integral thrust washer bearings so it's hadly worth cutting corners.