I was considering some sort of cryo or heat treatment of my 292 crank, but everything I read on the internet (it's on the internet so it must be true) says cast cranks don't need heat treated if they're turned .010 because the factory heat treat is .060-.080 thick. The more I read, the less the realized I knew about this stuff. Any experts out there? I figured as much as I have in everything else I might as well do this right.

I do know from racing motortcycles (road racing)people & teams cryo treat there parts,cranks,tranmission gears etc, & they would say they last longer & less failures.

I will say this,,,I installed new front cryo treated brake rotors on my 1997 Silverado truck & they definately last a lot longer & do not warp.

I have had to replace them w/GM rotors,aftermarket rotors & those all warpped.

MBHD

Somewhere here a few months ago there was a link to a good article about the use of cryogenics on all sorts of parts and many different materials, but I can't find it. Tom

We always sent our cranks out to get Nitrided after we did all the machining(lightening) and balancing to them. Can't say if it really helped extend crank life or not, we were just covering all the bases. A lot of Winston Cup teams have used a process called 300 Below to cryogenically treat many engine components, and claim it has great benefits to parts that seem to have a high fatigue or failure rate. I know they were very pleased with the cylinder heads they had treated with this process, so im sure it has a lot of benefits it many areas.

300 below (300below.com) is the name of one of the companies that does cryo tempering, and is also the process. It is interesting that you take a part and freeze it, and do the same as heating it to extreme temperature. One of the differences is that the part stays dimensionally stable with cryo. Their web site is very informative also. I've spoken with Bill May there and he is eager to help.

IIRC it wasn't that expensive.

Larry

Yep, for decades, heat treating was always considered to be the best method for strengthening metals. Who would have ever thought back then, that doing the opposite to metals will do the same thing, but better. And your right, its very reasonably priced.

$575 to do an entire engine. Plus shipping both ways of course. I'm thinking pretty hard about this. will update as required.