Man...
Number 1-2 pistons fell right in, good side clearance about .020-.025...Next Number 3 went right in felt good floated good on the rod. Each rod and piston I install, I have a habit of checking how easy the rods float in the crank, and I spin the motor over etc..Install number four..uh oh...I have no side clearance, well maybe .003-.005 if that. The rod doesnt float on the crank very well. I notice if I pull only the number 4 cap it has the side clearance it needs, this is with #3 still torqued etc. I So I pulled the piston and rod mic the width of the rest of the rods/caps..they are within a thousandth or so.
I have some plasti gauge in the tool chest i throw a piece on and re check it..It looks like it has some taper. Its good toward the outer thrust, but toward the center of the rod journal it looses a good .001. Its not binding on the radius or fillet of the crank...I could turn the engine over with the both rods installed, and there was no binding, no mhar'n of the bearing..nothing. I take it back apart, swap bearings..look..look..and look some more...
I dont know.
I gave up for the evening, but Im going to have a go at it in the A.M...Any suggestions????
I thought about swapping out another piston like #6, or #8, they are all ready installed and have idea clearances/margins etc..I figure if this fixes the problem..It is in that rod, if its still there..its in the crank.

This stuff was suppose to be checked out. I paid to have all rods check, and the crank checked, all bearings clearances set to my spec.
This really is starting to @!@$ me off.
Yes, some problems occur during a build..I feel this type of problem shouldnt have happened. This isnt some $500 small block Chevy that he hurried through the machine shop...Its been there for a year too.

This really sucks..
Its going to be fixed what ever it takes. I can still knock out a few things as work goes.
I can continue degree in the camshaft, clay the pistons, check valve to valve through the #4 bore. Figure out a length for Manton push rods.

sounds pretty strange, hard to diagnose things on the net. i'd take a good long look at that rod. what kind of rod is it? can you put the cap on it and check it on a flat surface. was the clearance really that tight or was the rod binding on the crank or wrist pin not allowing it to float?

Bob,
I'm sure that you checked this, but make sure the rod cap wasn't installed backwards when it was machined.
I agree that you should swap another assembly in to check.
Brian

What about the piston? side play on the pin, rod hitting the piston causing a bind at the crank?

Jim,
Thats a cool head light you got in your hood scoop... Did it come with the Wayne County Speed Shop distributor gear?
Brian

You or the shop didn't put that rod on the piston backwards ? turning the rod around in the bore will make the straight side of the bearing to hit on the chamferd side of the crank ?

Bob
Another I'm sure you aware but...
The rod bearing shells if they are a chamered design are upper & lower half specific... Or the chamfer winds up mating to the other rod where it does no good...

I had this same problem, and had to find out the hard way about the bearing being upper and lower specific on my smallblock stroker. I felt like an idiot after pulling my hair out and finding this on my own.

I have been into similar problems where the rodcaps or the rod has been surfaced (as a part of reconditioning a rod, making the hole smaller before honing to size), and taken too much, and also not perpenticular to the sides. It all looks Ok untill you tighten the parts together, then the two halves are tilted when viewed from the side, and there will be no sideclearance. You can check this with some dye or marker on the whole sides of the rod and cap, then tighten, and turn the crank, pushing the rods to either side, and dismantle / check for the fit if even or not. Or, you can bolt the rod together outside the engine and put on a flat, and look for gap against the light, on either side.
If it is inclined, I would demand a new rod from your machine shop; balanced to the same value as the others (if he got the records for them). Everytime such a job is done the rod gets shorter and you end up with a sheettt motor. The quick and dirty fix is to file it flat again on the sides. But the boltholes are no longer straight, and the bolt head surface or the threads will also be tilted and can fatigue the rodbolt in a shorter time.

Thanks guys for the idea's....I wished it was as simple as the rod being installed backwards. These HXN bearings are super narrow, and the rod will touch the side of the crank well before the bearing does. When I plasti gauged this yesterday i made the piece long enough to extend from the radius to the center of the cap...Its not a radius problem.

here is a bad picture, but you can see how narrow the bearing is and its location to the radius.

Bob, from looking at that pic it looks like the rod
is over quite a bit on the wrist pin... is it hitting
the piston .... hard to tell

Another thing that often gets overlooked is at the rod/cap mating surfaces. They don't get deburred for nothing and I've seen some wire edges raised up that could possibly get stuck between the two halves and cause the cap to not be straight to the rod. Which could cause the oddball tapered clearance and the lack of side clearance. I'd quick check the crankshaft for taper, even if you have to borrow a micrometer. If it checks out, take that rod back out and inspect the crap out of it.

The piston isnt backwards is it? Like Mr P Body said, the rod doesnt look even close to centered.

If the rod width's both check out the same as you say then journal width is the next thing to check, compare journal to journal. Man, that would be #$%^&*(

At this point measure the distance across the rod journal above the radius's and then clamp the two rods together and measure the combine width of the two rods at the big ends,you can also measure the width of each rod end add that together and do the math,crank journal=A,rods= B.Subtract B from A and get your side clearence.If that figure is in spec. look else where for the problem.It certainly doesn't look like a radius issue.