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Titanium Bolts vs stock bolts

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I've put some thought into this as well..

small gains can sometimes bring light to the bigger picture... overall performance..and where you want to see improvements...


The only reason i have not is money, and not finding the correct titanium alloy for the job.. titanium alone is way too brittle for repeated shock loads... unless it's combined with other materials...

the piston rods, crank, flywheel, clutch, the tranny and axles and lug bolts.. are subjected to all kinds of shock forces.. torque shock.. just all kinds of places a metals ability to stretch and bend and take sudden and great ammounts of forces..

these places are in need of special concerns to work properly and endure..but will gain noticeable diffreneces in weight and "performance" or overall operation of the motor..and getting that power to the earth..materials with less flex or twist, you will feel a significant change in how quickly it seems that power is released to the earth/road

for example.. high-carbon steel oem cv axles vs carbonfiber or a diffrent grade material.. used.. some people notice that the steel bolts they used at the receiving end would shear off.. or spinning wheels and breaking traction was alot easier.. xD


It wont be worth doing if, it won't last long enough to enjoy those gains tho.

when messing with rotational mass, and balance of the crankshaft.. takeing out those areas of weight could lead to a severely out of balanced crankshaft.. and would be more serious then simply mild discomfort due to rough idle and vibrations... the whole crankshaft would need to be rebalanced.. and customized.. just because those points of weight have changed drastically.. but this is my theory.. until someone bolts stuff together and spins the assembly @ extream speeds to test it.. we won't know xD until we try it:rocks:
 
Short and sweet- TI BOLTS F_ING WELD TO STEEL LOL

They have an amazing capability to low temperature weld to steel. You thought drilling out exhaust studs sucked. Have that happen and you throw away the part. Ultra common for race teams to use Ti hardware on ring and pinions and then just throw them out once they are done cause they don't come out. Anti seize helps but its not a cure all.

For your application I would be more likely to look into aluminum rods than Ti Hardware. Ti hardware is VERY expensive and its also not worth the gains. You would be better served doing freebies like removing sound deadening material from the interior etc. Unless your building an Indycar or something like that where you all have the same engine and your margins of victory over a 1-2 hour race are tenths of a second. It's not worth it. Get aluminum rods and call it good. Oh, and if you still want to spend money after that lighten your crank. You will have a engine that revs like a crotch rocket and have no Ti hardware.
 
What is it that gets hot enough to weld to the steel? Typically your valve springs get around 30 degrees hotter than your oil. Seen anyone have a problem with there titanium retainers? I hate this forum for that fact that no one experiments with parts like these. It's a very common product in the Honda community(flywheel bolts). They also run titanium axles. So, please don't give bad info. This is a 4 cylinder average car. We don't run 20k rpms for 2 hours. If anyone is serious about titianum bolts pm me. I can get you exactly what you need.
 
I hate this forum for that fact that no one experiments with parts like these

Its not that no one experiments its that the gain is not worth the cost to most people. For what ever weight you will take off the center line of the rotating assembly to me isnt worth it for several reasons. the first being the fact that TI likes to shatter under side load conditions such as what is present in a rotating assembly and second the benefit is going to be less than me turning my boos up by 1 pound.
 
It's 2011.. Aircraft grade titanium alloy has better torsonal memory than steel for one... Anyone that even looks into titanium pieces doesn't have another pound of boost to search for. I'm not going to argue about the titanium rotating pieces. If it wasnt worth it myself and people like curt brown wouldn't be using them.
 
Aircraft grade
ROFL I work in aviation all aircraft grade means is it has been approved for use in an aircraft, doesnt have to be anything special to get the term aircraft grade. My 1970 cessna has brown twill seats so I have aircraft grade twill in my plane.

The term aircraft grade when referring to TI is in reference to TI 6.4 which is a specific alloy of TI. It has no extra strength or resistance to shattering vs regular TI. In fact it is rated higher on the hardness scale so it would be more prone to shattering once its threshold strength is reached.

And if you wanted to preach strength of TI when talking about rotation loading and whatnot i would use extra hard Titanium 6.6.2 (6Al/6V/2Sn). It is composed of 86% titanium, 6% aluminum, 6% vanadium, 2% tin. This is practically the strongest titanium alloy on the market and is mainly used in the aerospace industry for its great strength and lightweight. Titanium 6.6.2 has a tensile strength of up to 180,000 psi and a Brinell hardness value of 389 versus the 330 of the TI 6.4

seriously though if your searching to get every scrap of power out of the car and your out of boost and need to shave weight off the rotational mass TI bolts are prob the absolute last thing I think should be looked at since the gain will be minute. A different set of rims or even tires that reduce the weight by 1 pound at each corner will be astronomically more beneficial versus the TI bolts.

If you truly wanted to look into lightweight metals and there applications I would start Looking into Magnesium as it is seeing extensive use in F1 racing and motorcycles. Just pray you never have a fire.
 
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Look at ceramic bearings (wheel, differential, etc) before playing with fastener material.

Hal
 
I was going to suggest the magnus billet wheel hubs. they save some crazy amount of weight each.
 
xD

what about carbonfiber or titanium wheels?? and brakes?
 
if your going lightweight on the wheels magnesium are alot lighter but $$$$
 
That is why they make billet titanium Cranks for 1500+ horsepower builds.. because its sooo brittle :rolleyes:

Also Hal had the best idea in here so far... What do you think Curt used to get so fast?
 
It might be more accurate to say that the mechanism behind "low temp welding" is galling.
see Galling - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Basically, galling happens when two parts are pressed against each other, then moved relative to each other, such as loosening a bolt. The clamping pressure of a the bolt combined with a soft metal like titanium can lead to galling.

Ceramic bearings are still expensive. I looked into the price for a pair of front diff bearings; $300/pair.

The Tire Rack offers to shave tires, which will save 1 to 2 pounds per tire for a low price, except the tires wear out quicker so you have to buy new tires sooner. This might be a good idea for a weekend car that doesn't go through tires often.

IMHO the reason the DSM crew doesn't look at ti bolts and other exotic materials is because it's much easier to add power mods. Thankfully the DSM and EVO respond very well to power mods. We don't need to resort to spending $1k for 5 pounds of weight savings when that same $1k buys some good power. Don't get me wrong, it's good to look and see what they're doing with other platforms.
 
What is it that gets hot enough to weld to the steel?

It's called low temperature welding for a reason dude. It doesn't actually have to get hot. I have only worked in motorsports for the better half of a decade, and run 2 grand am race teams. I don't know what I am talking about. LOL.

Stick with what works unless you have a butt load of money burning holes in your pockets. If you really want to, why not do a comparison. Swap out the flywheel bolts with Ti hardware and then dyno before and after if your so convinced it makes a huge difference. Also in most rule books for motorsports they specifically cite hardware requirements as grade 5 or better. Often saying that only ferrous metals are to be used in fasteners. (meaning no titanium, so read your rule books first)

The first 1000 lbs in weight reduction is cheap and easy. The rest is time and money. Removing 100 lbs of static weight will benefit you much more than a couple ozes saved in hardware.

ROFL I work in aviation all aircraft grade means is it has been approved for use in an aircraft, doesnt have to be anything special to get the term aircraft grade. My 1970 cessna has brown twill seats so I have aircraft grade twill in my plane.

The term aircraft grade when referring to TI is in reference to TI 6.4 which is a specific alloy of TI. It has no extra strength or resistance to shattering vs regular TI. In fact it is rated higher on the hardness scale so it would be more prone to shattering once its threshold strength is reached.

And if you wanted to preach strength of TI when talking about rotation loading and whatnot i would use extra hard Titanium 6.6.2 (6Al/6V/2Sn). It is composed of 86% titanium, 6% aluminum, 6% vanadium, 2% tin. This is practically the strongest titanium alloy on the market and is mainly used in the aerospace industry for its great strength and lightweight. Titanium 6.6.2 has a tensile strength of up to 180,000 psi and a Brinell hardness value of 389 versus the 330 of the TI 6.4

seriously though if your searching to get every scrap of power out of the car and your out of boost and need to shave weight off the rotational mass TI bolts are prob the absolute last thing I think should be looked at since the gain will be minute. A different set of rims or even tires that reduce the weight by 1 pound at each corner will be astronomically more beneficial versus the TI bolts.

If you truly wanted to look into lightweight metals and there applications I would start Looking into Magnesium as it is seeing extensive use in F1 racing and motorcycles. Just pray you never have a fire.

AN hardware is what grade of hardware? LOL. Glad I know who mops the floors :). I built 18,000 Lb thrust F404-402's.
 
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AN hardware is what grade of hardware? LOL. Glad I know who mops the floors . I built 18,000 Lb thrust F404-402's.

AN is not a hardware but a system to identify it, and allow for easy use by multiple agencies.

Aircraft hardware is special, then there must be a standard against which it should be measured and manufactured. That standard was actually developed prior to World War II, but became more definitive during that war. Each branch of the military originally had its own standard for hardware. As time went on these standards were consolidated and thus the term AN which means Air Force-Navy (some prefer the older term Army-Navy). Later the standards were termed MS which means Military Standard and NAS which means National Aerospace Standards. Thus, the common terms AN, MS and NAS. Together they present a universally accepted method of identification and standards for aircraft hardware. All fasteners are identified with a specification number and a series of letters and dashes identifying their size, type of material, etc. This system presents a relatively simple method of identifying and cataloging the thousands and thousands of pieces of hardware. Several pieces of hardware will have both an AN number and an MS number that are used interchangeably to identify the exact same piece. A cross reference exists that compares these two numbers. So in the end, you are able to read your plans or assembly manual and identify, by number and letter, each piece of hardware on your airplane. You can then obtain that piece and properly install it in the right place. Imagine trying to do that without a system of numbers. The specifications for each piece of hardware also define the strength, tolerance, dimensions, and finish that is applied

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And yes if im asked I do mop the floor :D

If your dead set on using ti hardware I would like to know the results. I live near where dyson racing is and they fly into our airport and I know that they use TI parts on their cars and they rebuild the motor after every race to prevent failures due to stress.

http://www.dysonracing.com/

I have also heard when I was into auto x'ing miatas that they had a member buying piles of used Ti parts since they are only run for one event also because of failure rates.
 
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