Technical Early olds 303 rod bearings

I've dug deep into the Olds threads and having a hard time finding the answer on Olds rod bearings. I am building a '49 303 and having everything machined right now. According to Egge and Kantner the bearings for the early Olds are different (oil hole) and I cant find a .010 rod bearing anywhere. Is the later 303 (53 up I believe) a suitable sub or different all together? Thanks!

 

you are pretty close to Ross Racing so i would ask him for advice or drive the 4 hrs ? and talk to him. Tony knows his Olds engines. @GOATROPER02 on here if you pm him

 

@Paul

 

Yes, I see the '49 and '50 303s listed as: (W/7/32" oil hole)
it's been far too long since I put one of those years together so I can't help much there.
was the hole eliminated?

I'm curious too

 

According to the footnotes it looks like the difference may have had to do with how the wrist pins were oiled. But the footnotes aren't completely readable. Did the early rods use a floating wrist pin and the later rods were press fit?

 

Same with me on early Olds.
Seem to think the "tangs" were opposite.?

 

If the tangs line up and the bearings measure the same, drilling the oil hole will work fine. Cutting new tangs in the rods isn't a big deal either if necessary.

 

I'd bet that triangle denoted footnote is telling us that the tangs are different.

 

The 49 rods were rifle drilled for pin oiling hence the oil hole in the upper rod bearing shell. Olds did away with that in 1950 and up engines. The 49 rods are considered weaker than the 50 up rods. All 49-64 Olds engines had bushed rods with full floating wrist pins. IMOP you could either ignore the upper oiling hole or just carefully drill and deburr the upper bearing shell for oiling.