Has anyone herd of a C4 rear drive Stub shaft ever Snapping

Has anyone herd of a C4 rear drive Stub shaft ever Snapping

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Discussion

gtrclive

Original Poster:

4,187 posts

289 months

Sunday 29th October 2006
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I want to know if anyone has ever herd of a High horsepower C4 (800bhp+) ever snapping a Rear Stub Shaft.. I want to use a Corvette rear drive shafts and Hubs on a Project of mine, but need to know where there's any uprated version or is the Stock units already good enough ??

Thanks Guys you've been a great help so far.... All will become apparent in 12 Months...

Gixer

4,463 posts

254 months

Sunday 29th October 2006
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They break UJ's on the strip not the shafts - most leave it that way as the uj's are cheap and easy to replace

Edited by Gixer on Sunday 29th October 10:41

VetteG

3,236 posts

250 months

Monday 30th October 2006
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I take it you are refering to the half shafts? Did this to my big block half shafts recently. I have stronger ones being delivered as we speak.


G

franv8

2,212 posts

244 months

Monday 30th October 2006
quotequote all
VettG - yours was a C3 and therefore different driveshaft.

The C4 ones are aluminium, and Gixer hit the nail on the head with quoting the 'spiders' as the weakness. As for the stubshafts (if you're refering to the ones that sit in the hubs) - these are steel and haven't heard of any probs personally, again only incident I've heard is the spider.

Only 800hp C4 I can think of is the Callaway Sledgehammer, although there are a few good 500 bhp + ZR1's about, don't think they run more than stock rear axle parts, they seem to be okay (sorry, know that's not 800 bhp...)

I think one last question you might want to ask is how that 800bhp is delivered. It is of course the torque loading that will be the factor that breaks the shaft, so there will be more of a torque load from a low down pull supercharged or turbo or large displacement motor vs something set up to do high rev power. What you're putting the power down onto as well, so if it's going to spend most of its life on the dragstrip, with a manual box, on drag tyres then the driveshafts would take much more of a pounding than if its on street tyres on the highway.

If we were looking at this for an industrial application, then we'd look at the torque capacity and also a multiplier known as 'service factor' - this helps to not overdesign gearboxes etc. on smooth applications vs the extra requirements of a shock loading application, such as a rock crusher.

VetteG

3,236 posts

250 months

Tuesday 31st October 2006
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franv8 said:
VettG - yours was a C3 and therefore different driveshaft.


Fran, Yeah I realised that after I had posted and meant to edit it out, but got dragged into a stupid meeting that droned on for hours!!

Funnily enough I nearly got aluminum replacements, but went with Denny's 'Nitros Ready' instead.

G

ZR1cliff

17,999 posts

255 months

Tuesday 31st October 2006
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VetteG said:
I take it you are refering to the half shafts? Did this to my big block half shafts recently. I have stronger ones being delivered as we speak.


G


Bloody hell!! thats an amazing photo expressing torque values eek

gtrclive

Original Poster:

4,187 posts

289 months

Tuesday 31st October 2006
quotequote all
Cheers Lads.... I will only be using the Stubs, as the Drive shafts will be made Special by GKN...