While this may not be a good comparison,FE vs. small block parts, I'll give it a shot anyway........
I built my first race engine, 331 stroker with a 4340 forged Eagle rotating assy.,13.5 to 1 compression, 7,000 rpm chip in the MSD box....Ran this engine hard for six race seasons, running water temp in the 180 to 190 range which is fine, but my
oil temp was always in the 240 to 260 range,which is very high......other racers told me that engine should not have lasted one season much less 6!!!!!!
Took it down to freshen it up and the bearings showed normal wear for it's use, put it back together and after about 3 hours of run time, it broke.....TOTALLY my fault, my screw up when assembling the engine.....
The crank had a 2 marks on one rod journal,other wise looked fine....
I bought another identical Eagle rotating assy. to build my new race engine and have been happy with it also.......
Kept all the old parts, a year later decided to build a 331 for a street car,about 400 HP, so I brought the crank to a local shop and had them check it out......the crank was perfectly straight and the marks polished out of the journals, they check all the journals and said they were all within specs and everything looked fine, so I'm in the process of building another engine using the crank and 6 of the 8 rods from the original engine.(2 rods were damaged beyound use)(found 2 more rods to replace them).....
Granted I would be hesitant to re-use these parts for a high compression/high rpm race engine, but for a 6000 rpm/400 HP street engine, I think they'll do just fine.........
The way the FE cranks are machined and the way the small block cranks are machined may be different, I don't know, but soo far, I've been happy with my Eagle parts......
As others have said,it doesn't matter where something is made, what matters is how it's made and with what components it's made with and the quality and quality control of the part that counts......
David
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