Albins Gear has a long history of driveline supply to Touring car teams, Baja 1000 and Dakar rally vehicles as well as elite level Rally teams in Europe such as Makkinen Racing. This Australian based company employs over 40 staff and is an unsung hero of high performance gear and driveline manufacture in many categories of racing on a global scale. Utilising ISO 9001/2000 quality manufacturing, the company exports over 90% of its product to various destinations around the globe. Albins is the largest manufacturer of high performance gear and driveline product in the Southern Hemisphere. Albins has recently released some Ex-Factory Rally Team technology to the broad market and in this article we delve into what goes into making driveline parts that will withstand 1000’s of KM’s of extreme duty vehicles that endure high-torque and high-shockloadings.

Albins manufactures driveshafts and CV’s as well as gearsets, ring and pinions and a host of other products for an exhaustive variety of vehicles. Here we will focus on their Subaru product specifically. Firstly, the stock driveshafts and CV joints for Subaru vehicles have their own inherent limitations. Most people running big HP Subaru’s would have seen CV joints sprayed on the tarmac at some stage. The factory Inner CV cages on the WRX, particularly the front (depending on the application), can spread apart when enduring high torque loads and additional shock loading of poor front drive traction. This is caused by the balls inside the cage naturally being forced against the cage by the internal CV star. The star is connected via a spline to the driveshaft.

Splines on an Albins driveshaft (axle)

The first thing to look at is replacing the CV cage with a unit manufactured from high-alloy billet steel. The cage is made from one piece of high grade material that is independently tested and stored in Albins own steel warehouse on-site. Once machined to exacting tolerances, it is case hardened to increase strength, then shot peened for increased anti-fatigue properties. A huge amount of machining goes into each item, as you can imagine the lightweight end-product was once a sizeable billet of high-alloy steel at one stage. In some cases, shot peening alone can increase anti-fatigue properties of some components by 8 times that of a non-treated item and is a standard procedure for Albins that leaves a bronze finish on each item treated.

CV star and cage.

Albins uses non-standard, high quality ball bearings in their CV joints by request, but the stock Subaru CV replacement is manufactured in such a way that the stock balls can be used if need be. The CV star itself is machined from similar material to the CV cage and is manufactured on a 5 axis CNC mill. The Albins item has superior resistance to distortion and splitting under extreme duty as opposed to the factory item. Still working backwards in the driveline order, the Axle or Driveshaft in this case, is the next item to receive attention. Axles are manufactured from different material to parts such as the CV joints. Twist in an axle is very important and certainly necessary, however the axle needs to return to its original shape once twisted momentarily.

You may notice that even some factory axles have “lumps and bumps” on them or “wasted “ sections that are physically thinner. This is to try to control the areas at which the axle twists. When Albins are in the design phase of making a new axle, they use the latest CAD technology to design the axle in such a way that they can control the areas of twist and spread the twisting force into the smooth areas of the shaft away from the splines. When looking at an axle, it all looks very simple but even tenths of a mm and a few degrees difference in certain radius’ can dictate where an axle will twist or whether it will want to shear.  The in-house wing of 6 design engineers at Albins are able to utilise CAD modelling to ascertain the preferred design-for-application. The Axle material used by Albins is a high-alloy product specifically sourced for Albins Axles only. The material is once again, independently tested and stored on site before making its way into the CNC machinery at Albins for turning and splining.

Driveshaft being turned.

Driveshaft spline cutting.

Once the Axles leave the machining area, they enter a computer controlled heat treatment process that is critical to Axle quality. On finishing heat treatment, each shaft is checked for straightness on a CMM (Computerised Measuring Machine) which robotically scans each axle and checks its dimensions against CAD models on file. Any discrepancies are picked up at this stage which is also replicated with the CV star and cage products, leaving the end product closer to that which it was designed to be...perfect!

Computerized Measuring Machine checks for perfection.

Albins can be contacted via sales@albins.com.au or Ph +61 35 335 8022 and visit http://www.albins.com.au for more information.