Thoughts/opinions on Blueprint Engines 408 stroker crate engine?
Being a tier 1 manufacturer, we manufacture, machine, or produce, many of our own parts. Cranks are an example of that. We use the same foundry as the other big name guys that everyone flaunts over, and bring the crank to our facility to balance and machine. In a cast steel crank, vs fully forged, it comes down to the process and material is just worlds beyond what was avail in the 70's. Same goes with pistons. There are alot of wives tails that follow around engines, that are rooted to the quality of parts avail in the 70's. Heck, there are still some people that will tell you strokers in general are problematic because of the rod angle. Our R&D department, and nearly 400000 BluePrint Engines in circulation would say differently:)
So anyways, to the crank specifically. The only thing adding a forged unit to this engine would do is increase the cost. We have cars using this engine running into the 11's out there, and it's one of those things if we didn't think they were adequate, we wouldn't use them. Having never broke one to my knowledge, it's doing its job. These engines make power into the low 6000's as they should for street/strip use. They are built to live, not ring out every last HP. Mopars are hard enough to keep the cost down on, so if I don't have to charge someone another 300 or 400, and the engines make it through all our testing, that's a good day.