Michael Collins
CrankForge

CrankForge is a single-shop operation based in Las Cruces. The work is the same work it's been for two decades: classic American muscle engine rebuilds — Mopar 318s and 440s, small-block Chevys, Cummins diesels, the occasional Windsor or Pontiac. Stock rebuilds, weekend cars, and the high-end builds where the receipts start to hurt.

Right now the build going on camera is a 1968 four-bolt-main SB350 — donor block out of a barn yard, sat since 2017, on the stand as of this spring. The whole rebuild is being shot as a YouTube series, and the build log behind the video is the cleanest record CrankForge has ever kept on a build: a part-bag wall with every bag labeled and indexed, a machine-shop handoff with the invoice signed over the bench, and a stack of receipts any accountant would accept. The build is going to land somewhere north of $55,000 by the time the engine is in the car and broken in.

Three credibility beats, each one backed by something on camera: real shop — real lift, real grease, real hours, not a YouTube-glamour garage; real receipts — every torque spec written down, every part logged, every invoice kept; and real money — actual totals published, not spec-sheet estimates. A stock SB350 rebuild runs four to five thousand. Street build, ten to fourteen. Those are the real numbers.