D SHARK 9

Will someone please give me a crash course in Dana info. I have an opportunity to get a Dana 36 with 3.73 gears from my wife for Christmas. But I must act really fast. Do I want these? What is the difference between Dana 36 w/3.73 and Dana 44 w/3.73 ? I currently own an '86 auto. stock with 2.72's. Any responses will be greatly appreciated.

vader86

Dana 36 is what you already have in your 86 if its still stock, Dana 44 is a bit tougher IMO, it can handle more torque and prolly wont break at the track. As for feel, i doubt if theres any difference

GlockLT4

A Dana 44 is definitely stronger than a Dana 36. The Dana 44 can handle larger gears than the 36 as well. I cannot remember the number, but the 44 has more bolts to it as well.

If you find a deal on a Dana 60, get it ;).

Springer's LT4

Do you really want a 3.73 gear in an 86? What are you going to be doing with the car? Drag racing, fooling around on the street? Thats an awful lot of gear for that car unless you've got some serious mods like cam, heads and intake.

jpee

D Shark..

Bottom line the 36 will be a hellova lot cheeper (less expensive) and if you do not plan on "HARD CORE" drag racing the 36 will be fine...

Even if you do plan on going to the track now & then the 36 will be ok...

However if you plan on major engine mods & Drag radials with a high stall converter (2800) then go to the 44

I started with a 36 in my car & went to 3.73 gears.. BUT I also installed a Vigilante 2800 converter, and drag radials... removed the front sway bar etc... etc.. I was running mid 12s before the Dana 36 finally broke after racing it EVERY Fri & Sat for a year...

Now I have a 44 with 3.73 & its fine.. but it spends more time on the track than the street..

From the sounds of your post, I think the 36 will be fine.. it will save you $$ and performance will be the exact same with either the 36 or the 44..

Go to the 44 only if you really plan on HARD launches... a 36 will probably hold up if your 60' times are 1.8s .. if you get into the low 1.7s or 1.6x where I'm at you will need a 44...

Hope this helps..

AquaMetallic94LT1

I would recommend going with a 44 if your going to change out the rear end or gears. If you go with a 36 and decide to fool with the motor (you probably will) and get slicks and a converter, you'll need a 44 and you'll be asking youself why you got the 36. If your lucky, you could sell it when you need to upgrade but most of wait till it breaks and .... well it probably won't be worth anything then.

samc

durability
serious mods (heads, cam, strokers, high stall TC, etc.) and/or racing = 44
minor mods only - 36 should be OK

gearing
for even a modded engine with l98 style intake (stock, ASM/TPIS,Super Ram) don't go bigger than 3.07. once you go to a shorter runner intake (miniram or carb style manifold) you can go bigger.

i say this from experience - with a 383 and asm runners, i run consistently quicker with 3.07 gears in a d44 than i did with 3.54 gears in a D36 that lasted a year and about 100 passes at the strip with street tires.

Mr Mojo

I would tend to agree, I know someone who went to a 3.55 in his '89 and he hates it now, he would have rather went with 3.07's

93 ragtop

I went through the same delima when I changed my diff. My choices were 1. Zip rebuilt 3.54 gears, ($759.00 group purchase), 2. used Dana 44 with 3.45 gears ($1400.00 at the junk yard) 3. rebuilt Dana 44 with 3.73 gears ($2100.00) If money had been no issue, I would have gone with choice no. 3. However money was and is an issue :cry so IMHO choice no. 1 is where I went. As far as the 3.73 being to much gears for your car, I have no experence in that area. Do a search on this forum for additional insite into that. From what I have read though, the 3.07 to 3.54 seem to be more popular with the L98 people. What ever decision you make, be sure to line up your speedo, gears and sensor before starting the conversion. to change the parts it only requires you to remove the tail shaft housing (4 bolts) to replace the speedo gears. If you wait to do this after the car is back together then you will have to remove the driveshaft, the support beam etc. or go with one of the electronic boxes. Good luck

Zora

L98 motors really Do not like a 3.73 gear. If you are not going to do some mods to the engine I would just leave it be.

D SHARK 9

Well you guys certainly set me straight. I am stock for now, but I have bigger plans for the near future that will demand the Dana 44. The dana 36 that I was considering is on ebay and auction ends Sun. night. It was currently going for $675 brand new, but I will back off from it. Thanks a bunch, I appreciate every response.

Ciprian

Ikester

Dana 44 is the same rear in a Viper. Built for power. nuff said. :)

rthouck

Viper has a "super dana 44" though. Not sure exactly what the differences are but there are some.

dizwiz24

you just realize you dug up a thread about a decade old.

BTW, ive heard modern vipers use some kind of cv joints in their rears vs. u-joints.

Caboboy

This has got to be a record of some kind

vetteoz

The search function does work

7secondsquarter

Jpee - what did you do to the car other than the gear and stall and weight reduction to get down into the 12's? We have the dana 44 with 3.45 gears, a 3600 stall, drag radials, a PCM for less tune and a line loc. Going to remove the spare and front sway bar but it feels like we are still aways away from getting down into mid 12's. Best so far is a 13.602 with a 1.75 60'. We are losing another tenth or so as the 2-3 shift is bouncing off the revlimiter. We sent that back to Bryan and hopefullly that is taken care of. Anything you can share is appreciated.

jjtoma

" Viper has a "super dana 44" though. Not sure exactly what the differences are but there are some."

http://www.gkndriveline.com/drivelin...visco-lok.html

Gen III & Gen IV Vipers have CV's. GenIV has the visco-lok diff

Calderone

amazing revival ! i wonder if after 10 years now we can really know if the D44 lived to it !

Would be real funny if suddenly D SHARK 9 reappears and tell us the scoop