Steel axles

[Zach]

If I take my r160 shafts down to the local engineers can I get them to make steel replicas. Any thoughts on this? would they also be stronger?

[Joker]

depends on what you think they are already made of? / cant help sorry I'm a wood guy

[Zach]

 Joker said:

depends on what you think they are already made of? / cant help sorry I'm a wood guy

have no idea what there made of but assumed because of how easy they brake it wouldn't be steel.

[Koom]

I'm guessing you mean chromoly? Which is a steel alloy that's generally tougher than plain steels.

The factory ones are steel. Possibly plain carbon steel or low alloy content but likely to be chromoly as well.

You could get some made but the cv's prevent you from making a super strong axle. As any axle is limited in outside diameter by the spline that fits the cv's at either end.

Have you looked at the driveshaftshop.com to see if they do an upgrade axle/cv set for your car?

Edited May 23, 2016 by Koom

[Zach]

Thanks koom. Yea I've looked at dss. They got some beefer ones. $1000 usd. Thats what gave me the custom axles job idea. Perhaps I could get some beefer axles for less. If not then I dont actually mind paying out for those dss ones.

[ADIKT]

 Zach said:

Thanks koom. Yea I've looked at dss. They got some beefer ones. $1000 usd. Thats what gave me the custom axles job idea. Perhaps I could get some beefer axles for less. If not then I dont actually mind paying out for those dss ones.

Why not r180?

[Joker]

is 180 the Dia of the diff or are they technically larger axles too

could be same cost vs upgrade, i like the question hence i interfered

[Zach]

Yea I've looked real good into r180 swap. I need the whole subframe to do it right. Then matching box, (but tbh if I had r180 I would give the rwd novelty a go) I Like the r160 4.44 so the dss axles and cv upgrade would allow me to keep that funny little feature too

[Munkvy]

Are you breaking axles currently? At what sort of power level and how aggressive a clutch do you have and how are you breaking them?

[boon]

-> Spend $1000 on dss axles

-> Shear the drive spline off or just nuke CVs every 5 minutes

-> Same result

[Zenki]

What Boon said but paraphrased: I would have thought the weakest point would have been the CVs, and not the axles?

[Joker]

reading on another forum i frequentt & a discussion popped up in regards to this

vvega, on 23 Oct 2008 - 9:13 PM, said:depends on how you shorten them...i think thats a very wrong statement to make

have you ever shortened a axel ?

i dont think people realise that stock axels are billet.......

and they give people years of trouble free motoring ......

apparently from someone that knows what they are talking about (mind you could be a gross generalisation not sure on specifics)

recent discussion on this link if you can view http://oldschool.co.nz/2011/forum/index.php?/topic/24295-billet-axles-in-nz/page-3

[Zach]

yep, running the r160 atm, daily her until can afford a r180 hub to hub swap, talked with a guy today who had pile of broken axles and says he's gone thru 4 diffs, they daily fine but if you want to drift on a 160 you cant just ruthlessly dump, you got to "thrash her gently" I understand that though, I know through watching good drivers and practicing that once you can start to feel your running gear your able to correctly manipulate how you put your power down, smalls things like double clutching, clutch/throttle application/control, inertia initiating etc etc all guided through your sense of the car, I know experienced drivers know what im talking about, just a matter of conscious practice, it's definitely a skill that is useful in all vehicles, So Im motivated to put effort into learning this and honing driving skills, I'll update my experience from this mindset when I have an r180 installed and so much conscious driving is not necessary.

Thanks for the help once again, all the usual faces particularly.

[GC8E2DD]

You must still be conscious when driving with an R180.

[loner]

Initiate inertia unconsciously, or go home!

I have never met a fully conscious drifter either.

Edited June 11, 2016 by loner

[DRFVDR]

if you have ever tried to cut an axle with a hacksaw, you will know that they are made of pretty damn good steel, and a spark test confirms it