When replacing bearings in an engine say a high performance rear exhaust engine, are the cross referenced bearings you can buy from a bearing distributor locally as good as the factory replacements, or is it sort of hit and miss.

In the case of my local bearing distributor, (relatively local...20 mi. away ) they have or can get any bearing that the on line dist. can...and all of the different manufacturers. I used to get them from him...Fafnir, SKF, NSK, whatever the stock bearing was, I would replace it with same...however...
When his prices went up quite a bit in the past few years, like practically doubled, I started buying from Paul McIntosh at RC-Bearings dot com.

I've found that the stainless bearings from Paul are every bit as good or better than any of the bearings that I tried from other distributors...either local or on-line...but less $.

What I would do is call your local dist. and ask them if they have or can get the # or size bearing (s ) you need...the price and the manufacturer, and do some comparative shopping.

Our local suppliers will find the best bearing for any application. Given a choice I'll take Swiss made.

a call to dave shadel at performance specialties , for a really good spec bearing is a quick way to get going , he has some really good stuff