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Titanium bolt weight

17791 Views 288 Replies 22 Participants Last post by  Rusa, 
John Harris
Don't know if anyone is interested but I just received my Front caliper Titanium bolts and weighed them vs stock steel for a 17 SP. Titanium is 24 grams vs stock steel 33 grams. So a reduction of 44 grams or 1.5 oz. Not much but then I am going for corrosion resistance and shine (bling).
I will be receiving front and rear rotor bolts and sprocket nuts in Titanium and will post their weights.

Now if I can just get accurate weight of the stock SP rims with bearing only then I can decide if I want the Marchesini Magnesium wheels. :)
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oldmansan said:
For me, besides safety, another thing to consider is liability. If I went with titanium axles and had a failure, if I were lucky enough to survive, I would almost certainly not be covered for the damage to my motorcycle, much less myself. Just doesn't seem worth it.

I'm a big fan of titanium. I have two Litespeed titanium MTB frames, with titanium handlebars, seatposts, pedal spindles, skewers, fasteners and a 6-4 stem which is now unobtanium. I just don't think it makes sense for liter bike motorcycle axles given the small weight savings versus risk.

San
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Yup, to take most advantage of titanium, parts made from it must be designed with its properties in mind from beginning. Due to its lower strength, parts must be oversized relative to their steel countreparts. The Litespeed frame has larger diameter and thicker tubing than chromoly frame.

Same thing with moto parts like axles and handlebars. Unfortunately in this case, not being able to increase diameter of axle meant increasing wall thickness over steel part and negating lots of potential weight savings.
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John Harris said:
I received the BST carbon fiber wheels a couple weeks ago and tires came in today so I had them mounted up, another set of Pirelli Diablo SuperCorsa V3s. The guy at the shop carried the front wheel out to my truck while I carried the rear. He said it was the lightest tire/rim he had every felt. Weighed the rims before mounting tires, they have the ceramic bearings. The front rim is 5.8 pounds and the rear is 7.2. First estimates is a 7 pounds reduction for just the wheels, the sprokets, chain, etc. should also save some weight. Tomorrow I will change one wheel, the next day other wheel. Will weigh everything and get a total reduction and an close estimate of the stock wheel weight.
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These are my next purchase!!! I saw review of them over decade ago at Thunderhill. They were 1.5s per lap faster! That's over football pitch ahead on front-straight.. PER LAP!!! Wow!!!
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wow, that's great news!! ordering BST wheels now!!!
Won't have ready for ASMA round-6 @ Attesa in couple weeks, but looking forward to such dramatic improvements!
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It's something like $1500 fine if you get caught with cat removed. They used to have monitoring booth coming down Grapevine that detects your exhaust when you drive by. Anything too high and they chase you down for closer look. Busted huge amount of those slammed ricerboy cars and sport bikes. :(

I used to have shoppe down the road and would go up Grapevine to go home and entire shoulder on other side would be packed full of cars getting pulled over. It's like those sobriety checkpoints, no one gets around it!

It's really necessary evil since smog was extremely bad in L.A. basin back in '80s. I remember radio would announce "smog days" warning people to stay indoors when the pollution was so bad it would burn your eyes and make you cough! You can see clear skies over LA and actually breathe now! :)
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yeah, my bike lost tonne of mid-range torque with exhaust-valve removed. Might make sense for track where you're near redline all the time. But was frustratingly slow on street. I put it back on after couple months.
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So what breed of "kitty hair" is this?
Are certain breeds preferred for strength-to-weight ratio?
Can yacked-up fur-balls be used?
Or only fresh hair cultivated from cat's back?
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Don't forget to account for machining costs, Ti is more difficult than steels. It wants to flex away from cutting bit.
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Wow, that's significant weight loss from just a few parts! Awesome!! :)
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Except due to lower strength and rigidity, you don't want exact copy in Ti. Well, there's probably enough safety margin in stock part to do it...
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Ces One said:
Titanium has lower strength than steel?
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It's strength-to-weight we're after and they're actually similar with slight advantage to ti. A same-sized piece of steel will be about twice as stiff and twice as strong but weigh little more than twice as much than same-sized piece of titanium. So a 10x1mm bolt in titanium will weigh about 1/2 of steel, but have about 1/2 the strength and stiffness.

This is why you want to design with material's properties in mind with oversizing part to increase stiffness and strength while removing thickness. Kinda like aluminium bicycle frames compared to steel. So an axle made from ti should be larger in diameter to increase strength & stiffness to match smaller item in steel.

4130's chromoly's stiffness is 205 GPa vs 6/4 titanium's 114 GPa. For same loads, titanium will bend almost twice as much. That's why he's increasing axle's thickness to account for ti's lower stiffness & strength. It will still be lighter than steel with less stiffness & strength, but more than enough for loads involved.

Titanium's main benefit is high fatigue resistance. It can take more SN-cycles of same loads as steel and it won't crack as soon.
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Ces One said:
@John Harris & DanosXYZ
please tell me,
I just ordered titanium nuts and bolts from RaceTech Titanium for my 2022 Honda CBR1000RR ABS. These three nuts and bolts secure the rear suspension linkage brackets and dog bone to the bike.
Are these titanium bolts & nuts strong enough to safely replace the oem steel hardware ?
Please advise
One picture shows the OEM hardware next to the new titanium hardware inside the plastic bag.
Btw the oem nut and bolt weigh 61.6g each and the titanium are 27.2g each.
Not bad !
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Yeah, more than sufficient. 👋
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For dogbones, I'm thinking significant weight-savings (over 50%), can be had by going to tubular titanium. Similar to old-style solid aluminium bicycle handlebar stems. Going to threadless tubular titanium saved significant weight.
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