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We love metallurgy, heat treatments and engineering. Here's a small sample of what goes in to our axles, we could talk tech for days!
Carbon is found virtually everywhere, and is the fourth most abundant element in the universe. Besides being the chemical basis of all known life (kind of a big deal), Carbon has specific properties important to metallurgy. The amount of Carbon in a metal or alloy determines which type of heat treating to use, and ultimately the hardness of a finished metal product. When you make axles and gears, you know CARBON.
Common factory axles are made to work with small OE tires, see very little real off roading, and simply don't hold up to hard use. These axles are often made from 1039 or 1040 material. An inexpensive but good upgrade for rear shafts is 1541, or 1541H (a bit of Manganese and Boron added, which allow harder surface heat treat). The benefit of 1541h is strength, cost and ease of machine and heat treating. While a good compromise, we do not use 1541h in our axles.
A much larger step up in strength is the Chromoly family of material, commonly 4140 or 4340. The material is very ductile, or has a lot of "give' to it before deforming. It's the heat treat process that is more complicated and expensive, making some companies unwilling to offer it's advantage. We use 4140 and 4340 in Rear shaft applications, depending on application. We can heat treat both efficiently while maintaining high surface hardness which is important for the non-steering application.
In front axle kits, we use 4340 chromoly with you guessed it - additional CARBON and Nickel. stronger still, and even more complicated on proper heat treatment. We developed the dual heat treat in the late 90's (see below) for the BEST combination of strength and durability.
We use 300m for racing applications only. It is a modified 4340 chromoly, with some additional strength, but it is more susceptible to cracking. On a race car or truck, the shafts are magnafluxed for crack checking on a regular basis, catching cracks before catastrophic failure. Additionally, the strength often exceeds the strength of non-racing mating components, resulting in a less reliable assembly. It's just simply not the material for street driven vehicles.
Most Original Equipment factory axles are induction heat treated, which uses electromagnetic heat generated by high frequency alternating currents generated by the electromagnet. The shaft is heated and quenched immediately to create hardness on the surface and penetrating up to .300. This type of heat treatment is quick, but limited to the shaft area only, as the induction coil must be just larger than the shaft diameter, and will not accommodate a flange or yoke.
Certain types of alloys with higher Carbon content, along with manganese and molybdenum such as Chromoly, are able to be through hardened. Like the name implies, the shaft is hardened all the way through, creating a very strong axle shaft. However, in order to achieve the correct surface hardness, through hardening can result in a tough shaft that doesn't live in repeated shock cycles.
We developed the Dual Heat treat system for front chromoly shafts around 2000, and have perfected it. We Through Harden just enough for strength in the core and ears, while allowing high ductility, or "give", then Induction Heat Treat the shaft to get the surface hardness where we need it. It takes longer, costs more, but creates the best combination of strength and ductility.
The longer front shaft can handle more twist angle than the much shorter shaft. That's why typically, the short side OE shaft is the most likely to fail. We counter this with proprietary EquiTorque(R) technology. We make specific changes to left and right diameters on a per vehicle basis. The diameter changes are designed to "equalize" the torque across both shafts, with the right balance of strength and ductility to keep your axle assembly alive in the toughest conditions.
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