A very good read on heat treated versus normalized chrome molly tubing and it's potential role in John Force's recent accident:

http://competitionplus.com/ind...id=24

 

Very interesting, i hope it gets worked out before someone else gets hurt.

 

VERY GOOD! Thanks for pointing it out. Very interesting...I have some people to call and get opinions from now...many of which were mentioned in the article. Defenitely interesting.
Thanks again!

 

i wish they would go into more detail about the HT procedure. whether it be before or after the welding. since the weld process will re-normalize itself and some of the area around it.

the article did state something about the tubes being placed in a furnace, so i would assume they are talking about HT before welding. thus creating that normal weld area, and then a treated condition outside the HAZ.

i would probably not agree with that procedure, as i think only smaller 4130 items should be heat treated after theyre fully assembled, and only when 4130 rod is used in welds within them.
non-HT 4130 welds should be normalized after the weld also, regardless of filler used.

they are correct when they talk about the elongation being much less with the HT tube. i personally wouldnt make something treated, then weld on it, and undo what i just did. there's just no point in that.

 

My uncle works for a Top Fuel team(the website is who he works for ahahaha) and has for years and years and years (many different teams).

We talked about this shortly after force's incident. I can't remember if it was last year, or the year before, but they had an issue with one of the chassis. They noticed a crack in the chassis on a test day. After a lot of investigation they came to the conclusion that it was the heat treating. Since then his team and several other, even more after Eric's incident have moved onto other chassis besides this guys.

Also this chassis was Eric's new chassis, and Force wanted to run it in memory of him. IIRC this was the first race on it.