CTM Racing axles - enquiry

[gwagensteve]

As some of you know, I had a little axle strength issue on Cup day. As such, this has brought forward my "big axle" plans a bit.

Obviously, central to my plans for the strongest, most servicable suzuki based diff available, are custom full floating axle shafts. Some prices and contacts have been gained from machine shops here in Melbourne to do this work, but I noted that CTM racing make the inner shafts for the current double tough axles, so I thought I would contact them so see if they were willing to provide some pricing/avialability information. With the strong dollar, it might be worth going down this path.

Anyway, so you know as much as I do, here is the text of the enquiry I sent them. I worked the club angle a little, I know we're not going to be buying 20 sets or anything, but there has been some interest from a few members, and thought rather than just contacting them individually with the progress, it's probably better to do it here.


"G'day Guys

I'm involved in the suzuki 4WD club here in victoria, Australia. We've recently done a group order of Trail Tough Double Tough front axles and I am aware that you guys do the inner axles now. I have a couple of questions:

Are you willing to ship directly to us in australia?

Can you make a short side inner axle for the double tough application, but 4" longer than stock? (I'm making some over width axles for some members of the club.)

Can you make 26 spline axle shafts suitable for a full floating suzuki rear application (both ends splined to 26 spline as per the inner shaft of the double tough inner axles)and if so, can you make them in 300M?

Is it possible to provide some indicative pricing for custom shafts? sorry for all the questions, we are being quoted very high pricing here in Australia and reluctance to work with 300m, apparently due to problems with heat treatment. "

We'll see how we go. There are some other feelers out locally, and we'll get a sense of how competitive the US supplier is in comparison.

PS, I understand doubletoughs are undergoing another redesign and will be relaunched in january.

Steve.

[muppet_man67]

this kind of tech is leaving RUF in the dark ages me thinks. I wonder if Belly has any dealings with companies that do custom diffs/axles etc.

[muppet_man67]

Im still curious steve, the full floater rear will add some substantial width to the rear diff, how are you going to compensate the front end?

[gwagensteve]

It won't add as much width as you might think. Some rough calculations indicated about 30mm per side. Significant, but not IMHO unmanageable if the front end was kept stock. It could be easily corrected a couple of ways though.

1) Different offset rims on the rear (the easy way)

2)Narrowing the axlehousing to suit and having shorter axles cut

2A)Narrow the axlehousing to suit, using full length axles and a spacer under the freewheeling hub or drive flange to get the axlespline engagement right- this will just create a longer hub into the centre of the wheel like a landcruiser)

However, I don't want to keep the front stock. The impetus for this project is mostly to widen the front so full steering lock can be achieved with tall tyres and "normal" offset rims. My aim is full lock with V6 Vitara alloy rims and 10" wide 36" tyres. this is not possible at stock widtrack width, even with narrow track spring spacing. The preference for "normal" or even vitara offset is to reduce scrub radius as far as possible for sweet handling and to minimise guard cutting.

the plan was 100mm of added width in the front, all on the short side (so the diff comes accross towards the centre, easing U bolt clearance around the diff) and then the balance made up in the rear (which might turn out to be very little allowing for 60mm or so from the floater. )

It's complicated and time consuming, but I really want to have the best possible suzuki based diffs.

Steve.

[mightymouse]

Widen the rear first....... your really really going to "enjoy" the experience, although your extra wheelbase should help mitagate the worst of it ( perhaps ? )

Just make certain you have some way of keeping visability through the side windows however as you going to spend a lot of time looking out them on variable traction surfaces like sand, particularly one wheel on hard stuff the other on soft....

And put the infamous steering wheel cover on - it will cushion the white knuckle effect a little.

Seriously it produces scarry effects that happen in a heartbeat but only noticable on some surfaces

[cj!]

Ross is still having flashbacks to driving the 'Roza on a certain road in Big Desert last year me thinks It took a bit for him to release the "Death Grip" he had on the wheel.

Steve,

I spoke to Danny(?) at Solid and he is getting hold of someone who he thinks is suitable to talk to me. He says that there is no problem getting 300M heat treated here and there are a few places that can do it and are as good as anybody in the world although he didn't think that 300M is necessarily needed. As a ballpark figure he said to allow around the $300 per shaft which includes post heat treatment machining to make sure that they are straight which is about what we would be paying for the EN26 shafts with the same processes although I will need to speak to his guy to confirm this. He said it could take a couple of weeks to have them made as the guy always has work on. The heat treatment has a minimum charge so the more shafts done at the same time the better. As soon as I speak with him I'll let you know the outcome.

[gwagensteve]

I was 1/2 way through a response to Ross's comment and kicked the plug out of the wall to the computer

I think Ross's problem may well be (almost) unique to his car and associated as much with the behaviour of the front end than the rear. I;m not saying I wasn't bad, (or terrible) but lots of vehicles run a far wider rear than front, (including race cars and dually pickups) and lots of other cars run way wider front than rear ( leaf rear patrols and cruisers are about 130mm wider in the front than the rear!) I am awar'e it's not perfect which is why I suggested three ways to recitfy the problem. I agree that a longer wheelbase will reduce the effect.

Thanks for the update from Solid. I need to look into the relative strengths of these materials, (and not having ASTM numbers is annoying - I'll speak to the metalurgist here) but if I am spending lots of time and money on axles, housings, lockers, hub rebuilds etc I'd lose my $%#$ if I broke a $300 axle and knowing that I could have gone with a stronger material and have to get the axles made again.

I haven't had a response from CTM yet.

Steve.

[cj!]

A little info regarding 300M

http://www.suppliersonline.com/propertypages/300M.asp

[gwagensteve]

I had a quick search around, and typically, 300m has about twice the ultimate tensile strength of EN26. That's pretty significant.

I'll do some more research.

I really want the custom bits to be the unbreakable parts in the axle. Every other part is readily available, for very little money.

Steve.

[gwagensteve]

http://www.matweb.com/search/datasheet.aspx?matid=19366

A better source - has both sets of units.

Man, this stuff is TOUGH
tensile strength
Gr 250 - guranteed minimum 250, typical 400 Mpa (normal structural steel)
EN 26 - 1000-1150Mpa
300m - 2010-2050 MPA
- that's 5 to 8 times stronger than "normal" steel for the 300 M

I think I'm in love

Steve.