Exotic stem cracking?

bobbydigital

I bought an Exotic carbon bars and stem.

Carbon paste applied.
Bars say 8nm max so I'm doing 5nm and the stem is starting to split on one of the bolt holes?
Cross pattern tightening method used, not even reached 5nm at that point, doing 1/8th turns.



Guessing it's buggered?

cougie

Oh. Looks buggered from that photo. Take it back to where you got it ?

bobbydigital

Yeah direct from Exotic, http://www.carboncycles.cc.

Thought they were a solid brand for carbon fiber bits. :?:

cooldad

What the bars say has nothing to do with what the stem needs.

Blindly playing with torque wrenches is pointless.

The Rookie

Doesn’t look good, that said carbon stems aren’t worth it in my opinion, usually heavier than quality alloy.

bobbydigital

cooldad wrote:

What the bars say has nothing to do with what the stem needs.

Blindly playing with torque wrenches is pointless.

That's true, how ever they don't list the max torque setting on their site for the stem or on the stem itself, so went with a 5nm and didn't get there. They will list settings for other items, seat clamp is 6.5nm for example.

swod1

The Rookie wrote:

Doesn’t look good, that said carbon stems aren’t worth it in my opinion, usually heavier than quality alloy.

Yes i'm using a combination of alloy Easton stem and carbon bars for my weight i'd not bother with a carbon stem.

Think its failed that stem, i'd see what warranty they have and ask for a replacement.

bobbydigital

I just bought it as they did me a good deal at the time, I've ran their carbon bars for a while, experience a few crashes and they held up perfectly so thought I would go for bars, stem and top cap this time around.

It's 8 months old at this point so I believe warranty should sort it.
It hasn't cracked right though, it's only cracked where shown in the photo but I wouldn't use it like that.

bobbydigital

eXoctic replaced the face plate under warranty which is a result but I did weigh the stem after The Rookie said that carbon stems are often heavier and it's actually 10g heavier than my On One stem which is has the same dimensions.

The Rookie

Par for the course, I have a Kalloy UNO, 94g stock or 88g with a Ti bolt set off eBay, total cost £27.

Dan_xz

I have one of these stems - it's actually an aluminium core wrapped in carbon so other than nice cosmetics it doesn't bring any benefit.