Thread: sr20ve Pilot Bearing

What pilot bearing are you running? Would a sr16ve manual trans. pilot fit? I think I may have answered my own answer, but still. Post up your solution.

If you are talking about the pilot bushing for the transmission, you don't need it. The input shaft of our transmissions do not even enter hole in the crank.

So it just cruises around with out a bearing to support/align? How is it not tearing up clutches? The bolts from the trans. to the motor would hold everything in place but the internal free movement of the gear stack would seem to me, to create jarring movement. Correct me if I am wrong.
About 2-3 years ago I had my sr20ve mated to my stock b13 5spd. My initial setup ran without a pilot bearing. Ever since I've wondered if it really did need a pilot bearing. ( I experienced premature wear, due to my lack of understanding clutch alignment)

I'm currently running the VE with a B13 trans minus the pilot bearing...so far so good. The VE had a pilot bearing in it, but honestly it doesn't make a difference as the input shaft never gets near it. The splines are in contact with the clutch, obviously, but that's it. There are also two bearings in the tranny to keep everything in line,

There's nothing you can do about it, that's the way it was designed. I was baffled to hear that as well, every other car I've ever owned relied on the input shaft/pilot bearing mating.

Forzwin is correct -- no pilot bushing is needed. I also found that the VE crank will not accept a DE bushing because the DE bushing OD is just a little too big. So, if you want to replace the VE bushing you will have to find the VE part somewhere.

+1 I forgot about that lol, that's actually how I stumbled upon this. When I didi my VE swap I bought a new clutch kit, when I went to install the pilot bearing it was too big, wtf???

So I went searching, found that no one was running the bearing, so I ditched mine. The stock VE bearing that was in there allowed me to align the clutch disc.

^ ah good call retaining the stock VE pilot bearing in order to align the disc. I'm going to have to steal that idea. Thanks guys for the input. (no pun intended)

I'm having a problem related with this so I'm bumping this thread up.

I have a universal aligning tool Ive been using for SR20DE's with no problem the tool aligns the disc fine but now I'm doing the VE swap and found that the same aligning tool it's too small for the hole the crank on the VE, "it has a lot of play", so I took the next size up on the universal aligning tool but it wont fit thru the clutch disc....?
So is there a trick to do it?
can somebody shime in????

The first thing I would try is an alignment tool designed for SR20 engines. This issue has not come up before, so I'm assuming that most folks have left the VE pilot bushing in the crank and used a standard DE alignment tool. I must have used an alignment tool with no pilot bushing 'cause I remember taking the original one out and finding that a DE bushing was too big to fit back in.

If that doesn't work, use the alignment tool that seems to work best and eyeball it despite the play.

yeah I checked the other forum and I found out why this is happening.
The reason is that there is no pilot bearing currently on the crank and that's why the hole is too big and wont hold the alignment tool. It seems that people just hold the alignment tool tight while torquing the pp bolts, I tried doing this yesterday but when I look through the hole it did not seemed to be perfectly align.