gee, sean, large enough for ya? Damn. Almost heard that one in my head.

 

Guys the D44 is not that bad of a rear setup - the modifications I laid out.

The spiders and the carrier itself is where the weak link lies. compare it to a 12 bolt carrier and you will quickly see why it fails. Its tiny in comparison and the 12 bolt is not the greatest to begin with - probably good to mid to low 9s power.

Once you remove these weak parts, the setup is pretty damn strong. At least to the level most of us will take it to. Will it hold my car per say, if I were to run it with a 200 shot off the line? I doubt it, but not many of us are leaving with nearly 1000 ft/lbs of motor either. On my motor alone at my power level I think the D44 case will be fine (with the spool). Once you put the spool it it, you eliminate a whole slew of problems. Let me list a few that people have not mentioned and some that might have been.

1. The spiders that guall up and stick to the center pin are eliminated.
2. Many times the spiders break when one wheel get traction and the other doesn't, which SLAMS the carrier when the spinning wheel finally grabs. Happens all the time if you don't know how to come out of the water box, and throttle back the power. The spool eliminates this completely. Since both right and left wheels are coupled together, they both turn at the same speed. This is very important on takeouts also.
3. Takeout load distribution. With the spool both axles get equal amount of power, with or without traction to the wheel surface. This is better on the 1/2 shafts and other components as well. When you dead hook the car, with a carrier one side might be getting more power transfered through it, with a spool both wheels are getting equal, and carry the load easier.
4. Lightened up internals in the D44, make shifting at high RPMS less damaging to all components. Quicker ETs and MPHs.

I would entertain doing some of the requests for fitting up these D44 with spools, but its a real PITA to get into the shops I need to to get the work done at. And I pretty much have to do the work, cause there is alot of tinkering to get it setup right for drilling them. I almost hate to get involved in another project, but if there is enough interest I would do some for the members here, but would need to get them all at once, otherwise it triples or quadruples the amount of time I will need to spend doing the machining and begging these guys for their equipment in the shops here.

Email me if you have an interest to get one of these done, and I will see what interest there is out there for these. I am reluctant to do any of this cause the season is just around the corner and I have my car in pieces, my fathers ordering new heads and carb for his, and I have another project in my garage - but if it helps some of you guys out, then lets see what we can do. I really do not see any other way of making these units survive higher end power, and repeated track launches.

 

I don't know.. a spool for the street still scares me...it may be livable or "not that bad"...but.... not for the street.....

 

You wouldn't even know my car has one if you drove it and I did not tell you.

 

Well then, I think you should send me yours to try... It sounds like a somewhat easy fix... Ski, what happens when you go around a corner? Especially with drag radials.. You gotta be getting some chirpage.. no? I've also heard others with spools say that when they hit the parking lot they automatically start looking for a nice open spot because there isn't much maneuverability with a spool...

I have an idea.. how 'bout we get a group together to approach Quaife and see if they will build one for us. If it makes sense financially for them to do it.. I guarantee you they will... Any takers? I'm in..

 

For normal street driving I can't even tell its in there and I am usually pretty sensitive to things.

In parking lots, no chirping, only thing you can hear is the gravel under the wheels in VERY tight turns. I drive my car all the time on the street and this summer is was not even a thought of taking it out.

If your putting thousands of miles on the car, then it might not be advicable since regardless of being able to notice it, its probably does promote wheel thread wear. So you may shorten the life expentancy.

Dad has on in his chevelle and its MUCH more noticable. Perhaps cause the vette have a long front section, its not as noticable. Dads chirps around corners etc, but I have yet to notice mine, even when parking at Walmart

 

I have had the same experience with the spool in my brother's '88 Mustang. You really can't tell that the spool is there unless you make a REALLY tight turn (like a k-turn).

However, his car always has soft tires on it (ET streets). With regular street radials I am told that the spool is much more noticeable (chirping, skipping, etc).

Jesse, what's your experience with regular street radials?

 

I run mine with SP5000 street tires all the time, and its actually even less noticable with the street tires in the tight turns, because of the stiff sidewalls. With the slicks on the rear, 28" and the very soft plyable sidewall, you tend to feel the backend in a tight turn bump to the side, as the tire gives up grip, and the contact patch recenters.

But the street tires are nearly un-noticable. I notive it more in the streeting than anything. ONLY IN PARKING situations. It feels like the wheel wants to go back to center more than without the spool. But again this is only in VERY tight turns. Highway or normal town driving, can't feel anything. Car actually feels like it accelerates straighter when you really get on it, probably since both wheels are turning equally.

 

The Quaife would be a good option except the price would probably near $1500-$1800. Is there some reason why it costs so much? The Detriot TrueTrac seems to be similar in design at about 1/3 of the price. Perhaps TrueTrac could be contacted as well for their interest in a special order for the Vette D44. I would be in for that.

http://www.tractech.com/docs/DetroitTruetrac04.pdf

 

Ski.... what do you think about the True Trac?

 

Oops. After re-reading my post, I made it sound as though the TrueTrac is available for the Vette D44. It is not, it would need to be custom made. I edited my post to reflect this.

 

Wow, Jesse. That's a VERY generous offer! If you get enough interest then please count me.

Guys, Jesse has requested that if you are interested in getting a spool for your D44 then please email him. I'd suggest that you also reply to this thread with your interest to keep this thread alive!

 

ok...so the spool must be custom fitted. now wich spool to get, for what application??(splines etc etc)
since i'm going to do it myself, can you give me some pointers, ski??? thanks

 

BRING YOUR WALLET!!!
when to a chassis shop and saw a custom bolt in 9". bolt in down to the "c" beam half shafs and drive shaft . Uses all normal 9" gears and bearings also its still IRS.
If you want to order one his number is 410.838.2877 BUT DONT CALL IF YOU JUST WANT TO JACK HIM OFF!!!

 

The Quaife is a very good piece. They're very popular with the import tuning crowd, not just Honda's, but Porsche, Ferrari, etc. They make a very nice product. It's very strong, and can take a lot of abuse.

In the Honda's that run the quaife, I have NEVER heard of anyone blowing one up. I am talking Preludes, with 800hp turbo motors. And kick *** slicks. A lot of them are also running spools, but many of the "street" Preludes are running 450hp+, with a quaife and after many miles have zero problems. We must remember one thing, weight transfer is a bitch on RWD cars... FWD don't have that problem.

However, the Porsche turbo's with 500+hp use many a quaife (I think they are stock) and I have never read of problems with them... however, I have read of problems with the clutch, another story.

 

Well, NVUS, you would have more credibility if you actually gave us a number that is not disconnected.

NVUS, I hope you are not in charge of or related to advertising or public relations at Tom Brush Chassis (the now apparently defunct creator of this fabeled centersection).. if so, you should be fired!!!

 

Ok, after going back through this thread I think I have a solution.

First we start off with a Ford 9" IRS centersection housing from Dutchman. This housing can be ordered with stub axles that have the 1350 series U-joints which Jeb says are plenty strong as long as we go with the non-zerted ones from Lakewood, for example. Now, to mount the center diff to the Vette chassis. According to the guys at Dutchman it simply has a flat mounting plate on top of the diff. for mounting. We would simply need to fab up a batwing (made of chrome moly for example) that could be mated to the original locations on our chassis we now have, and then to a plate that connects to the plate on top of the diff. All this bracket needs to do is keep the housing from twisting and moving side-to-side in the chassis, and for those of you who have had the diff mounted without the torque arm in place know what I mean. Next we load the housing with a carrier for a camaro or monza that has a torque arm provision, I know ski said it wouldn't fit, but if it will fit under a Camaro why not our Vettes? There is quite a bit of room under there.. and remember, the diff. does not move once properly located unlike that in a straight axle Camaro. Ok, Ski said that the torque arm provision is on the wrong side. All we have to do here is make an arm that basically forms a box enclosure for some substantial length around the driveshaft (which also doesn't move up and down or side to side) that hooks up on the proper sides.. passenger side for the tranny, driver's side for the diff., not a big deal at all. the only thing left to do is use our existing hubs and alter the half shafts accordingly or make new ones in a stronger material that will last. We could use the billet outer spindles and have everything cryo'd for good measure. The last detail is hooking up our suspension members that attach to the diff. (toe and camber). I already have heim jointed rods which are comparative to those used by Ducthman so this should not be a problem (although they may need to be lengthened or shortened) as the attachment points on the Dutchman unit look to be very similar to our Dana 44. So there you have it... as soon as I get the energy or break my existing rear (whichever comes first), I'm going to try and do this. Maybe I could come up with a conversion kit for the C4 and make millions!!!! This solution wouldn't be cheap, but neither is a straight axle. I just can't put a straight axle in my car knowing that handling is going to suffer. Oh, and you would probably need to go to a coil over suspension in the rear. I already have them so I forgot about that one. What do you guys think?

 

ski doesn't remember saying those things, but anyways...

yeah I think you could beef up the rear in many different ways, it all just boils down to $$ and desire and ability.

Without a doubt the solid axle is the ticket for a drag car, the spool with complete aftermarket components would be next, and just a spool with stock components would be good for 80% of the people out there.

Anytime however you start racing and putting slicks on the car, your putting things at risk of breaking. Even with the best of equipment - nothing is bulletproof, cause someone somewhere is going to put enough power through it to kill it. Look at the trannies the pro outlaw guys run. 4500+ dollars for a tranny that will hold the power - when 90% of the people out there can't break a 400 for the life of them. But they would.

With that being said, there are many options through this post - I say build it for what you think you need and live with anything less. For the money - right now I will put the spool alone in it and live with the occasional cheap part giving up the goat and replace them as needed. 300+ runs and 2 minor breaks = pretty good and cheap in my book. Can't imagine there are many other people out there needing more. Unless you have a stick car - in which case you need to get an auto

 

Jesse, I have already emailed you about the spool last week, please let me know something, as I'm still interested.

 

Here's a D-44 that's been re-engineered and re-cast to a much stronger tolerances;

http://www.carcreationsinc.com/html_2/latest.html

You'll need to part with $3,550 to get the complete new rear-end, Bat-wing & gears!!!!!