I'm working on a complete redesign of the stock hubs using Coleman NASCAR style hub bearings.

The stock hubs have ball bearings, which are great for low drag and fuel economy, but not so good at taking loads like the roller bearings.

The stock units are sealed which means you can't even replace the gease let alone the bearings.

The roller bearings are $10-20, which means even if you kill them, just take it apart and change them out.



The fronts would be easy to do, just make up a spindle and bolt on their hub, but the brakes and wheels would need adapters, or one could just make up hubs that use thier bearings. In the process you could get the ABS sensors to work.

So what do people want?
Adapters for stock Coleman hubs? May require break adapters, and if you want 5x5's or Wide-5, you'll need brake adapter and new wheels. I've already got a request for this.

Custom hubs using Coleman's bearings. Consider it a stock replacement, but rebuildable with different bearing style. I'd like to partition the SCCA to allow them in Stock or at least Street Prepared. They would have more drag, they just last longer.

While I'm at it I can make drag race hubs and spindles that can handle the massive amounts of torque that some of us as putting out.

 

I'd be more interested in center locks.

 

Once the intial ones are made up, that's a possibility.

 

I'm also interested! I was planning on looking at having customs made but this could be a good thing instead.. gonna use the 300M billet axles? and will the Hubs allow for larger diamter axle shafts ?

Chris

 

How much more drag are we talking here? is it a minor 3% or is it a measurable 20%?

 

Roller bearings are used on zillions of cars wheel bearings, friction won't be a problem. They can also be repacked as they wear.

Brian, I've never heard of broken spindles drag racing. What is there to break? Has anyone managed to seperate the wheel flange from the splined portion? Drag racing doesn't put any load on the bearings themselves.


Anyhow, I will be interested if I take up autocrossing, but I'm not sure on that part. I think the rear brakes put a ton of radial load on them though, and cornering as well, since the bearing surfaces see all the upper camber arm loads in the rear, unlike on the C5.

 

Guys running heavy shot of nitrous and slicks were breaking these


or twisting them


I'd go with a much larger diameter than stock, the axle is a lot smaller than the hole in the upright. The stock subaxle don't rest directly on the bearings.



The trouble with subaxles is that they need to be alot shorter than those in a solid axle, therefore they don't 'wind up', so they need to be much stronger to take the shock loading of leaving the line hard.

 

What I meant was, I've never heard of the hubs breaking from drag racing.

The bearing doesn't take radial loads from the axle, it takes radial load from the vehicles weight on the hub and from countering the brake caliper force. A rear mounted caliper would reduce that. Can the caliper bracket be installed backwards by chance? I understand its a seperate piece on the 88+ cars.

Anyhow, your bearing has to take the side loads from the car's weight as well. There's just a lot more loads on these rear bearings than there should be. The GM engineer that specd these bearings should be shot.

 

Would some-thing like these work to allow a larger rear axel with-out alll the other changes????
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/31-Sp...0441QQtcZphoto
You are way above my understanding here so please don't get mad if i am way off on this.

 

CentralCoaster we're on the same page. I was just pointing out that the hub is limiting the size of the sub-axle that can be used. I'd engineer it for far greater side loads. Slicks and aero mods can really up the side loads.

That would help the drag racers out once a subaxles is made to work with it. Looks like it still uses the same type of bearings though.

 

Brian,

What stub axles are those? Sorry if you already said what they were...they look much better than the cast ones.....I just broke both of mine off the line the other week! Looking for options other than a solid rear.....

http://media.putfile.com/spindles

Thanks...

 

The ones in the pics are from Speed Demon, but they had problems.

Check this thread out: http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show...1513304&page=2

 

The guy from ebay i listed before also makes several types of shafts to those bearings as well as adjustale control arms and i don't know what else. The adjustable con.arms are for fitting other bearing setups for racing but i honestly don't know what. I have just been watching him for a countach frame that can use corvette suspension and northstar engine /trans.. Please don't ask about that project cause i still don't know what iam doing either.

 

Brian, what would it take to get started on this. I think alot of us could benefit from this. Even more would jump on board after it's proven. Count me in.

 

I've already seen enough interest for me to pursue this. There's enough people doing HPDEs to support they're developement. I'll post pictures here as I progress. So consider it underway.

I've contacted the SCCA and I'll be sending them drawings of parts. I'm hoping if they're involved during it's developement, I can get it approved for the stock classes, but even if it doesn't I'm going to pursue it.

 

The Corvettes rear suspension design does not appear, to me, to transfer lateral loads (side loads) to the bearing..the lateral loads are absorbed by the axle shafts and the differential housing.

If the rear wheel bearing DO experience lateral loads, then substituting straight roller bearing (which do not transfer lateral loads well) for the ball bearings (which DO handle lateral loads well) would seem to be counter-productive.

Tell me if I'm wrong....
EDIT: Ooops! Just noticed that your proposed bearings are tapered rollers...


Larry
code5coupe

 

Sort of sounds like you are reinventing the C3 spindle setup. They use roller bearings.

 

If you need help convincing them, tell them the same bearing is used on the front of the 82 Buick Riviera and Cadillac, and those cars are better off as they don't use the bearing to carry upper camber arm loads.


Rocco16, under the car's own weight, the halfshafts are under compression. This same force tries to spread apart the two halves of the bearing. (Recall that the spindle shoulder pushes on the rotating part of the bearing, and not the knuckle).

Under hard cornering, lateral forces on your inside rear tire will put the halfshaft under more compression which inturn tries to pull half the bearings out of their races (although the compression due to weight on that corner will be reduced.)

The current wheel bearing sucks because the ***** and the load angle means they can't hold a lot of side force. On all the FWD sedan applications where it's used, the bearing will only see radial forces from weight and twisting from lateral tire loads in turns. You can see by the load angle that the bearing will perform well under both circumstances.

This is why when I sent my resume to GM R&D, they told me I was overqualified and to **** off and apply at BMW instead. (ok, the last part didn't really happen.)


Brian's setup will be the same on paper, but the rollers will have more load bearing surface, and be serviceable. It'd be fun to compare them in a hydraulic press.

 

Kind of, actually I'd like to hear the issues C3's had so I can avoid any pitfalls.

Not a bad idea!

BTW nice pic and explanation

 

Hi Brian! If you get these working with ABS I'll be a customer! I seem to go through fronts faster than rears