Available at Bowling Green 5/11/22 to 5/14/22 Call Kenny Betts Racing for prearranged pickup only. Save Shipping and insurance! Visit buickracingparts.com for current pricing.
Great price on the complete package. You'd have nearly $4k in a stroker package using a stock Buick crank.
It's more of a "cant' get there from here" deal when your comparing it to a stock crank combo. Max stroke for a reliable high HP crank from a stocker is 4.05. The better comparison is against the other option for a 4.400 stroke crank, made by crower, that takes a long time to get, and has to be $4500 bucks by now.. For just the crank. My 482 stock crank combos are $2300 less. Parts only, with main and cam bearings, out the door for just over 3K.. Although I typically let them get cam and main bearings, but then include an SFI balancer and flexplate.. that allows us to do a balanced assembly, so it's ready to drop in.. That's a $3395.00 combo.. and I have a hard time keeping up with the demand on that. My crank grinder always as a 482 crank in the works.. between the rotating assembly sales, and the engine builds.. But again, that's only a 482... the 4.400 stroker crank that Kenny has here, is a 523 ci iron block combo, or bigger with a TA block.. I used this crank and rods to build Briz's 560 shortblock.. and it worked out great. There's another one sitting on the shelf, waiting to go into the elusive Bulldog iron block, but that's another story.. hoping the crank install is easier than everything else has been, to get to the point of trial assembly on that beast.. JW
So far 2 cranks and 2 sets of rods are heading to Bowling Green next week. Only 4 days left for the free delivery to the Nationals.
coming from the cnc machine world, machines nowadays are up to 10 axis(?), therefore there is pretty much nothing can't be made, easily and cheaply. improved machines to make cranks are out there. tooling has been improved and programs to machine ANY crank is easily done. basics haven't changed. so why can't crankshafts(same material) or anything be made that doesn't cost an arm and leg. material costs have gone up. material availability is somewhat an issue. updating their 30yr old equipment to the latest maybe an issue at first, but the cost per part should go down due to the machine walks, talks and give change. so when a manufacturer says $4500 for a crank is b/s. they are too lazy, cheap and have no idea what the real world is doing or available. thank god the auto industry doesn't make jet engine parts............
When King Cranks made my custom crank it was a very labour intensive deal. They had to digitize a stick crank, have one CNC cut, cryogenic treatment, rough cut, cryo again, balance and then final cut. It was about $3800 4 years ago I’m sure it would be $5500 or more now.
today's technology is not that labor intensive. betcha every part print somebody has. cmm has been around for years, no need to digitize. lazy and cheap on their part. machining time is cheap. materials have gone up. items like cryo are still push the bottom and go. balancing if machined correctly shouldn't be an issue. final cut fixes all the screw ups. 'lights out' machining is common nowadays. fwiw, couple of years ago the chicago machine trade show, there was a company that 3d built a car....and it ran. next door where i work they make laser cut products. gave him a 12'' buick sign. he took a picture. wanted a 3' one made, boom, 3' buick sign.
John start building 350 Buick performance parts and see what you get charged for "engineering" fees. Those fees have to be divided by the first 40 or so parts. After that the prices can hopefully stay the same as material costs keep going up. See what the prices are for all the billet cranks for Buicks from the different companies are. Then check in stock availability on those parts. You will find Ken's prices are more than fair. We just got two cam blanks that I figured should have been final ground for what was paid, just saying .
john, i wasn't berating you or ken and comp. i know start-ups are very costly. you and i talked about the machines available for doing the parts. every penny has to be watched. its tough getting off the short end of the stick. sean, been in the cnc machine world(use to be able to read punch tapes) and r&d/exp aircraft machinist for a long time. built machines, processes and our group wrote the standards for pratt&whitney machining. go drill and tap 1000 holes a day. turn .005 dia edm electrodes till your eyes fall out. you will never get to play with the stuff i played with. for me it was just everyday stuff. next time you fly take a good look at that engine. i know what a $500 machine(old world machinst) can do and a $5 mil machine(some bigger than your house) can do. like you, they can do nothing w/o somebody who is a machinist/programmer. anytime you want to tell me how to machine something and how much it will cost, come on down. don't matter to me. i don't know turbos like you. don't want to know. that's your sandbox to play in. not my gig. i'm an old world machinist that likes metal. that's my sandbox.
