Not asking who makes one, already know who does that, but I am looking for ideas on the subject. I saw some guys from our Solar Racing team in the shop this week and finally saw all the components needed to build a spindle for our car. They made a spindle, upright, and ackerman arm (its what we call the steering arm) from aluminum and then bolt it altogether with 3-bolts. When assembled, its a near spitting image of our stock spindle.

This got me thinking about making these components from materials more suited for DD, but lighter than stock and possibly even aftermarket. The spindle would be made from Aremet 340, a nickel super-alloy that is 4-5 times stronger than steel and as corrosion resistant as stainless, and gun-drilled. The upright, which mounts the shock & brake caliper, would be machined from a billet of 4340 Hardened Chrome Moly. The Ackerman arm would be machined from a billet of 6AL-4V Titanium or 7075-T6 Aluminum. The whole thing would be held together with 1/2-13 ARP studs & fasteners.

Thoughts?

 

sounds really expensive, but cool

 

Sounds interesting. It would be neat to have solid aluminum cnc machined spindles but the question is whether or not they would be strong enough for street use.
And I can only imagine how much a solid block of solid aluminum that size would cost, then multiply by 2.

 

It'd have to be at least two pieces since you really can't machine the spindle itself on a mill without a very specialized setup. It'd be cheaper to buy 3 pieces and bolt it all together than to make the whole thing from one billet.

 

if you have the ability to do it yourself for your own project... GREAT, lets see it... I bet it would be cool.

If you're thinking about going into production, well, $$$ part that would be cool for a $ car that people often have a hard time spending any $ on... you'll loose your shirt.

As far as milling it in one piece... if the material is suitable you could probably get away with a few fixtures on a typical 3axis cnc and a lathe, maybe a separate setup to cut the ball joint and tie rod tapers (if you're still going to use tapered parts). A 4 or 5 axis allows you to make much more complicated parts but is probably not necessary for this kind of thing.

In this case a 2 part (the body + the spindle shaft) would probably be the best way to go, 3 part (with a bolt on steering arm) make sense for a race car, but make me nervous on a street car...

 

if the market was there (its not) creating a 1pc forged aluminum piece would probably the most cost effecting method, but still very pricey.

 

More and more I'm seeing new cars with aluminum spindles.

-- Joe

 

I have no illusions of going into production with this, I know it'd be expensive already, but it'd be a fun & cool project. I've already made up my mind to weld together a STB out of Titanium, but there's no way I could make that a production item. The Titanium by itself would be over $500. I'm not as worried about bolt together spindles as long as the spindle parts themselves are solid. Shear force in the bolts would be a worry in an accident.

There's a few items on our cars that I know how to make, its just a matter of finding some help with the engineering and getting a few tools together.

Aluminum is great if it never gets dinged, other wise it sucks. Even a forged piece is only going to have great characteristics in one load profile whereas a billet machined piece would be able to handle a variety of loads better overall.