Joe,
Also, I started that conversation to see if I could get the list moving.
Not enough tech stuff for me lately. to much fluff and a lot of guys
were complaining off list. I think it helped a litle.
I can help with that, too. :-)))
Now I am sick of the word Billet in the aftermarket. Half the people out
there don't even know what it means.
You are soooooooo right it simply can't be said enough. If I had a choice,
right this minute, between a forged steel crank for a 455 Olds and a billet
steel crank for a 455 Olds, I'd take the forged, unless the billet crank was
a very high quality 4380 or better alloy steel that was made into a billet
either in the USA or Western Europe. Even though the forged steel crank is
only a 1000 series steel alloy, probably a 1050 or 1075 (which isn't as near
as tough as a 4000 series chromoly steel alloy), the simple fact the grain
structure of the steel in a forged steel crank flows through the crank in an
uninterrupted pattern makes it far stronger than the machined cut through
and terminated flow in a crank machined out of an alloy steel billet. The
only time the billet crankshaft catches up to the OEM factory forged steel
crank is when the steel alloy goes over the 4000 mark, at least in the high
4000s and preferably into the 5000s or 8000s. An 8340 alloy steel billet
crank might be totally indestructible.
Now we can get a forged verses billet discussion going. :-)))
On another note, there's something interesting to throw out there about
nodular iron cranks. Even though nodular iron *is* a form of cast iron, what
is nodular iron, really? The receiver for the Browning Automatic Rifle in
the later half of WW2 was made from ArmaSteel. No matter what, they never
broke, even when repulsing 750 Chinese off of Pork Chop Hill (a true story,
I met the man who did it) in Korea in the early summer of 1953. ArmaSteel
was developed by the Saginaw Division of General Motors to produce an
ordnance grade steel that was easier and quicker to machine than the tough
alloy steels currently in use. ArmaSteel was a cast steel made with cast
iron mixed with scrap steel. The formula was patented by GM. The time to
machine a receiver for a BAR with traditional alloy steel dropped from 20
hours to 2 hours with ArmaSteel, and the ArmaSteel was just as strong. I
wonder if an Olds nodular iron crank isn't actually an ArmaSteel crank, cast
iron with steel thrown into the casting mix? A nodular iron crank will make
a ring, similar but not quite as true, as a forged steel crank. Cast iron
cranks usually just go "thud."
Anyone got any ideas? Discussion number 2. :-))))))
Milton Schick
1964 442 Cutlass
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
