Gordonm

I have always thought the half shafts should be as straight as possible when the car is at rest. You would not want it to angle up or down as this would put undo stress on the ujoints. With some of the lowered cars I have seen the half shafts are angled up. Is there any rule of thumb on what angle is acceptable. I want to lower mine some but I am pretty straight with my half shafts right now. Angled up with acceleration angling them even more could cause ujoint problems.

C3 Stroker

When accelerating, I definitely want as little "rise" as possible from the 1/2 shafts.....I don't know the the exact specs, but having recently changed mine, I remember them being angled slightly down (toward the wheels) with the car at rest.

Gordonm

That is what I think would be best for drag racing because when you get rear squat you are going to be approaching them being straighter. Anyone else?

SmokedTires

I perfer mine either level or slightly angled down towards the wheels so that if the rear squats then they are still close to being level

LFZ

Mine are angled up, because its sitting so low..it could go even lower, but i don't like the idea of the angles getting too sharp. For normal street driving, it should be fine..but for racing..just raise it up to where they are parallel, or angled down slightly for drag racing...thats what i do. I prefer the parallel position at all times IMO.

Van Steel

You also need a stiffer spring for drag racing. That will prevent the shaft from angling upward and keep the level.

theandies

Mine are parallel. I have offset t-arms and composite spring with the 8 inch bolt. My rear ride height is right in spec with the AIM.

Solid LT1

You ALWAYS want some angle to your halfshafts because the needle bearings in the U-joints need some angle to keep them in motion otherwise they will stay static and brinnel the bearings. This comes from none other than Dave McClellan former Corvette Chief Engineer at GM in a conversation I had with him a few years ago.

Brandywine

This guy has some interesting things to say about half shafts...

http://www.dragvette.com/

BBShark

ABSOLUTELY!

Gordonm

I can agree on that but is there a spec that is allowable before it to be to much of an angle?

theandies

Thats true BUT we are talking independent suspension. The reason there are u-joints in the first place is take the up and down movement of the trailing arms during cornering and bumps. This will keep the needle bearings moving. There are factory specs in the AIM that shows the geomerty. It shows them parallel to the strut rods and the assembly is parallel to the ground. Granted, this is with, I think it said shipping weight, which is only with 2 gal. of gas in the tank. I set mine up like the AIM during my rebuild and they still sit parallel with a full tank. I don't know what they look like with my fat a$$ in it...

Twin_Turbo

In stock form, the half shafts and strut rods are NOT parallel, far from in fact, with the 2 parallel there will be NO camber hcange through susp. movement, not something you want unless you have found a way to elimnate all body roll...not possible.The angle of the halfshaft is closely related to ride height, dropping the car will change the angle, now is there a big drawback to having the halfshafts not level? not really.

Gordonm

That is what I was looking for. I'm not talking a severe angle either. So a slight angle should not wipe out the ujoints any faster or break any easier. I can see for drag racing you would not want them at an angle but mine sees limited drag strip use. I can always raise the rear for the drags also. Just looking to slightly lower the rear end some.

groovyjay

I remember reading some hot rod magazine article way back in the 80's and they had some tips how to set up your C3 corvette for Drag Racing. Their biggest tip was to raise the rear so that when launching off the line the 1/2 shafts should be paraller during the hard acceleration to get the tires hook up at their best, makes sence to me.

Twin_Turbo

Here's my stuff, the strut rod inner mounting point has been moved downward so you can see they still are not parallel (onm purpose...you don't want them parallel) and the stock setup has the mounting point up higher, it gives more camber change during susp. travel.

Also not that this is not even ride height and the halfshaft is beyond level, mine will probably be even lower so they will angle up

David Ey

What type of setup do you call this and where did you get the parts?
What are the advantages? It looks like you added some bracing too. Looks cool.

Twin_Turbo

It's BBM brand (built by marck )

This is the side shot:

73jst4fun

Seems to me that angle would cause some type of wear, wouldn't parallel half shafts would seem more efficient........what degree of angle are we talking about that is acceptable......I went through this awhile back when lowering the rear, I had some angle on the shafts with the differential alittle lower...seemed to me if I punched it causing the rear to squat that would cause even more angle and be rough on the ujoints.......If I'm wrong tell me....jmo

Twin_Turbo

no need for worrying about the angle, the halfshafts constantly move, this angle issue is only important for the driveshaft, that's why the pinion angle and tranny angle are important as well as that the pinion is less offset than the engine.