Are aluminum parts bad because they *don't* break?

[Arboleda]

Hi all, I'm new to RC cars and just built my T4 from kit and have run it through about a half dozen battery packs at my local track. I'm picking up the hang of it and love the sport.

I've been careful to not fly too fast into corners but did so once and broke a part in the front. It's the part that the two A-arms connect to, not sure what it was called.

No problem, the track had a replacement part for several bucks and I was up and running again quickly.

Because I'm new, I expect that I'll take my share of run-ins with the wall while I'm improving. I wondered about replacing some of the high-breakage parts with aluminum parts during initiation into the sport.

The one thing I wondered about was whether the nylon/plastic parts could be considered better in some ways because they *do* break. For example had that part that I broke not broken, couldn't it be argued that more abrupt force would have carried on to the chassis, A arms, server, etc? Is it better for a part like that to break than to have a strong aluminum part connected to the nylon/plastic chassis cause the chassis itself to break towards the front where it's small?

Just thought I'd ask...

Also, I've never seen very good information about the comparative weight of aluminum relative to other materials. I saw a good thread comparing stock parts to carbon parts, but not aluminum. Are there any good threads or articles on this?

Thanks!

[TimisTim]

Well the aluminum parts are going to be slightly heavier and unless you are serious about racing that shouldn't be much of a factor.

They will however transfer all the impact force applied to them to other parts of the truck and thus other things will break. So on my racing stadium truck I only got aluminum where it would not transfer the force of a crash to my chassis and would keep it to the cheaper parts such as A-arms.

I will suggest that you replace the front and rear blocks that hold your arms, they will stretch over time and if the track you run on has any decent jumps they will break pretty easily after some regular use. I also chose the aluminum hubs just because they are alot more durable than the graphite counterparts that will stretch out pretty quickly under heavy use.

[tadium54]

tim nailed it i think. some parts you want aluminum, some parts you want stock plasic or graphite. i think you broke a bulkhead on your truck. its relatively inexpensive and easy to fix. plastic parts can absorb more of the impact and therefore are a bit more forgiving. if you want to increase that even more. boil all the plasic parts on your truck to give them a little more support and rebound

[Grant Tokumi]

Arboleda,
You are definitely on the right track with your thought process. I personally like to keep the stock arms and have that be the "designed" weak link that fails before deeper parts inside fail (like a chassis).

Vehicles are very well designed nowadays to take decent punishment without breaking, and at the same time not have a catastrophic failure if the design crash forces are exceeded. By you breaking the arm, that IMO is a good example of a catastrophic crash handled right. By comparison, my buddy had a Losi LXT (stadium truck) back in the day, and he broke not 1 but 2 chassis in the same spot right behind the front bulkhead in a not so hard crash. That was a poor design IMO.

[rocknbil]

....The one thing I wondered about was whether the nylon/plastic parts could be considered better in some ways because they *do* break. For example had that part that I broke not broken, couldn't it be argued that more abrupt force would have carried on to the chassis, A arms, server, etc?...

The voice of reason! :D Absolutely, same applies to aluminum gears, spurs, etc etc - allow something LESS expensive to break to save the more expensive ones. I cringe whenever someone says I'm sicka strippin' spers and ima gunna getme an aluminum 'un . . .

Least of all A-arms, the hinge pin holes become "ovalized" and the weight completely changes the way it handles.

So what kind of a server is in your RC, Pentium, Centrino? :D Just kiddin', welcome aboard.

[highroller]

I still prefer to go with the stock nylon composite parts, prefer the Team over the Full Team versions. When I tried the alum outdrives they tended to have more wear than the stock parts - aluminum were also more costly to replace.
The only addition I made to the B3 and B4 was the RPM front and rear bumpers that gives a little added protection to the front bulkhead area. So far I haven't broken or bent one - - - yet.

[smileyboy]

So A arms should no be upgraded to aluminum, But let the same?