Review- FSA Afterburner 386 Crank

FSA Afterburner Crank 386, 40x 27 Chainrings

So I received my FSA afterburner 386 cranks in the post yesterday and thought I would post up some inital impressions.

Weight
They are 30 grams heavier than the XTR cranks they are replacing, despite being only a dual ring setup. Looking at them you can see straight away that the arms are most substantial than the XTR crankset. Whether this translates into a stiffer set of cranks I can’t say at this stage.

Finish
These are kind of a love it or hate. I like the finish which is similar to the older XTR anodizing (deep grey) but am not so keen on the shape. They just look bulky and industrial, where as the XTR cranks have a more rounded profile.

Ease of Installation

Left hand Crank and mounting bolts

Unlike XTR cranks these don’t require two separate tools to remove. When I first got the XTR cranks I was a WTF? Could they have made these anymore complicated to install? The cranks have a plastic ring which needs to be removed before the exclusive XTR crank only tool can be screwed in and the crank bolt backed out to pull the crank off.
The FSA cranks are similar in design to the XT level cranks and have a dual set of bolts on the left hand crank for fastening the crank to the axle. Bearing pre-load is adjusted through a threaded cap on the left hand side... and yes as I found out it is possible to do it up too tight!

Other set up Issues
I had to adjust the front derailleur because the new big ring is a 40T so it meant having to lower the height and here I “may have” run into a bit of a snag. Because of the shape of the frames tubing and pivot points the XTR dual pull derailleur is sitting a couple of mm’s higher than I would like. At the moment it doesn’t seem to be affecting the shifting but a full field trial will tell whether I need to swap this out for a top mount derailleur.

36-12 Cassette

I also threw on a 12-36 cassette and fresh chain at the same time and what a difference it made to the feel of the drive train. You kinda forget what fresh clean stuff feels like if you don’t replace it regularly ie 3-5 months. There seems to be enough clearance for the 36T with a normal XTR rear derailleur...but it is tight. Unlike a road rear derailleur there is no b screw to adjust the top pulley away from the cassette. Again a couple of test rides to see if this is going to be a problem or not.


Right Hand Crank

End Result
So I now have a drive train where I can use all but one gear (40x36) for about the same weight. The front shifting, I think is on par with the XTR cranks it’s replacing but I wouldn’t say it’s an improvement. From reading some of the descriptions of the SRAM XX stuff there are a lot more ramps and pins for shifting the chain which the FSA cranks are lacking.
I will be taking this out for a thrashing on Sunday to field test drive train and see what adjustments I need to make and will give an update then.