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Crankshaft went in rather smoothly. Hit a snag installing the pistons. The top ring won't go flush with the ring land. Gave the seller a call and they are sending me a set of total seal rings.. So if you purchase this kit just go ahead and buy a different brand of rings.. And even still if you add the price of the rings, the extra charge for balance, and a set of bearings it is stil hundreds of dollars cheaper. If these are the only hurdles, totally worth it.. Will update when new rings come in.
I broke a speedmaster crank. Well 2. Both their cast and forged. And every single one ive seen had to be cleaned up when i got it and every one required heavy metal also.
The pistons are meh. Esp with no skirt coating.
You can piece together a nearly comparable build from better parts and have less issue.
I had an issue where 2 cranks had journals too narrow for the rods, for any rods i had, so had to get 2 sets of rods narrowed also.
Moral of the story? Stay away from speedmaster. I have terrible luck anyway, but 2x on 2 different cranks? Thats just poor quality.
Plus you have to buy a reluctor wheel and have installed. Good idea if you dont know which one you want but bad on extra price...and none of them even came with oil pump drive dowels or balancer dowels.
My personal experience from giving them a second and even third chance.
I broke a speedmaster crank. Well 2. Both their cast and forged. And every single one ive seen had to be cleaned up when i got it and every one required heavy metal also.
The pistons are meh. Esp with no skirt coating.
You can piece together a nearly comparable build from better parts and have less issue.
I had an issue where 2 cranks had journals too narrow for the rods, for any rods i had, so had to get 2 sets of rods narrowed also.
Moral of the story? Stay away from speedmaster. I have terrible luck anyway, but 2x on 2 different cranks? Thats just poor quality.
Plus you have to buy a reluctor wheel and have installed. Good idea if you dont know which one you want but bad on extra price...and none of them even came with oil pump drive dowels or balancer dowels.
My personal experience from giving them a second and even third chance.
I purchased the same cast crank from speed master for my 383. It also needed heavy metal put into it so i sent it back and they sent me a forged one instead. I now have a Forged 4 Inch speedmaster crank going into my 383. It checked out fine at two machine shops locally. At what HP/torque did you break the forged crank at? I feel for a mild build a speedmaster forged or cast crank would do fine on anything sub 550 horse. These cranks are by no means a 1000 fwhp crank but for the price its hard to beat.
I broke a speedmaster crank. Well 2. Both their cast and forged. And every single one ive seen had to be cleaned up when i got it and every one required heavy metal also.
The pistons are meh. Esp with no skirt coating.
You can piece together a nearly comparable build from better parts and have less issue.
I had an issue where 2 cranks had journals too narrow for the rods, for any rods i had, so had to get 2 sets of rods narrowed also.
Moral of the story? Stay away from speedmaster. I have terrible luck anyway, but 2x on 2 different cranks? Thats just poor quality.
Plus you have to buy a reluctor wheel and have installed. Good idea if you dont know which one you want but bad on extra price...and none of them even came with oil pump drive dowels or balancer dowels.
My personal experience from giving them a second and even third chance.
At what H/P level? Boosted, N/A?
I guess I was lucky.. the keys where in the box.
And by no means am I saying this is the bee's knees.. just a documented experience.
Na. one was a 4.100 cast the other 4.000 forged.
I didnt get far enough to measure hp or tq on either.
They were both mild builds. mid 230s cam and ported stock castings so cant expect anything over 500.
If you had an issue with a cast crank and they sent you a new forged crank for free, you should know its a bad idea. No one would ever eat that price difference unless the bought em for pennies.
No i payed the difference but they covered shipping. I think the forged is like 750 bucks usd something like that. So did they break in the car or engine dyno/run up stand?
They broke in the car/truck during street tuning.
It cost me $600 to balance one of the cranks also i forget which one. added ALOT of heavy metal and i even had a set of light weight rods used in it to help.
AlexJ, I appreciate you sharing the details of the Speedmaster cast crank 408 build. I've always wanted more details from someone using it. The actual cost to balance was a key question.
293LSX,
BTR has Callies Compstar 4 inch cranks for $777, it also requires adding the reluctor of your choice. KSC mentioned while back sometime vendors can have Callies balance the crank when it's ordered for no charge.
The $750 forged Speedmaster (questionable quality based on reputation) plus $250 to $500 to balance will end up being more expensive on average by $200-$400.
Last edited by 99 Black Bird T/A; Nov 30, 2018 at 07:50 PM.
Texas Speed does all their balancing in house and has some of the best prices ive ever seen for real quality and known parts.
2500ish for a full balanced assy with bearings they make sure match well to the crank and H beam rods with pro200 rod bolts and a crank that has held well over 1200hp. Thats proven parts that work. Plus free shipping and everything done in house.
Chocie of pistons also.
Its definitely not using the cheapest of the cheap or i beams with an 8740 rod bolt. You can obviously build one with a less expensive good quality rod like scat etc since the retails are about $200 different also of course.
We have some H beam rods with pro2000 bolt for $460. I beams are less expensive like 300+
Pistons vary from $635+
Cranks are $799+ with reluctor.
Roughly $1900
Then bearings usually run $200+ for a narrowed bearing
Then balancing which run me normally 200+ if no heavy metal.
You CAN source all of those parts and have them sent to a machine shop and have that done and have a quality setup but for not much more you can pick what you want from places like TSP or Scoggin Dickey that have their own inventory and equipment and guys that do this day in and day out and get a better finished product ready to install.
Some places i wouldnt trust to balance a checkbook let alone a rotating assembly though.
They broke in the car/truck during street tuning.
It cost me $600 to balance one of the cranks also i forget which one. added ALOT of heavy metal and i even had a set of light weight rods used in it to help.
Originally Posted by 99 Black Bird T/A
AlexJ, I appreciate you sharing the details of the Speedmaster cast crank 408 build. I've always wanted more details from someone using it. The actual cost to balance was a key question.
293LSX,
BTR has Callies Compstar 4 inch cranks for $777, it also requires adding the reluctor of your choice. KSC mentioned while back sometime vendors can have Callies balance the crank when it's ordered for no charge.
The $750 forged Speedmaster (questionable quality based on reputation) plus $250 to $500 to balance will end up being more expensive on average by $200-$400.
Yes when i first got my cast speedmaster crank they quoted me 600 also. My Forged one was around 200 bucks to balance just the crank. I balance my own rods and pistons.
If you go onto the speedmaster site right now it has there crank listed as $789.47 with a reluctor and maybe having to buy the keyways its probable in the end an $825 dollar crank. If i had to do it again i would probable purchase a texas speed, Lunati Voodoo, Eagle or the Callies compstar. At the time i bought mine these cranks weren't that low but now its a no brainer on buying a crank that is tried and tested.
Im going to use mine and i will have to see if it cracks like ws6store said his did. I will make a post if / when it does.
So if i were to do it again..
330$ for the pistons
300$ for the rods all speedmaster.
and a good crank the one i ordered was 850$
120 for a set of rings. And your choice of bearings and it will be less than 2 grand.
the procomp crank would've worked. I could've had the rods narrowed but i didn't want to go through all that..
all the clearances were good and assembly went smooth.
Just my 2 cents been there done that, so you don't have to..
Plus bearings and balancing would likely get it over 2k. alot of hassle and sketchy finish from what ive personally seen.
Seems to be a regular issue with speedmaster/procomp that the rod journals are too narrow.
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