Me and a friend are having a discussion on what engines had forged crankshafts.. The list is like this and we are missing a bit of info....Not interested in real early cars or late model... All Chevy V-8's up till around 1964 All Chevy 216,235 and 261 and early 292 6's All GMC 228-302 All Buick nailheads??? Pontiac V-8 up to early 60's? Olds V-8 up to 64? Caddy???? And I believe all the old flathead 6's and 8's made by GM had forged cranks. Most Mopar V-8's up into the 60????? Ford I know little about other than I think HD engines probably used forged cranks? And what about the small manufacturers like Studebaker,Hudson,etc?
It appears to me that pretty much all engines used forged crankshafts except for Ford? Not a good or bad thing just that Ford preferred cast cranks???
Another permeation; a cast crank can be cast iron or cast steel. Newer cars generally have iron cranks. Beyond crankshafts; newer cars tend to have iron parts where the same part on an older car would have been forged steel.
The Ford FT (330, 361, 391) motors used a forged steel crankshaft. These cranks will work in any Ford FE motor by simply turning down the snout diameter.
For Mopar, everything 1971 and older is forged. It might be easier to list the cast cranks... All 360 are cast 72-73 340 are cast The 400, starting in 72 were a 50-50 mix and some 440 still had forgings in 76. The 318 used forged cranks until the 80's sometime. .
High perf big block chevys had steel cranks, and the early low perf engines did too. Also the big truck motors (tall deck).
Many '59 and up Pontiac crankshafts were cast steel, and had "ARMA STEEL" cast on one of the counterweights. It seems to fade out after the late '60s.
To narrow down early SBCs further: All 265s All 283s from '57-'63; after that, some did and some didn't All 327s from '62-'67. I always seem to get an argument on this, with someone insisting that they have/had a small journal 327 cast crank, but they can never back up their claim with any proof.
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