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My corvette race car powered by a warmed up LS7 warped the clutch and grenaded the bell housings, torque tube, driveshaft, and more.
I’m making 607whp (maybe around 550 torque). I’m curious about solutions that won’t break the bank. I don’t need super lightweight because I’m already having a hard time putting down power exiting corners. I’d post pics, but I’ve yet to find an easy to use free host like photo bucket.
You need to figure out what failed. I had the transmission brace (springs in urethane) wear out and caused the bellhousing to fail which took out everything you listed. You could have that, bad motor mounts, misaligned parts, etc. The simplest solution after figuring the issue-detune your motor. You don't need 600 hp except for a few places in the country, if ever.
It’s tough to tell, all that’s left is shattered metal. It had a pafdt CF shaft in the tube. The bolts might have come loose. That or the clutch warped.
I’ll start looking for a steel single piece shaft. The CF shaft and triple disc clutch made for very aggressive power delivery. It was very hard to put down power out of a corner.
I'll share experiences with Torque Tube rebuilds I've had over the past 6 months. This would have influenced my purchase/setup on the rebuild. The patient is a 2009 C6Z06 dedicated track car.
Torque tube rebuild 1 July 2017
TR6060 issue required removal, so good time to due preventative on a driveshaft since so many have had issues with couplers. Rebuilt the Torque Tube with all new GM bolts, bearings, seals and used some expensive poly couplers. I had a bolt break between the output shaft and driveshaft. I did index the driveshaft with the input and output shafts. I did torque the bolts. Loctite was on the bolts. The bolt head wreaked havoc on the driveshaft as it got caught rolling around the back half of the driveshaft at speed coming down the back straight at RA. After many discussions with track guys, race guys, shops, it may not have been a good idea to run the poly coupler with the stock driveshaft. It may not be good to run them without the ability to re-torque the bolts often. This would be very difficult to accomplish on this vehicle with a torque tube. The cold flow property of polyurethane may allow some tolerance 'gaps' to build between the metal inserts and the polyurethane coupler. The 'gaps' would then allow for a very slight flexing in the interface between the driveshaft end, coupler and output/input shaft. After removing the coupler, several of the metal inserts in the coupler were loose enough that they fell out upon removal of the bolts and output shaft.
Rebuild #2 Oct 2017
For this build, after much collective input, I tried an aftermarket PST ZR1 driveshaft per RPM. This required slightly thicker couplers. The slightly thicker couplers (German aftermarket also recommended) were required as the ZR1 driveshaft with the 'heavy duty' ends is not as long as the Z06 driveshaft. The thicker couplers correct the lengths for overall equal length/correct fit. After initial re-assembly, the overall length of the driveshaft/input/output shaft assembly was equivalent length (Great).
However, some things along the way required modification (IMO). The thicker coupler, changed the relative relationship between the (16) bushing that inserts on the end of the driveshaft pin and the front propeller shaft pinion. I spoke to the vendor and they said, "this is only for indexing and alignment. As long as there is just enough interface insertion for indexing and alignment the assembly fit is good. This is a tried and true setup. We have sold and used many of these setups with no issues". Maybe it was OK, but I'm a little **** and didn't like the minimal interface insertion. The same issue was realized on the rear of the driveshaft where pin 27 did not extend into bushing 14 as far as originally designed.
OE coupler bushing extension side1:
thicker coupler extension side1:
OE coupler bushing extension side2:
thicker coupler extension side2:
After the second complete rebuild, the torque tube seems to be OK. PCA VIR in November started as a great time with great weather but a failed slave cylinder (replace OE GM during the July 17 rebuild) failure brought the good times to an end after the Friday sessions. Another thread will have some questions about slave options...
Hope this helps.
St. Jude Donor '08-'09-'10-'11-'12, '14-'15-'16-'17-'18
We’ve had excellent results with DSS aluminum drive shaft that does away with couplers all together. No vibration issues, comes with new bolts and holds well over 1,000 rwhp.
We’ve had excellent results with DSS aluminum drive shaft that does away with couplers all together. No vibration issues, comes with new bolts and holds well over 1,000 rwhp.
11-02-2017, 10:53 AM
Looking for Driveshaft solutions
