Thrust bearings

So I installed the bearings, main caps, crank and girdle and I torqued it to spec in my sr20, tried to spin the crank and it was virtually impossible, after going through it with my machinist they asked me to remove the thrust washers, the crank now spins beautifully, how do we resolve this issue ? Can you get different thickness thrust bearings ? Any tips or recommendations would be good, thanks

What was the measured end-play with the thrust washers installed? How does this compare to the workshop manual spec? A good machine shop should be able to surface grind the back side of thrust bearings to produce whatever dimension you need.

Also check there there isn't a radius clearance issue with either main bearings or the thrust washers.