TS-Ti Titanium hardware; Track Star's new products for 2024
Titanium......
Racers seek it's strength and it's light weight. At near 45% lighter than steel and nearly twice the strength of most Aluminum it makes for great aerospace and motorsport applications but only in an alloy form. Mostly known as "Grade 5" or "6AL-4V" Titanium mixed with aluminum and vanadium makes the perfect blend to be used in a host of applications that we apply it to.
For us in the radio controlled racing industry it is the easiest way to lighten our race vehicles. Several if not all screw and bolt hardware can be replaced with Titanium. For our race cars and trucks we can replace heavy steel tie rods, camber links and screws with Titanium and gain performance not only in over all weight savings but in weight that is over the CG line helping to lower it.
Why chose Track Star Titanium?
There are a lot of great brands out there that provide Titanium products. Some that look identical and some that are designed to look very different just for the sake of being different. Understanding the need to be different for us comes in what we design for function and improvement rather than looks and bling.
Lets start with our turnbuckles. As mentioned 6AL-4V Titanium is the core that we start with. Manufacturing in a machine shop that makes hardware and not toy car parts which allowed us to design what we wanted in shape and size and not something off the shelf. Our first four available sizes are a direct fitment to the Schumacher LD3 and L1R off road buggies. The adjusting head is factory sized so there is no need for a new wrench for adjustment. The shanks are over sized at 3.25mm for better than stock size & strength. The threads are 3mm to accommodate the factory ball cup sizes and 10mm deep to allow for plenty of adjustment. No need to drill plastic and weaken it to make it fit like 3.5mm conversions. (That's just lazy on the competitors part and extra steps that ends in more work for you) and why did you pay for Titanium in the first place? The light weight advantage right?
Our screws are also 6AL-4V Titanium. They are very similar to other taper head and countersunk hardware already available in our industry. We have pushed the low profile design of our UFO head screws as low as we can with a deep broach to engage your hex tools as much as possible. Using a precision ground tool steel tip like MIP is what we recommend anyway, but it's good to know your tool engagement is solid.
Included in our turnbuckle and screw kits is our TScrew Lube. The major advantage with turnbuckles are the ease of installation which also allows adjustment without too much stiction so the ball cups don't pop off. TScrew Lube also assists the screws' assembly into plastic and when mating to aluminum it acts as an anti vibration barrier to help keep screws tight as we don't recommend thread locker on Titanium to aluminum as there are some soft aluminum materials in our industry that will gawl and strip or worse, severely bind up and render the part useless. Also, we are adding a 3mm tap in our screw kits to assist in assembly into hard or carbon type plastics. Simply tap the hole first add TScrew Lube and install. (You can also use a steel screw to start the threads also)
Lastly, to answer your question...... "Yes" we are offering anodized colors. We have yet to receive our station tables but they're on the way!
We believe you will find our Titanium to be of great value to your race program and look forward to seeing you on the podium and getting P.A.I.D. with our contingency program soon to be announced!
Stay Tuned!
~Jimmy