Life is Good Racing

Hi all,

I've done a good bit of searching on here and just thought I'd consolidate some experience here. While my engine is out it's a good time to swap to the solid couplers. I have the bigger bolt TT (Z06?) and with stock power had no issues in about 60 hours of track/endurance racing. Then another 14 hours trouble free with about 375rwhp. I'll likely be in the 400-450rwhp soon.

All of these questions refer to running a stock torque tube, though best to clarify which stock on. Thx!

What has your experience been running the solid couplers?

Do you run front and back solid couplers?

How long and approx. how much racing?

What type of track/racing (HPDE, sprint races, enduro, etc.)?

I know a Danny shared that he has successfully been using the front/back solid couplers, which is encouraging, but it would still be nice to expand the database of reference information.

Thanks,

Steve

96CollectorSport

I installed both aluminum couplers in a car running about 410 rwhp along with a newly rebuilt DTE rear-end (cryo'ed, micro polished, etc. ring gear) in the middle of the 2007 season. The ring gear was shot after 1 year of running. I would suggest 1 solid and 1 rubber. There is no reason for the ring gear to fail in such a short matter of time unless it was like a hammer in there. IMHO 1 of each is the way to go.

davidfarmer

I ran a single, and would never do it again. I don't think it helps the "whipping" that eventually happens to the shaft, and I think the added fatigue caused by the lack of "give" may actually worsen things.

During my 3 years of full-time WC racing, my stock setups lasted longer (vibration free) than when I ran a solid coupler. I never broke one either way, but the vibration came back quicker with the sold unit.

0Randy@DRM

Call me old fashin but the rubbers sure have less other issues. I suggest replacing the rubbers before every endro and once a year for fast track day cars.

Randy

RAFTRACER

2 solid couplers in my shaft for the last 3 years....No trans failures, no clutch failures, no ring and pinion () failures, no differential issues.

If you do the double solid couplers, make absolute sure that you are starting with a perfectly straight drive shaft otherwise all sorts of bad things will occur.

I wouldn't do anything but put two solid couplers in any race cars driveshaft myself............

0Vector Vette

I have solid couplers on both ends on my car. It is only one season old but had no problems at all. I got mine from Danny Kellermeyer who runs a 5 car team in the Detroit area and is a very sharp racer/crewchief. He has them in both ends of all his cars. When I asked him about running one only, he said "if you only run one, the other will break".

96CollectorSport

Danny,

I put the two solid couplers in per your and Kellermeyers request, I just think that it's odd that it only took 1 year for that ring gear to fail. Geff's car isn't running that much power and Geff doesn't shift harder than anyone else. I would assume that the extra shock wouldn't help the situation. You haven't replaced a diff in the last year in your race car? I know that Forbis did, why did his diff fail?? I'm just trying to figure out why Geff's DTE stage 3 diff failed after only 1 year of running after the bushings were replaced vs his stock set-up that lasted 2 or 3 years. Please explain and we can all learn together.

Joel

RAFTRACER

Unfortunatley, I have seen a DTE diff, top of the line complete unit fail a ring and pinion in less than two months........

My car has a completely stock rear differential in it.

James car doesn't have solid couplers in it yet......I think his failure had something to do with the Dynapack dyno they day before (car was shaking violently on the dyno) and the 31.2xx run on a green track in TTS just before James got in it.........

RAFTRACER

Just a note to the above......The car that failed the DTE ring and pinion/differential , when that diff failed we put a STOCK 3.42 diff in and it has lived behind 700 fwhp for the last 3 years...

In DTE's defense, I believe that they have some crazy break-in procedure that involves more street miles than a race car sees in a year....If I remember correctly.

0Bobby @ LG Motorsports

We have used solid couplers on lots of builds. On the WC car we would use one solid in the rear and the best rubber in the front location. Even on the Mile car that was well over 1100rwhp, we used two solid couplers with no issues.

I have these in stock for same day shipping. CF members get free shipping on couplers.

Life is Good Racing

Thanks for all the different experiences, though there's no clear "best" way indicated from such a small set of data. We'll see. The TT will likely come out each November anyways to prep for the 25 of Thunderhill, so I might just end up running the two rubber ones and checking (replacing as necessary) each year. We'll see...

Thanks for experiences!