Ever heard of a Bridgeway crank?

Really nothing wrong with Chinese steel. The problem lies in what happens to the forging AFTER it is forged. Several cranks, while made in China are actually 100% machined and heat treated here in the states, The Callies K-1 line comes to mind. That is a BETTER crank than one machined in China and the price will reflect that. So bottom line, ALL China cranks are NOT the same

Monte

I was not implying it was good bad indifferent as far as the crank goes. Simply answering the question asked. There are ALOT of Chinese made cranks out there working just fine. As Monte pointed out pricing is way less than cranks made here in the US or machined here in the US.

when it comes to finishing chinese cranks,their idea of runout is when the cat escapes the butcher block...nuff said.....

In China, official corruption is not merely widespread, it's mandatory. No union, no OSHA, no SAE, no official standards, you can sue a manufacturer but the court has already decided in their favor.
Chinese steel foundries will "certify" steel with garbage (slag, dirt, sand) in it that nothing will remove and heat treatment won't fix.
The good news: not all of them are bad, they don't do it on purpose - it's just cheaper to make. Easy safety measure: if you order 10, and destroy 1 (X-ray, cut a journal in half for microscopy) and it's good, the other 9 are probably good.

Wow.. I didnt expect this thread would become a China bashing thread...

When I went crank shopping about 2 years ago, I could have sworn Ohio Cranks had a "Made in the USA" notice posted.. In addition to that, I've spoken with Cab and (at that time) he confirmed the information he had was that they were made in USA also..

Then there was a few reports that the steel came from China and the inspection and machining was done here... Regardless, I never once heard bad things about Ohio Cranks... So I bought one and outside of a minor difference at the snout, the crank seemed to have checked out with my machine shop at the time..

Since then... today actually, my new engine builder said I have a step in the journals that would not polish out.. so he will have to turn it... When doing research on the castng number, he discovered it was made by Bridgeway, which prompted me to ask if anyone has ever heard of them...

Here's to hoping I have a good solid crank and it wont melt like butter during the machine work...

Which is why I said "there's that word again". You only have to mention the name of that particular country and the haters will come out.

My point about the finish machine work was that I have read or heard very few material-related failures of the 4340 Chinese forgings, the most-often criticism was the accuracy of things from the machining process like tapered journals or journals not indexed properly. Many of these opinions came from Dan(RIP) at Performance Only back when he was posting using a different handle.

What the haters won't admit is that before the start of the Chinese forgings, there were precious few ways to make a stroker Mopar that didn't involve buying $1100 rods and cranks(that's in 1995 dollars). So basically the whole era of cheap Mopar strokers (as well as most other brands)came straight outta' China.

But haters gotta hate.

Now to the question of made in the USA. I have seen forged 6" chevy connecting rod blanks on the 'bay for $2 each. So if I buy a box of them and invest in the machinery and skilled labor to turn them into finished rods that cost me a total of $25, where was most of the money spent? By some definitions, that rod is made in the USA. Happens all the time in industry. Guys in Wisconsin assembling foreign parts into valves that have "Made in USA" printed onto their nameplates.

End of rant.

R.

todays order,1 egg foo young,2 egg rolls,1 order fried rice,and 1 4.25 stroke crankshaft,spicy please,delivered