Has anyone made a STB out of alumin.? we got some pretty thick walled alumin tubing at the shop and its just sittin there hasnt been moved till today in a longtime. was woundering if it would be wise to use alumin.

also my shop has a a pipe bender and everything so makin a STB is simple.

 

Interesting question. How thick is the tubing? I haven't seen one, but doesn't mean it's never been done. You would have to use thicker mounting plates and be able to weld aluminum to do this. I don't know about the weight savings over steel. Can you make one that is a straight shot from side to side without any bends? If it has to bent, the amount of flexing it would do on the car under load would be my biggest concern.

 

i can tig weld alumin no problem. its has a thickness of the wall like 3/16 to like ruffly a 1/4'' is my guess. i probably could make one a straight shot form one side to the other. i could make regaulr steel mountin plates so that it would have a strong foundation

 

How are you going to affix the STB to the plates? Bolts? That becomes weaker than welding it together as one assembly.

 

Most people are surprised to learn that in the most commonly available grades, steel, aluminum and spruce all have about the same strength/weight.

That problem with aluminum, even if you have a higher, stronger grade is that welds in aluminum are never as strong as the base metal, they could be up to 40% weaker then the base, killing any weight savings if the same part can be made in a reasonable size out of steel.

OTOH, some of those higher strength aluminums properly bonded with structural adhesives and properly designed joints...

 

what about a long aluminum bar with heim joints on the ends then bolting to a base plate? i know, again this had bolts. but, it might work.

 

i was thinkin about those heim joints. maybe ill try and get some nuts or something that i can either thread into the pipe or weld onto the pipe.

 

If you've got it, use it. I recommend the heim joints as well. You don't want to put aluminum into a bending moment but compression and tension work rather well. I'm suprised there aren't more people with aluminum suspension parts. Too often people think steel this, steel that when infact aluminum would work really well. For anybody that says steel is stronger for suspension components I got one word for you. Corvette.
If you've got thick bar that's treadable you should look at the LCA and panhard, both of which see very little bending when using heim joints.

 

what if i put a few bends in the alumin bar? will it make it weaker? i was goin to try and mix 2 stb together. like the shape of the edelbrock stb for the tbi cars and then the bmr stb that has the detachable arms that g to the firewall.

 

Yes, it will make it weaker. I would try this only if you can make it across the engine in one straight shot.

 

Bending the aluminum will weaken it a LOT.