derive shafts

[ran83]

Aluminum vs carbon fiber????? doe sany one have any expierence with the carbon fiber drive shafts.l i ordered an aluminum shaft but in the search i came across a carbon fiber and just wondered what the difference is besides wieght and material of course. advantages??? disadvantages???

[elwood4ever]

I have an aluminum DS, and it seems to work just fine. Carbon fiber has the primary benefit of being lighter. This is important in a DS because long 1-piece DSs like ours are difficult to balance properly. The lighter the shaft is, the easier it is to get it right.

A secondary advantage to carbon fiber is it's propensity to disintegrate into a ball of fuzz when bad things happen (like a crash, or a catastrophic u-joint failure). Hard metal parts that are rotating very fast can be dangerous. Carbon fiber, less so.

As you've no doubt noticed, the downside to carbon fiber is the high cost.