Looking for feedback on Crane roller rockers
 

Hey Guys'

I need some feedback on Crane roller rocker kit #34790-1 for Fe engines. Good, bad? Personal experience. All input will be appreciated.

Thanks.

FWIW, I just read on the FE Forum that Crane is closing their business.

i do believe, if my memory serves, dove is cranes vendor for rockers for the fe. check doves site.

Crane makes a good roller rocker in fact that is what I have on my engine and for the last 6 years I have had no problem with my roller rockers. They have managed to survive just fine.

Clois

Crane rockers for the FE are absolute CRAP..

I have Crane rockers on my engine, they are not CRAP, they are similar to Dove and Comp Cams. No bushings or needle bearings on any of these.
Harland Sharp are a step above them and Erson and TMD are the best.

I`ve got the Dove/Crane rockers on my 427 Galaxie ... and it`s the last set of those I`ll buy . They wear badly and the shaft wear is also unacceptable , and yes , they are set up correctly on geometry and spring pressure isn`t excessive . I`m not saying they are garbage ... but I`ll upgrade to the Ersons this summer so I don`t have a failure .

You can read some of the Crane horror stories on FordFE.com.. There were some early on geometry problems of a design nature. The non-bushed rockers wore prematurly with high load springs too. This is unless there's been some improvements in the last few years??

Rumor has it that Crane Cams went out of business yesterday. Closed the doors for good! Just a rumor that I heard on another forum.

Autoweek just announced that Crane closed their doors, in Daytona.

Regardless of Crane's demise, I had no problems with geometry or premature wear.
Comp Cams and Dove have no bushings either.
If you are using a street cam with under 600 lift, any of them will work.
If you are going for higher lift and higher spring pressures, then Erson or TMD is what you should be looking at.
There are a lot of horror stories about a lot of companies, I am just sharing my positive experience with Crane.
As a matter of fact, the last build I did was with Harland Sharp and I liked the Crane geometry as well as the Harland Sharp's. I had to grind the stands for the Crane set to work with Edelbrock heads, but it was no big deal.
There is a set of new Crane's on Ebay, which may be the basis of this post.
They are a great deal if someone gets then for under $500 - they are only at $255 now.

For the difference in cost, I'd go Erson. My$.02

When I was rebuilding the "first gen" FE for the Cobra I needed to buy a set of roller rockers/shafts. I was looking at Ersons and the new Cranes, which were recently released. The Cranes were about a hundred bucks cheaper at the time. It's then when I started doing some digging to the find pros and cons of each that I found out about the FE Crane rocker problems. Crane's first go-round with them had the ratios off a bit and the rockers were swiping the valve tips a little too far outboard. This caused some guide wear issues in extreme conditions. I also didn't like the fact that you had to mill the shaft stands a little shorter unlike the "plug 'n play" of the Ersons. That additional machine work sort of negated and savings in the cost of the part. The needle bearings are killer too.**) It's then that I decided to spend the hundred bucks more and invest in the Ersons. I've had the Ersons on 2 different engines and in each case they have worked flawlessly, with a 0.650" lift cam too in the later engine. I'm running Keith's stage II Eboks with 0.060" oil restrictors to keep just the right oil flow to the rockers. I didn't follow the FE Crane system after that. I'd heard some chatter that they'd improved things, to what degree I don't know.

As to Crane's reported demise, it's truely a sad day when we loose such a notable performance parts giant. I make no judgement about Crane based on what I heard about their FE rockers. They produce outstanding products that have graced many an engine that I've built. They will be missed.:(:CRY:

Dave

I have to recant my above post because I have Sig Erson roller rockers. I don't know what I was thinking! But I am sure the Crane Golds are a good choice if you stay under .600 lift?

Clois

Crane Cams was acquired by Mikronite Technologies, only a change in upper management the rest of the company structure remains the same for now. The merger should benefit Crane with new capital infusion. Time will tell.

Mikronite Technologies acquired Crane around two years ago.


Crane is closed....Wachovia ended the deal.

I lurk more than post here,but yes, Crane is gone, unless some magic happens, and yes their FE rockers were poor.

I wouldnt buy them even if they were 1/2 price sellout after spending a lot of time with them. I was one of the 4-5 guys who initially bought them and reported all the measurements and problems on the FE forum. The bores werent anodized well, which they claim caused the wear, not sure if they fixed that, but also the design was not FE specific.

They required special length pushrods, they pushed the pushrods farther out toward the intake, which is already a tight area for clearance with good pushrods or high lift, and the roller wheel was equally off toward the outside of valve tip. Overall it was the wrong rocker, close, but wrong and anything but a mild setup with lots of pushrod clearance caused problems with those rockers

I wanted to use them, they were dirt cheap, but I couldnt get there and Crane bought them back. Ersons are a bolt on and very very nice. The difference in quality is night and day.

FYI, during the measuring, I had Dove, Harland Sharp, and the Cranes all on the bench for comparison, and the Crane was noticeably lower quality just looking at them.

If there is any question, to be clear, the Ersons are 300 dollars better, and the Cranes were not good enough.

Another option are the ones Brent Lykins is selling, the price is right, although I havent used them, there hasnt been any complaints floating around yet. Thats a good sign LOL

Thanks for all the input, everyone. I did see the rockers on e-bay and that is why I posted my question. Checked this morning and they're up to $430.54 with four days left. Already over what I thought would be a good deal. The guy may have had them a while, which made me think they might be the problematic ones, so I'm using Ersons.

Sorry to see Crane go away, though. I've always liked their products.

On an up note...I heard that Harvey Crane is setting up shop.

best decision you could have made.