my mate works for a company that does loads of one off metal work he has told me he can make me a new crank , i know useing a steel crank means you can use higher revs but wauld a titanium one be stronger or just more fragile any info wauld be greatly welcomed

 

it would be extreemly light and strong,but i dont know its ability to take a bearing surface, or its stiffness,but the sr-71 blackbird was made out of the stuff because of temperature/strength requirements
but i can tell you its a pure bastd to drill and machine,but an interesting idea

 

does titanium have alife of use [how long does it larst before
it will break]plus the crank should run on a film of oil
or you would shag the crank and bearing's ?

 

it is very stiff and hard but as far as i know its very light as some of the bikes iv had have had titanium bits . the real problem is will it be to light to have its own inertia which helps the car rev freely im also contemplating titanium con rods.

 

the flywheel maintains the inertia

 

so thearetickly it could work . and if its down to the fly wheel it should spin up quicker as well as higher like a bike

 

the engine might spin like a turbo

 

is there any engine tuners that wauld give me advice without fobing me off thinking this is just another daft young lad with another daft idea and speeking of spining like a turbo how about porcelin roler bearing bottom end

 

The crank contributes to inertia too.

Heard of titanium rods before but not a crank. One point to bear in mind is that you may need special bearings as certain materials shouldn't come into contact with titanium. i.e. you must use black japanned sockets on titanium bolts.

 

i use titanium bolts at work and thought about using them on my brakes. when i looked up the spec sheets i found they had far less shear strengh than mild steel so i would imagine a crank is a none starter.

 

Titanium is very strong in the short term - used a lot in drag racing, where it's changed after a few miles. It fatigues, and is no good for a road car.

 

tbh if it was a safe bet the touring cars and rally cars would be using it i would have thought?
and it doesn't contain much carbon so you would not be able to harden the outer case like they do with the steel cranks which are reasonably light and very strong to start with.

 

Titanium was used extensively in super touring up to year 2000 . Banned by toca as too expensive now , ive had sets of titanium drive flanges , calipers with titanium pistons are still on my car so i guess if you can afford it you can use it , dunno about a crank tho !

 

I would love to know how much your mates firm would normally charge to machine up a crank. i would imagine it would run into thousands. would look nice though