Titanium bolts anyone interested?

[Robert Simpson]

I have recently made contact with a Titanium supply company. They currently deal with bulk raw material. But, have show great interest in producing Titanium nuts, bolts fastenors etc.. They told me that they would like feedback from racers of all kinds to see what kind, size bolts they would want before they would start producing anything. If any racers out there is interested in any info, or just a reply to the manufacture about interest and what you would be looking for, would be appreciated by them. You can contact them directly, TMS Titanium www.TMSTITANIUM.com send them a E-mail or if you want you can PM me and I will forward your interests. From the way they were talking they are very racer frendly and currently involved with Fuel and Funny Car but really want to expand to bolts etc. Just let me know, tell you friends. Or if there is someone I should contact in another racing source just let me know. By the way thanks Ken.

Robert

[James L Miller]

What grade of titanium are they going to use? McMaster Carr has some titanium screws in smaller sizes, not real strong material at 50ksi though.

http://www.mcmaster.com/#hex-head-cap-screws/=u1b37n

http://www.mcmaster.com/#socket-head-cap-screws/=u1b4j3

Compare the tensile strength to a Grade 2 steel screw:

http://www.mcmaster.com/#standard-cap-screws/=u1b5zq

[SSDiv6]

As much as many of you like to save weight with Titanium, you have to be careful with the galvanic corrosion of Titanium.

Titanium parts and fasteners should be primed if they are attached to aluminum or alloy steel parts. This will prevent the Titanium from galvanically corroding from their contact to aluminum or alloy steels. The same applies to Stainless Steel.

A good practice is to touch up any contact areas with Zinc Chromate primer.
The primer I recommend is made by Moeller Marine products.

[ATI Performance Products]

Originally Posted by Robert Simpson

I have recently made contact with a Titanium supply company. They currently deal with bulk raw material. But, have show great interest in producing Titanium nuts, bolts fastenors etc.. They told me that they would like feedback from racers of all kinds to see what kind, size bolts they would want before they would start producing anything. If any racers out there is interested in any info, or just a reply to the manufacture about interest and what you would be looking for, would be appreciated by them. You can contact them directly, TMS Titanium www.TMSTITANIUM.com send them a E-mail or if you want you can PM me and I will forward your interests. From the way they were talking they are very racer frendly and currently involved with Fuel and Funny Car but really want to expand to bolts etc. Just let me know, tell you friends. Or if there is someone I should contact in another racing source just let me know. By the way thanks Ken.

Robert

ATI Performance Products stocks Titanium bolts and bolt kits for the Damper, Valve Bodies and Transmission packages. You can save around 3 lbs and its pretty affordable for what is out there in the Titanium world.

http://www.atiracing.com/products/bolts/index.htm

[Ed Wright]

I bought a bunch of titanium bolts from an aircraft surplus place back in the 1980s when I was running a dirt track sprint car. A guy that helped me with the car was a machinist, he custom made two full sets of bolts for me. Thing with larger aircraft bolts, most are 12 point heads and what I had were plated, they were a green color. Light & strong enough. Had a few crashes, never a bolt failure.
Might be a place to look.

[SSDiv6]

Originally Posted by Ed Wright

I bought a bunch of titanium bolts from an aircraft surplus place back in the 1980s when I was running a dirt track sprint car. A guy that helped me with the car was a machinist, he custom made two full sets of bolts for me. Thing with larger aircraft bolts, most are 12 point heads and what I had were plated, they were a green color. Light & strong enough. Had a few crashes, never a bolt failure.
Might be a place to look.

Ed, the green color was the Zinc Chromate finish for corrosion.

Titanium should never be in direct contact with Cadmium, Nickel-Cadmium, CRES Steels and/or Aluminum unless it has been primed.
Also, Titanium should never be exposed to Trichloroethylene/Trichloroethane cleaning products, Chloride and/or Methyl Alcohol.

if any one uses Titanium fasteners in suspension components such as control arms, they need to use a specific Titanium compatible lubricant.

Although they save weight, the cost and corrosion risks and not worth the investment unless you are the type of racer that does take the car apart at the end of the season as part of your maintenance and inspection of critical parts.

[Ed Wright]

Yeah, I know what the coating is. I was an aircraft tech for 12 years. Used those bolts all the time at work. Not just everybody can machine them well. I measured every bolt in the car while building it, it came completely apart every winter. My friend took the bastard-sized bolts and made the needed 1/2" & 7/16" bolts, with one full thread past the locking nuts. Intake bolts, bell housing, and front motor plate bolts were std thread 3/8", (no std threads on an air plane) were made from longer 3/8" fine thread bolts. Always use the proper anti-seize with them. Got asked a lot "Why all the 12 point bolts?" :-)

I had blue & red AN fittings and stainless braided lines (and Dzus fasteners) on my old '56 Chevy Jr Stocker in the mid-1960s before anybody ever heard of Dave Russell.

[SSDiv6]

Originally Posted by Ed Wright

Yeah, I know what the coating is. I was an aircraft tech for 12 years. Used those bolts all the time at work. Not just everybody can machine them well. I measured every bolt in the car while building it, it came completely apart every winter. My friend took the bastard-sized bolts and made the needed 1/2" & 7/16" bolts, with one full thread past the locking nuts. Intake bolts, bell housing, and front motor plate bolts were std thread 3/8", (no std threads on an air plane) were made from longer 3/8" fine thread bolts. Always use the proper anti-seize with them. Got asked a lot "Why all the 12 point bolts?" :-)

I had blue & red AN fittings and stainless braided lines (and Dzus fasteners) on my old '56 Chevy Jr Stocker in the mid-1960s before anybody ever heard of Dave Russell.

LOL! Same here too! My buddies always wanted to know how I had all these cool fasteners, plumbing and wiring. We had lots of surplus stuff at the A&P School and grabbed what I needed for the race car. Also had access to AV Gas which I mixed with regular gas for both the race car and street car.

[Ed Wright]

When they had to service a wing fuel cell, they "de-fueled" the cell into a tank on a trailer they towed out to the flight line. Then into a storage tank, where it was later disposed of. I have no idea how. :-) the cell would be refilled with fresh fuel after the repair. The cargo planes we had used purple fuel, seems like 114 octane? It was color coded then. We often used fuel from that tank in our cars. Exhaust from a car burning that had it's own aroma. LOL Not hard to tell where some guys got their fuel, in the parking lot at the end of the day.
We thought it was cheap race fuel. We didn't at the time understand that fuel for a 2800 RPM engine was different than fuel for a 8500 RPM (high RPM for the mid-1960s) engine. I was working on 4360 Pratt & Whitney radial engines then.

[SSDiv6]

Originally Posted by Ed Wright

When they had to service a wing fuel cell, they "de-fueled" the cell into a tank on a trailer they towed out to the flight line. Then into a storage tank, where it was later disposed of. I have no idea how. :-) the cell would be refilled with fresh fuel after the repair. The cargo planes we had used purple fuel, seems like 114 octane? It was color coded then. We often used fuel from that tank in our cars. Exhaust from a car burning that had it's own aroma. LOL Not hard to tell where some guys got their fuel, in the parking lot at the end of the day.
We thought it was cheap race fuel. We didn't at the time understand that fuel for a 2800 RPM engine was different than fuel for a 8500 RPM (high RPM for the mid-1960s) engine. I was working on 4360 Pratt & Whitney radial engines then.

The main difference between AV GAS and automotive gasoline is the vapor pressure. The vapor pressure on AVGAS is much lower to prevent vapor lock and stalling. I mixed 30% AVGAS with 94 octane gasoline and rejetted the carb.

WOW! LOL!
Ed, I did not know you were that old to be working on WASP engines! :-)

Those babies were something else! I believe they had 28 cylinders and made from 2500 hp to 3800 hp depending on the model. We had a few of those at school for training purposes.