RC Speedy titanium vs stainless steel chassis guide 101

What are their differences and strengths?
Which one is best for you?

Thank you for being here at RC Speedy!

Since the release of the C3 in August, we have received many new enquiries regarding our works from different countries. We appreciate all the love and supports of our chassis or our owners’ builds.

"Should I pick stainless or titanium chassis?" It's a question we have been asked by many new buyers lately.

When it comes to our chassis, there are 5mm stainless steel tube and titanium rod available. Although they are both durable and rust resistance, some of their characteristic are quite different and need to handle differently.

We hope this short guide can explain both materials on our tube chassis and which one is best for your hobbies.

Characteristic 

Titanium is the best chassis material we offer. It's a high quality light metal that has been used in aerospace and F1 racing extensively. Titanium rod chassis has the best strength-to-weight ratio comparing to most other rc tuber metals. It’s 20-30% lighter than our stainless chassis , stronger but also expensive and very hard to reshape and fabricate. That’s why there is an extra cost and a longer production time for titanium rod chassis.

Both titanium and stainless are resistant to corrosion, durable and long-lasting, making them both perfect for any weathers and terrains, but what makes stainless steel shines when it comes to rc chassis is its elasticity and ductility.

Stainless doubled titanium when it comes to elasticity and ductility rating in room temparture. Not only it ables to distort its size and shape under a range of stress and strain forces, allowing them to absorb impacts such as falling, roll over and crashing, they can also be easily restore back to original shapes due to this elastic and reversible nature.

Durability of stainless chassis are proved to be excellent and rarely result in any form of breakage, not to mention repairing.

Outlook

Titanium rod is white metal with a smoky charcoal grey hue. Welded joints comes with unqiue burnt blue marks. In contrast, there is a thin layer of chrome oxide forms on the stainless steel, and the welded joints areas are darkened and smokey.

Performance

In most cases, titanium chassis will out-perform stainless in terms of crawling, bash and racing. It is lighter, lower centre gravity, more maneuverable. It's an overall better material when weight puts into considation. If you have the budget and want the chassis looks in-shape and clean as always, titanium chassis is the go-to.

Maintenance 

While stainless and titanium chassis share similiar outlooks,  maintenance between the two are quite the opposite. For titanium chassis, there is little to no maintenance needed. 

On the other hand, a clamp or hammer will come in handy when it comes to handle stainless chassis. Inspect for bent parts after each run and reshape them with the right amount of force will be regular routine maintaining a stainless tuber, a secret to keep it going for years. If a part of the chassis is bent and left unchecked and unfixed, it gets worse after each run and eventually affect performance. A stainless chassis can last for years even decades with appropriate maintenance.

In contrast, you should never bend or deform any parts of titanium chassis with brute force or you may ended up damaging it.

I hope this guide is helpful to our current and future chassis owners to choose and work on their chassis. It is based on years of fabrication experience and how we understand our metals.

Having fun and enjoy out works!