With aluminum rods cold clearance will be tighter than steel rods.the cold clearance you use depends on what oil temp the engine is going to be at when raced and the weight of oil. If for example if your going to run 150 deg oil take a rod with a bearing torqued to spec and put it in an oven @ 150 deg.pull it out and measure the bearing bore and subtract the crank size,this will give you the running clearance. we set it at .0025 with light weight synthetic oil or .003 with 20/50 at this point you can ignore the cold clearance.Bill