With 700 HP I was getting a little nervous about the dana 44 and half shafts not holding up, so I went with a 4 link and Curry 9" over a month in the making but she is up and running as of yesterday, full throttle launches provide no tire spin and cornering and handling is as good as before.....and yes, I was not expecting that. I put together an armature cheap E phone camera documentation video of the process if anyone is interested in what's involved......

 

I'm interested....hmmm so is this " I can drink a case of beer break out the stick welder" type of install easy?

 

Awesome build, car sounds nasty. I bet it’s a blast to drive.

 

Suprising that you have traction. Especially with an automatic transmission unless you have traction control.

At least it sounded like an auto tranny.

You are a very talented fabricator

 

Yes, auto trans, 6K in parts alone in the 4L65E I built for it and a Niel Chance Converter with mechanical Diodes, I have the Terminator X Max that I wrote traction control for cutting 30 deg of timing for .4 second with a .35 second command shift delay that worked very well with the 285 tires I had on it, it would be all over the place during the 1-2 shift without it, but now with the Nitto 305 Drag radial it is no longer needed. The Terminator data logs show very little tire spin during the upshift, (don't know what I did 45 years ago without data log) Verry exciting to drive now with the 9" and carbon driveshaft, no longer worried about metal pipes coming into the car to kill me! Thanks for the comment! Have a great day!

 

Share some pics of the engine bay!

 

That's a really cool setup! Thanks for sharing!

 

 

Don't know if anyone is interested in the details but the new 570 Hp crate motor came apart at 1800 miles and sent the heads off to American Heritage Performance for new Mold star 90 guides, Titanium intake, Inconel exhaust, CNC port, mill .030, went with BTR stage 4 Cam Johnson Roller link bar limited travel roller lifters, 3/8 one piece pushrods, Titanium connecting rods, 102 MM TB FAST intake, custom equal length SS headers, and stuff, I write my own Fuel and Spark tables with the Holley Terminator X Max, currently at 12.2 to 1 compression with a top secret quench ht of...........032, ok, my secret is out of the bag.......

 

I saw your video, nice work. The video that follows is of a Tom's 12 bolt vette diff, is that you as well?

 

Not mine, but my friends C2 LS7 powered unit, I just pulled it out to rebuild it, reset clutch clearances and new bearings and reset the gear pattern and backlash. Toms 12 Bolt mod is a strong unit, with the 1480 joints it is good for 1,000 HP. But.......ring and pinion is no longer available, I started to mod a ring gear that fit, but the pinion is a different depth.

 

I was racing and had really high drive shaft rpm with OD auto tranny. I've never had a drive shaft problem or worn out the ujoints with billet caps. Chromemoly drive shaft

This hoop is sold through summit racing for like chevelles with it bolted to the floor pan. I just flipped it over and welded it up to flat bar stock and cross member. It passes NHRA tech inspection

 

Nice DL Loop, either way, accidents do happen, unforeseen failures happen all the time. There are a lot of folks going to carbon fiber for the safety aspect.

 

plus 1, CF driveshaft and a 9" with a lightened 4.10 ring and pinion, Wavetrac diff.
H pattern up and downshift test a driveshaft.
What diff is in yours?

 

Dang! that's a nice clean setup, I have the Curry 9" 35 spline axles with Detroit locker, the carrier also has the Load bolt to keep the ring gear from flex. I went from 3.70 to 3.50 just a streetcar. I went with autofab racecar 4 link, QA1 coil overs. The set up is in the vid on post 1 if interested

 

Ah, I wasn't sure if that was your video, I saw it by accident. I saw some things in it that were interesting.
The posi case is not an Eaton looks like a Yukon, hope you didn't use their spiders. 1000hp may be pushing it but maybe. Nothing is bulletproof.
The 373 12 bolt vette gears are in stock, on my shelf. The last of the real Tom's gears. Tom's still may have 456's but that is it, 411 or 373 all gone.. There are other places selling 12 bolt vette diff's but they're not Tom's gears, so kind of a red flag for those not familiar with the whole process and part quality. Yes both the ring and pinion are special ground. I do have the print for them, as they were done 50 years ago before Tom really perfected the gears and had them made here in the USA.
Good luck with the 9", nice setup and cost less than a 12-bolt conversion. I like your work. For those who want an IRS, Tom's is still the best out there.

 

yes that was my vid on my friends car....OK, I think we spoke on the phone in the past, are you the one that took over or purchased all of Toms inventory? sad to hear he passed and good that you are carrying on a nice setup. I reused the pinion and side gears, and just re shimmed the original Toms clutch pack. So, can you confirm are those ford side gears in the GM 12 Bolt?

 

Tom's is still open and selling parts. Tom's wife and her daughter are operating the business.

The 12 bolt gears are no longer being made. The spiders are 12 bolt Chevy.

I run my own corvette machine shop business.

Outside of Tom's I have built the most 12 bolt corvette conversions and fixed the work of those who claimed to know how to do them. There are stories here of guys who thought they saved a dime and went to others who claim to do that same level of work only to have them fail.

There are some things in your video that would be concerning for someone building one for the first time but since that probably is not going to happen anymore, I won't go into detail. As long as yours is on the road is what counts. Plus, there are few things I do inside them that I don't share anymore.

The axles in your video are old Tom's axles, the very early ones. They were revised. The Yukon case is not one I would use and as mentioned their spiders have not held up from what I have seen on various forums.

What I saw in that build I would be surprised if it held up with 1000hp for long , but you never know.

 

ok, as mentioned above, we did not use Yukon gears, only the carrier, ring, pinion, side and spider gears are all Toms product from a long time ago. During a Drag race the pinion took some the gear teeth off the ring, and who ever rebuilt it a long time ago did not check the Carrer ring gear face for runout, it was bent from the previous damage and (they) rebuilt it that way. they also used different brand pinion rear bearing and bearing cup, so that was failing also, All I did was install new carrier, bearings, and set up clutch drag clearances, pattern, carrier preload with a case spreader, pinion preload with new crush washer, and pattern. It had a howling before and now it doesn't. I am completely with you when it comes to the quality of parts, and the C2 is only a 650 HP LS7 so it has held up verry well. the Owner drives it like he stole it every day!

 

Yes, that is not uncommon after some long, hard runs.

My son's 12 bolt broke a tooth after 9 years of abuse with about 600 hp. The same thing happened, when the tooth broke it must have jammed for a second in between the ring and pinion, breaking the teeth and bending the posi case flange. When I broke down the diff I checked the posi flange runout because I am the one who machined it in the first place, not Tom's shop. When I built it there was less that 001" runout, when I checked it there was 006" runout- NG. I put a 12 bolt spool in it with 1480 then. We may be changing that back to a posi though.