Aluminum or Cabon Fiber driveshafts:Worth the $$$

[lavapearl]

They are lighter, stronger and well balanced which means more HP.

[Z Ya Later]

But impractical for many street-driven vehicles. Why pay $600-$800 or more for a driveshaft when a $250 one will work just as well for the power level of a street car?

[fastTa]

http://www.ws6.com/mod-1.htm

[Nightrage]

The $800 for a carbon fiber driveshaft would be much better spent on some exhaust work.

[Injuneer]

The power gains are very small. Here's a dyno test of the aluminum 1LE shaft vs. the stock steel shaft:

http://web.camaross.com/forums/showt...15#post3874015

1 to 2 HP and 5 lb-ft of torque. The advantage of the aluminum DS is a higher critical frequency and the fact that it solves the imbalance problem that seems too haunt many of the 4th Gen steel shafts. But aluminum is not very strong... I've seen the 1LE fail in a stocker with a S/C, the LPE 3.5" aluminum fail at about 750HP. I don't think you can go much above 800HP with aluminum unless you get into large diameters and more exotic aluminum allloys.

My personal experience with an $800+ ACPT 3.8" CF DS (got it for around $700 from T. Byrne on a GP) was a disaster. The front yoke assembly ripped right out of the CF tube while the car was being driven less than 1 mile from the engine shop to the body shop, with the ECU in a "just enough to get it running" tune. ACPT and I argued for months since they claimed it was my fault for ordering the shaft too long and pushing the yoke into the CF tube. It was only with the help of T. Byrne that I was able to prove the shaft was ordered with the correct length and was identical in length the the 3" Mark Williams chrome moly DS that replaced it.

ACPT claimed mine was the first one that ever failed, and after heated debates with their chief engineer, I finally got my $700 back, but they wouldn't pay for shipping and the cost of removal. They even wanted to withhold payment until they destructively tested the shaft and found it defective, and only relented when I told them I wanted all the parts back after the test so that I could have my own tests done.

Get a good steel shaft from Spohn, Dennys, Mark Williams, etc and be happy with it. I can't imagine what would have happened if the CF DS had failed under 800 lb-ft of torque.

Coast-down test on ACPT CF DS:

http://www.ws6.com/mod-10.htm