The crank bearings are very durable and failure is not common.

I seriously doubt the crank bearings have any affect on the length and durability of the cam chain.  If the crank bearings get loose or sloppy, there will be a very loud banging noise every time the piston goes up and down!

For years the loose cam chain was blamed on the chain stretching - one of our forum members named "DragBikeMike" has pretty much debunked that possibility with his very thorough modification and testing on his bike.  The real cause of the cam chain movement and tensioner failure is the rear cam chain guide loses its' curve over time.

http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1593671973/0


His cure is to install a "Jack Bolt" in the cylinder that allows adjustment of the curve in the cam chain guide without taking anything apart.  This modification is beyond the ability of most of us "mortals" - but it is a good fix.  (I will post a link here as soon as I find it).

NOTE:  Care and feeding of the Suzuki Savage is well documented on this forum - there are several old and gray haired people who are very knowledgeable on this forum and they are very helpful.  I have seen lots of other places where the folks offering to help you work on your Savage have little or no mechanical experience - and they often give bad (or wrong) advice.

Hey Slushy, you can find the info on the chain guide jack bolt in this old post.  Those chains don't wear out.  As Dave mentioned, the rear guide loses its arc.

http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1567201633

It is highly unlikely that you have a problem with your main bearings (left or right).  I have destroyed two left-side main bearings, but those failures were caused by lack of lubrication.  The failures were self-inflicted wounds.  I was running a DR650 cam without oil holes in the cam lobes.  Those oil holes provide the lube for the left-side main bearing.  If you are running a stock cam then I doubt you have any sort of issue with the left-side main bearing.  Even if you did have a bad main bearing, I doubt it would have any effect on your cam chain.

After 97K miles, numerous engine failures of all sorts including failed main bearings, a variety of engine configurations with high lift cams and heavy valve springs, the stock cam chain is still within wear limits.  It can take it.