Traditional journal bearings for internal combustion are of the tri-metal type. This type of bearing consists of a steel backing, a hard middle layer and a soft top layer. Typical soft bearing materials are: lead, tin, zinc, or alloys of these metals while typical hard bearing materials are: Aluminium-tin; lead-bronze; copper-lead. The soft top could comprise of three layers, providing five metal layers.
Journal bearings operate between the extremes of no lubrication on the one hand, to thick-film lubrication on the other. Therefore, bearing material must possess Read more…
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The big end bearing is critical to the operation and reliability of the four-stroke racing engine. At lower levels of racing, it is possible to run with standard road-going shells of good quality (provided of course that they are rated highly enough to cope with the service loads). After this, special uprated bearings are required. On the RET Monitor website, Anne Proffit has written 
