UPDATE: so plastigaged the mains today and seems a little on the loose side of spec. Used the green plastigage, and torqued down to 45lb in two steps with a torque wrench I should probably replace as it's endured a bit of abuse. Anyway, all the mains came out to 0.0020" with the exception of the one closest to the crank pulley which came out to 0.0015" and is the one I tightened the most... So standard size bearing sound good?
Finished pulling apart the block today since I have to start work tomorrow
6 month unemployed vacation is over.
First bit of unexperienced failure is I pulled up on the crank thinking I'd be able to pull all the pistons out with it. Well, I didn't pay attention to the mains being in the way of the pistons, so ended up with 4 pistons and their rings below the cylinder. I got two out by simply placing a flat chunk of metal against the rod and hitting it with a mallet. The other two the rings kept getting caught instead of going into the cylinder. Used a nice flathead screwdriver to compress the rings and worked the other two back in there.
Next up: is the fancy coating Wiseco puts on the piston skirts pointless, or did coolant in the oil cause it to wear prematurely? You can see where the very middle of the skirt looks like typical forged aluminum, and closer to the edges of the skirts you can see the dark coating.
Last thing: all the bearings appear to be shot. The little groove/notch/whatever that's in the bearings and the holes (I assume these are for oil?) has metal "dirt" in them, and the surfaces of the bearings certainly did not feel smooth. Some even had copper colored scoring, and due to their location I guess the oil hole edges were scraping it (bearings a few layers of metal?). My question is: I have a B18B block and B18C crank/rods, should I use B18C rod/crank bearings or B18B rod/crank bearings? They have different part numbers and I'm not sure if they're matched to the mains or the journals.