I thought i covered this in my first post! Steel is stronger under torque, where alloy is better at higher speeds. It depends on what you want to do with your car. If its just for normal driving stick with the steel. If your going to Darwin and want to open her up go the alloy and if you have the cash convert to a 2 pce shaft. If your dragging go a steel shaft but with a diameter larger than 3"

yes it was!

thanks heaps

If you have a decently performing car it's actually quite easy to exceed 180 simply overtaking. IMO lots of people have cars that feel like they're going at warpspeed by 160 but they're NOT actually decently performing cars - particularly "superlow" setups - ie. gokarts. And for travelling at high speed on public roads, people with "superlow" suspension should just forget it - without decent range of travel in the suspension it is very dangerous - those setups are for show and highspeed trackwork.

If I'm overtaking I want to get past as quickly as possible so tend to floor it - or close to - initially then ease off but continue accelerating steadily (have to watch it on wet roads of course) - this means overtaking a single car sees me pulling back in under 160 usually (generally around 150 -ish) - if it's multiple cars and/or truck/s I hold her flat a bit longer and then hold a higher acceleration rate - this easily sees me pulling in at between 180 and 200 or so.

I don't like to spend much time at all on the wrong side of the road! For a long time now I've adopted a technique of pulling out into the other lane initially at the same speed as the vehicles I'm overtaking - going well over toward the other edge if necessary to absolutely make sure it's clear / judge the space I have - then I punch it.

Gotta watch for f**k behind who won't wait their turn - had a few cases of SS Commondungs and the like jumping the gun on me - it's been fun when I've followed them - and carried on past when they've reached 180 (they've subsequently overtaken me when I slowed back down to cruise at 120 / 130 of course). Also I'm VERY careful of coming up on slower vehicles and just continuing past - only do that if the visibility is absolutely perfect!.

Road conditions play a role of course but with Bilsteins and suspension with decent travel you can pretty much do over 200 on dirt if you wanted to - takes very drastic things to really unsettle/affect the stability of the car - animal carcasses can be nasty surprises so need to watch real carefully for them.

In that context this whole tailshaft issue is quite a valid thing to be concerned about for some people - My tailshaft is steel and hasn't come apart or shown a tendency to vibrate/drum up to at least 240 or so - whole car feels smoother than at 100 actually. I think the basic point is that if the car doesn't feel happy then obviously don't push it!!!

Background to all this: about 6 return trips (12 each way) between Cairns and Broome over a 7 year period.