destroyer1

I was searching on ebay for a forged crank that would handle about 500-700 hp w/ nitrous and maybe 400-500 all motor and came across a guy that was selling them for $300. I emailed him with some questions and he told me that they were std/std but were from CHINA (direct from the manufacturer). I heard some bad things about cheap car parts from China but do you think this guy is legit. Heres the page:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...sPageName=WDVW

ede

you get what you pay for. not sure about a 400 flywheel bolting up to a one piece seal crank

ME Leigh

Chinese steel is not as bad as everyone says. Infact China is the leading producer of steel.

ksrammstein

Dude...for that price just get a good forged Scat crank or something. At least you will know you are getting a real good quality piece.

ME Leigh

I'd agree get Scat components instead of no-name ebay stuff.

ljnowell

Yes, china is one of the leading producers of steel, and yes it is crap. Chinese steel does not even come close to the quality of american steel.

destroyer1

I emailed the guy this morning about the reputation of chinese steel and this is what he replied with:

Thank you for your interest in our crankshafts, I appreciate your due diligence in investigating our company. The manufacutring facilities in china are on par or better then they are in this country. The company I buy from is ISO certified and finish grinds all the cranks on modern CNC machines. The big three all have plants over there and have had them for the last five years. The cranks I sell are high quality and tight on tolerances, they all have micro finishes. here are a few of the comments I received back from a few of my clients. I have on fellow in NY that just purchased his fifth crank from me today.

hey just wanted to share the reaction from my engine builder... He simply
could not believe the price you gave me on the crank ... he said it was
better than some cranks he had seen at twice the price ... the engine was
dyno'd saturday and came in at 485 HP !

Thanks ! Glenn Gaither

Does it sound reasonable or not?

ljnowell

chinese steel isnt on par with american. Just isnt.

destroyer1

What companies do you guys recommend? I can see that you like scat but what about eagle? I'm not looking to spend too much on a crank. Maybe less that $450.

thanks

89RsPower!

correct me if I'm wrong but isnt scat manufactured in china?

ljnowell

If it is manufactured in china, from chinese steel, then I wont own one, thats for sure.

Air_Adam

Sorry RB, I gotta use your word here

Its a chinesium pos!! But you get what you pay for I guess.

ME Leigh

What makes American steel better then chinese steel. The fact that its made in america by americans and cost alot more. As if being american makes it superior to everything else. What a idiotic, jingoistic point of view. Most of the steel made in china is made by american companies where it is much cheaper to produce. It's called outsourcing!

ljnowell

idiotic point of view?? Have you ever been in the steel industry? Have you ever heard of US steel? My father is one of the 7 directors of United States Steel. Since acquiring National Steel a two years ago, it is the biggest steel producer in the United States. By the way, my father is director of production control and customer service. His job involves quality of steel also. Chinese steel is inferior, and so is japenese steel. None of the steel companies from america "outsource". That is ridiculous. My father and the ceo's and directors of the other big steel companies spend a week every year in DC fighting to keep crappy foreign steel out of the markets, I will assure you no american companies are making steel there. I think you are the one with the idiotic views, and If you just kept you mouthshut, the bs wouldnt be spilling all over the floor.

Air_Adam

He's right, foreign steel is generally inferior to North American steel. We Canadians make some pretty tough $hit too

ljnowell

I'll agree with that, the canadian steel is good quality. My father can't stand it, but that is for obvious reasons.

Air_Adam

We make better cheese though, IMO

RB83L69

And I'll bet that the same person who would buy an overseas made auto part, will have a somewhere near 50% chance of voting for a presidential candidate who, after accepting American union campaign contributions, promises (I use the word loosely) to "keep jobs in America" or similar verbage. Maybe better than 50%.

Am I wrong, or what?

ljnowell

More than likely. Thats the way people work. Personally I am not happy with any of the choices for president. I voted for bush last time, but I feel that he has let me down. Nothing to do with the way, its just that he isnt the "compassionate" conservative that he claimed to be. If Kerry is gonna be president, they should just go ahead and make Ted Kennedy president.

ljnowell

And yes, you do make fine cheese. Not to mention you have millions of acres of the most beautiful country I have ever seen. I sometimes think of moving to alaska, just to have that surrounding me.

THEGENERAL

i think if your gonna use a chineese steel made crank shaft you might as well buy a 4cyl and throw some NOS on it and buy that big ol wing and throw abunch of stickers on the side of it too so that way everyone knows it runs on uncle bens ...LMAO...sorry had to say that ..i dont believe that the chineese steel manufactures have the same quality standards as we do in the us only because ive worked in the steel industry for 10 years and have to deal with the cheap crap that they call steel everyday in my job i was working in and it is crap ...it isnt as high of standard as we use over here and the tensil strengths arent as good nor is the quality . have you ever seen a steel coil ? imagine a 40000 lb coil of steel and when its unwinding you all of a sudden see a hole big enough to throw a basket ball thru then you would under stand what im talking about . their steel SUCKS!!!!!

SSC

Chinesium steel or whatever metal you want all gets imported from the good old USA. So the rust bucket pinto you scraped 10 years ago now lives in the form of a 400 crank.

Funny WW2 story although not china (Japan) True story BTW about a guy and his father scrap an engine that could not be rebuilt years before the war. Durring the war a Bomb was dropped on this guys unit or ship I forget. It landed a foot away from this guy. It dident explode just broke apart. Part of this bomb was loaded with scrap metal to frag on impact, since it dident explode it was fairly intact. When he looked at the pecies of bomb he noticed his dads name scribed on a peice of metal. When they pulled the peice out it just happned to be the engine block he and his dad scraped with his dads name scribed on it for the machine shop ID.

Anyway you get what you pay for, If i was doing a budget stroker it might look into this crank cant say Id buy it but.

ME Leigh

The chinese steel companies are not directly owned by American steel Corps. But most of the capital investment funds come from Americans and large American companies with lots $ to invest. I'm sure some of the steel giants have money there too.

Bird_of_Prey

Character make up of steel from different continents.. wouldn't that be the cause instead of usa vrs china?
what they find in their soil and what we find in our soil in north america.............
situational circumstances..

25THRSS

Probably true, but that doesn't make it right or on par with american steel. I'de much rather buy an american made product even if it does cost more than something over seas. Atleast what I bought could help someone have a job, maybe even myself.

THEGENERAL

amen to that

dimented24x7

iTrader: (2)

You think their car parts are scary, try their bike parts. Ive been an avid cyclist and bicycle mechanic for years and some of the stuff that comes out of china isnt even made to work. Huffy/Murry is one of the worst. Had experience with their stuff through the years and its death on two wheels. I bought a cheap murry mountain bike for real cheap on sale at Krap-Mart jsut to have something to use instead of my car to get around town. Thing wasnt even fit to ride. The rims looked like they where bent and welded by Stevie Wonder. Wern't even the right diameter or strung up properly. The brake cable broke as soon as I touched it and the chain snapped. The only area that was better was that they used a steel bracket to locate the shock forks. Used to use aluminum on some of them and it would snap from fatuge failure. Once that happened the front wheel would then point randomly in some direction, dumping the rider in the process.

Every car part Ive bought so far that was made in china wasnt even fit for use on a car, either. Junked or returned all the parts I bought and tried to use, except for an air cleaner, but thats not that critical. Even fuel fittings are dangerous when theyre made there. Could have burned down my garage if I used them. Wernt even the right diameter for the hose that they specified. Too small.

Scariest part is that the natural evolution of an open market economy is to have only high level service sectors due to lower level jobs being cheaper in other countries. The primary and secondary sectors naturally go to less developed countries. Now less then 2% of all US jobs are in manufacturing and it jsut gets worse. Even service and tech jobs arent safe anymore. Eventually, one could speculate that all production could be done in foriegn countries. Hard to imagine one day when everything is made in china.

Streetiron85

It is scary...
Then when everything is produced in China, all the American workers who were at one time employed in production will be working in repair. Fixing broken stuff that's "made in China".

Overall, Chinese metallurgy gas taken a turn for the better though. In the 80s, when tools were first being imported from China they were like chrome plated pot metal. You could get a socket set for $1.50, and it would be the sort of stuff you'd put in your car if you lived in a high crime area to give the ripoffs something to take. Cause you wouldn't want to use it for fixing anything... American bolts would bust it.

But back to car tech...

When strokers were first being made, factory cast cranks were all that could be found. And a lot of racers built successful cars around those engines.
I have a feeling that a 5140 crank that's made overseas is probably a stronger piece than factory cast.
A lot of other guys seem to agree.
There are a lot of Chinese made engine parts in use out there right now, ans some of that stuff is being pushed really hard.
When the time comes that a builder is putting together a more serious engine and wants to start reducing the reciporicating weight, I think it's a good time to steer away form the imported stuff and get the more reliable American made pieces.

But if I were building a 500- 700 hp engine, I wouldn't buy any of the cheap stuff... unless, of course, I wanted a cheap engine.

ljnowell

I'm not too sure it would be better than a cast crank, it all depends really.

Thats just not true man, forget it. The steel giants spend millions upon millions lobbying congress to get rid of all the cheap imports that flood our domestic market. Chinese and Japanese steel industries are both subsidized by thier governements. They actually lose a little bit of money on all the steel they sell. But buy selling this steel it pushes thier GDP (gross domestic product) up, which in turn increases the value of all thier stocks in general. By keeping this cash flow intact, they are able to make money off of the other parts of thier market more readily. There is no money truly lost. Gotta remember in china, the government controls it all, including thier stocks.

destroyer1

I found another crank. This time its a 4340 crank made by eagle. they guy says that its std./std. and it is the light weight crank (only 48 lb). What do you think about this one?

Cost: about $450 shipped

Streetiron85

How could we find out for sure?
Dimensionally, import OEM replacement cranks are on par with factory. And the surface finish actually seems to be better, on the ones I've seen.
So that leaves metallurgy... Kind of hard for the ordinary customer to be the judge of that.

Import cranks actually have a good service record when they're used for the recommended applications.


BTW, Eagles are imported too

shaggy56

The funny things is everyone is putting down chinese steel when meanwhile most of them have chinese steel in their aftermarket engines. Eagle and Scat both get their steel from China. Unless you buy something from Cola or similar type company then yes you are getting better quality but expect to pay more more. I read an article recently stating the exact reason most companies use chinese steel for aftermarket racing parts is because its cheaper and its more difficult for American companies to make a profit off this type of market. So by having China do it cheaper then it would be economical for the company to survive.

THEGENERAL

economical yes smart no ...when all the parts they buy built from this steel begin to fail they will realize they screwed up

ljnowell

So they are surviving by selling inferior products?

Streetiron85

I think the correct statement should have been IF the parts begin to fail...

My position is that imported parts are as good as, and in some cases superior to factory.
But in no way even comparable to the high quality of Made In USA aftermarket parts.

So far I haven't seen any posts challenging that.

If someone can show me a failure record of engine parts in situations where a factory part would have been a better choice, I'll change my opinion.
Of course we can't lump all imported parts into a single category either.

THEGENERAL

check out fuel pumps

shaggy56

The other point is that lots of american companies import their forgings from other countries but machine them in this country giving you the impression of a complete american product. For the most part the quality really comes down to the machining thats done to the forging to make a better product and seems like companies in the US have a better quality control. I mean take a look at GM crate engines most of them are forged in Mexico.

Here is a good example of how forgings can be marked up because of their brand name even though the forgings all come from the same facilities.


http://www.team.net/www/morgan/tech/whotools.html

I would take a look at some of the hotrodder bulletin boards because they have some in depth discussions on this. I mean their are engine builders on their who compare the parts and find little but no difference in quality between the domestic and foreign parts and in some instances feel the import quality occasionaly is better.

I even had a conversation with an engine builder when I had my engine machined and here is the kicker. I asked him about quality of the parts he would get and his response was its all the same every part no matter what make at some point has a defect or another that he has to bring back to tolerance or is just unusable no matter wether if its a cheaper or a more expensive part. And this is his family business that has been around for a couple of generations so Im sure he was very familiar with this.

Here is another thing to think about. Where do you think that the equipment to make parts or what have you that foreign companies use come from? It comes from the US. Most foreign companies buy old equipment much cheaper from here from companies that sell them or went out of business. This piece of info came from a very reliable source since it came from the owner of the auto business that my girlfriend worked for. That can effect how foreign companies can make parts and sell them cheaper. And trust me on this most foreign companies can pay laborers far cheaper than what they are paid here. I think alot of these things can affect how things can be made cheaper and not necessarily with less quality.

ME Leigh

I agree American steel workers get payed whatever, $30/hour while Chinese steel workers get payed $3/hour. In China they also don't have to pay for Unions and lobbying.

I also agree the America makes the best steel, but thats not to say China makes bad steel, just because it cost less.

shaggy56

On a side note I have seen in most cases that an american company will more than usually compensate or replace a part if their are any factory defects. I have seen some suppliers complain of how they get a defective part and have to go through many lengths with the foreign companies for compensation with little to no recourse. I think that is something thats more serious rather than the actual quality goes. I believe the quality on parts makes little difference. But you dont get the assurance on that if something goes wrong with the part the company will compensate or replace it, which seems to be problematic with foreign companies.

Dr.NickRiviera

Look at me!!!!

If you want to talk about Chinese industry, this is the best they can manange in the auto industry.

blacksheep-1

So even if all things are equal, they drove a bunch of armored vehicles over pro-democracy demonstrators........and it was OK. We make a few Iraqis wear underwear on their heads and we are considerred evil incarnate.... Sorry guys, I'll buy North American.

contactpatch

Here is the recipe for 4340 low alloy steel.
......................
C 0.37 - 0.43
Cr 0.7 - 0.9
Fe 96
Mn 0.7
Mo 0.2 - 0.3
Ni 1.83
P Max 0.035
S Max 0.04
Si 0.23
..................
What is so special about this stuff.
--->How much does a ton cost?<---
With less than one percent chrome,
it ain't stainless.

ede

i'm sure the is some tech in here somewhere, but it's gotten hard to sort out