Datsun Restomods

Thanks for the feedback! 'Plug and play' is definitely the goal here. Re-engineer as little as possible. Good news is that the STI diffs are getting cheaper. They've gone down a couple hundred from when I sourced one for my 510 a few years ago. I'd run the same setup for my 280z but I'm working on a potential R200 solution instead. If I understand your question, the OEM STI inner housing is not swap-compatible with the axle I source. I tried several ideas with no luck. The R180 STI stubs are welded onto the CV housing in 3 different locations. One weld along the entire perimeter of the stub's flange, three .4" plug welds through the flange into recessed pockets within the housing, and finally one large plug weld on the underside of the flange through the center of the housing. It's not coming off.

Thanks for the welcome and the heads-up on community vibe. Honestly, my 'home' Datsun forum 'The510Realm' can also have some passionate members. I'm fine with respectful scrutiny as it's often just a 'why' or 'prove' question which is the basis of Critical Thinking and how we eventually engineer improvements - and the birth of these axles to be honest. The 510Realm thread that John linked to above was my coming out party, and the goal was to bring these CVs to the community Datsun gurus to scrutinize to death. Trusted members were given more in-depth engineering background and their subsequent honest opinions is posted for all to see. CV vs U-Joint is sort of like Fuel injection vs carb IMO. I nicely tuned carb setup runs pretty damn good and it's only 'disadvantage' to Fuel Injection is overall refinement (weather, startup, MPG). Both setups can run well and offer a specific experience. If a customer is looking for additional smoothness/refinement (basis for Restomoding), then any CV is a viable consideration. My 'business model' is a little unique, as previously mentioned DatsunRestomods is not my livelihood/source of secondary income, nor do I need it to be. This is my way to give back to the Datsun community and to fulfill a craving to create out-of-the-box solutions (and there's some good ones coming up IMO). The scope of my 'selling' will be limited to the vendor section. I'll post a thread there when ready along with pics of S30 installs - several are out there already.

I noticed some traffic on my web site from HybridZ and was pleasantly surprised to see a thread opened on the CV axles. Thanks John! Mods, I'm new to this 'vendor' role, please let me know if I'm breaking procedures etc... I'll keep this theme to simply answering some of the questions raised above. Please don't hesitate to add questions and I'll continue to answer as best as I can - w/o giving up too much R&D. "...he seems to be quite a regular in the "Dime" community" - that I am. For the past 7 years I've been a proud owner of a 1972 Datsun 510 2 door, orange. I also own a 1976 280z that currently being built up into another fun toy and R&D test bed for future products. Much of my involvement on 'The Realm' has been sharing in my experimentation (Yamaha R1 carbs on a KA24e and MegaJolt EDIS ignition etc...) and learnings. "..I wonder if he is just cutting flanges off old u-joint axles and welding them on to "CV" axles..." - nope. I manufacture brand new adapters/flanges, accurate up to 4 thousands of an inch on centering/mounting to make them dead smooth. The flange's bolt-hole placement is left to CNC machining for repeatable accuracy. "...Not sure that they're much better than a u-joint axle though. What's the benefit?" - Several benefits: As the U-joints in our axles fail, finding replacements has been difficult, at least for me. Also, with lowered Datsuns, the larger angles within the axle exaggerates a U joint's inability to rotate at a constant speed. These newer CV axles (short for Constant Velocity), can rotate at more consistent speeds with larger angles. The end result is a noticeably smoother ride - even for Datsuns with seemingly fine stock axles. Another reputed benefit is more drivetrain efficiency and a couple percent increase power to the wheels. "I wonder where the came up with the torque limit. Breaking welds? " : A LOT of engineering went into these CVs - down to shear calculations, metals selected for the adapters and how it interfaces with the CV, impacts from tempering, redundancy in fastening etc... Calculations showed that the fastening/welding technique is ~20-30% higher than the stubs at their weakest point. Back to the question, the torque limit was placed because that's the approximate OEM limit that the axle is designed for, and I wanted to limit anyone trying these axles on over the top machines. As previously posted the axles are comparable to the Subaru STI which are quite capable. My guess on the weakest link now lies in either the axle splines or the shoulder/D bolts themselves. " Being that the stub axle is such a weak spot..." - I'm not sure where on the stub you are referring to but I do offer an integrated stub CV where an OEM STI stub is directly fastened onto the CV housing - in 3 different manners (it's NOT coming off!). It's really slick with only 4 bolts to fasten the axle onto a clip-in diff setup. A similar R200 version is in the plans for this spring as well. I hope that answers the questions. My CV axles are designed to fill a niche market and not directly compete with existing products/vendors. There are already several options for owners with massive HP and/or heavy track duty needs. My CVs, and frankly the basis of all my future products, are intended to be an affordable & original solution that offers a level of reliability (read: lack of maintenance) you expect from a street car, be it stock or with a moderate swap/upgrade powerplant.