Recently I had my local good guy machinist make a steel inspection shaft to pickup the main bearing bores leaving a thou or so clearance. Seems to make sense, similar to installing the crank with new bearings and making sure the crank spins smoothly (easy). The next part of the plan would involve fabricating another gauge to pickup the cylinder mounting surfaces. Sure this can all be done with indicators, but I am trying another tack with this process. Thoughts?
I also use Plastigage to check actual (after crush) clearances
Working a 2.7 911 cases I have found the main bearing bores become elongated due to many heat/loading cycles. This is very common to this magnesium case and keeps guys like Ollies in business. Is this elongation also common to our VW/914 cases
TIA