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For the guys that have an opinion/experience, how did the aluminum CVD bones (RC10/B2/B3 sized) hold up back in the day relative to the hardened steel or shiny ones? Now that the bones are longer for modern cars, MIP doesn't make them out of aluminum any more for most off road cars, and it makes sense from the strength/resistance to bending standpoint. Touring cars and even dirt oval cars (that still have shorter arms and also don't fly around as much) can clearly still get away with the aluminum bones. But was it pretty easy to bend the aluminum CVD in an RC10/B2/B3?

I can't comment from real life track experience, but I will say that from a materials stand point, as long as the bone didn't get jammed during suspension travel, I would expect the bone to last almost as long as a steel one, however, since the cvd pin is pretty small, I would bet there would be significant wear on the cvd pin side. I have a bunch of used bones, uni's, cvd's etc, and they almost all exhibit wear below the inboard side bone drive from collisions with the outdrive cup. That would tear up an aluminum one up in a hurry. Also, once bent, the bone would probably be shot. a steel one can be bent back into shape at least once.

So, bottom line, as long as there was no driveline binding(either bending the bone or chewing it up), I would think the cvd pin would wear out the aluminum bone pretty fast and that would be the main reason to replace.

I have the MIP steel ones and I've bent them more than once. I use a hammer and bang it back into shape and its good to go again so I'd say unless you are running a mild setup, steel is the way to go

I don't know about the aluminum CVD/Dogbones from other manufacturers but I can say that I have never come across a Race Prep shaft that wasn't bent.

at a club level the shiny and standard bones were the norm. but when it came to the big race events of the year, that's when i would RARELY see the aluminum bones. you would usually see them on drivers rigs that were very good at driving, and setting up their suspension to the bones. i would see quite a few bent after a heat. and some (4wd) couldn't even finish a heat because of them.

i think they were busted out like the "good china" when you wanted to make that couple of tenths of a second on the group you were racing. other than that they were a risk not worth running.

i have used aluminum bones weekly in oval racing combined with aluminum outdrives in my stealths and with plastic moulded outdrives in my losi retro trans. the secrect to keeping the pin intact was simply remove it and replace it with I.R.S. pin cushions or the old reliable .090 weed eater string. i ran short arm rc-10 terminator and even long arm 10t terminator with no bent bones. most of the other guys run long arm b2/b3 terminators and they hold up ok even on bumpy outdoor ovals.

Thanks guys. That's exactly how I was figuring it. The good china analysis especially. The lefthander RC site still sells aluminum B2/3 length without the pin, intended for the weed eater/pin cushion trick. I'm racing off road on a track with some decent double and triple setups. Even at 17.5, I stay away from the aluminum ones for the time being.

I had a set of the aluminum CVDs on a XXCr for quite a while w/ no problems. I was only running stock at the time. I think back then it might have been a real advantage in lower rotating mass. SO for stock it could be a boom. In mod, maybe you'd wear them out faster...Plus, the speeds of mod tend to be harder on parts in a collision. I'd judge it based on what I was running, in so many words...

I've acquired a set of the aluminum versions by mistake (I thought they were HG ti's). When I had them ID'd, I was told they were typically used by the dirt oval guys not so much in off-road so I haven't tried to run with them in the B3.