Tick, Tick Tick, I think it is a rod bearing.

[wmc2004aug at bellsouth.net]

At 06:57 PM 7/31/2006, you wrote:
>If the bearing material hasn't been worn through and the crank and
>rod surfaces look good, can I just replace the bearings?  Can I drop
>the cross-member and pan and do it witht he engine still in the car?

I did the "ghetto engine rebuild" on my old 1991 NX.  I carelessly
let the thing get 2 qts low on oil, and thrashed it real hard through
a highway ramp and apparently starved the bottom end.  It was audibly
rattling, esp around 3K rpm, and the "pull the plug wire" test on
cylinder 3 quieted things down.  I only drove it about 150 miles
before parking it to do the rod bearings.

The #3 was bad, as most commonly happens.  There were about 0.003"
metal scraped off and heat discoloration.  I replaced all the
bearings with the same grade that were in it.  Used 1500 and 2000
grit paper with oil to polish the crank clean.  There wasn't any
visible damage to it, but if any of the softer bearing was smeared on
there, I wanted to clean it up.

I drove it for another 50K miles including some drag strip passes,
and the engine was still *very* strong at about 180K when I gave the
car away.  So.... It's at least worth a try.  Or if you wanna buy the
engine out of my original 1992, with 95K miles, head work and port
matching, I'm entertaining offers.

    -Wayne  '06 RSX-S / 93 SE-R / '93 NK2k / '90 Miata