There was a company that was making billet shafts and they left the void in both the input and output shafts. They consistantly broke.
If you break a shaft, why not go with a quality billet. Figure if it has to come out again you are losing money and time.
My guess is it had to do with either the material or the heat treat they used. Just making a part from billet doesn't automagically guarantee it will be better.
Believe it or not a radius that is the minor diameter of the splines makes for a more fatigue resistant shaft than one that runs the splines out to the major diameter. It has to do with stress concentrations and building of stress risers at the male-female spline interface. That said, I completely agree with you that the stock fillet is too deep (about .100" smaller than the spline minor diameter), so eliminating it would make for a stronger piece. Reducing it to the spline minor diameter (1.350") would be even better yet. Better still, the splines don't need to be as long as they are, so reducing their length to one diameter (1.475") or a tad less would cause zero loss in strength at the splines, but having an inch or so of minor diameter shaft between the splines and the threads would result in a HUGE stress concentration reduction. Instead of the torsional stress being concentrated over a .050" wide area at the bottom of the fillet it would be spread over an inch or so of shaft, which would reduce the stress concentration over any point of that section of the shaft by 95%.
Here's an example of what I am talking about:
That is a 32 spline shaft I made, but it illustrates the concept. There is about an inch of minor diameter shaft between the splines and the threaded area, with large fillets at both ends. Also, the male splines are completely inside the mating female splines, so there is no stress riser from a male-female interface. This is the strongest way of making a shaft.
BTW, is the 2011 LML trans still 29 spline output, or did they go to 34 spline like the Fords? The easiest way to make a stronger shaft is to make it bigger
EDIT: I agree that using a QUALITY billet is a good idea. I was just offering an alternative. :hug: The stock shafts are actually made of good material, but they simply aren't hardened to their full potential.