I'm bulding a 900ft lbs engine (at the crank) that will go in a C5 donor car. What rear end is recommended for an application like this?

Can the DTE Stage 3 Extreme Duty handle this kind of torque ratings? What about the rear axles?

 

Might want to talk to Mossier and see what they say. Lots of people get 12-bolts to swap into f-bodies from them.

Shane

 

it depends on what you are doing. If you are running slicks at the drag strip, then you'll brake any diff (lots of aluminum). However, for road or roadcourse duty, you'll be fine with DTE or any other beefed up diff.

 

OK. So a DTE is a good choice if I run on street only. Then we have that covered.

But what about for the drag racing use with slicks?

It is three reasons for us to choose the Corvette C5 as a donor car:
1. A C5 is easyly available for us as a crashed car at a low price. Still we should be able to sell the engine, interior and other small parts that survived the crash.
2. The C5 has very nice measurmentsfor our needs. Almost everything sits where it should within the inch. Wheelbase acutally within 4mm.
3. The C5 has the suspension and rear axle we want. Double wishbones, aluminium rear axle etc. It has very good track times compared to other high performance cars like Porsche etc.

Therefore, it's not an option to change the rear end with a Ford 9" or similar. We will stick with the C5 rear end till we find a differential that can handle the power. I've been in contact with a company that has a differential for 1050rw ft lbs of torque but found it a bit expensive. Therefore I want to check our possibilities before we buy.

 

Btw, who/what is Mossier?

 

Many of our HP differentials are currently in use behind 1000+ HP turbo applications with outstanding success and durability. We build differentials for applications in drag racing, road racing and the like. In our experience, there is no one "magic number" for any differential when it comes to it's power input rating; therefore, there is no one differential model to fit all applications.

The key to driveline longevity in a racing application is proper driveline set-up and how the power is applied. Additionally, any driveline product that is subjected to the abuses of racing will have to be freshened up quite frequently to prevent hairline cracks caused form metallurgical fatigue, from propagating into major catastrophic failures.

Our differentials are quite strong in their design and build preparation and our success with the product to date is a testament to that. However, one must be made aware that any aluminum IRS differential will have its limits and the extent of that limit will depend entirely on the details described above.

An IRS differential we build can be produced VERY strong for the application, but the maintenance to keep it that way will be far greater in time/expense, than would a solid-axle design specifically engineered for drag racing only use where extremely high driveline shock loads are present.

If you intend on building a drag-only car that is capable of 8-9 second E.T's and are genuinely serious, we suggest you look at a solid-axle conversion set-up. It will cost you far less to maintain than would an IRS, plus there are a few on this board that have already done just that with success.


DTE

 

Very interesting. What are you building - what is your project ??

 

Where are you from? If you're building a drag car with a large motor look into the solid axel swap with a "normal" front mounted transmission.

 

Agreed. If you're just going to "point and pull the trigger" then you want a solid rear axle. If you want to autocross the car or actually make turns when I think DTE has what you need as far as a beefed up IRS.

Cant help but wonder what kind of mad-fast C5 could be built with 900 lb/ft of torque. I dont think you could put tires under it to make that usable in a road race situation. But i'm no expert on the matter.

Shane

 

With that setup I would run the DTE stage III, at no more than a 3.42 gear ratio. Maybe less? That includes utilizing the cooling option, and the DTE brace. I could see a car like that coming out of the twisties and getting up to 160-170 very quickly, which is where the vette really shines, as long as you can pass.

For drag racing I would have have a spare stage III standing by and the ability to swap one out at the track. If this is a turbo setup, I think you would be ok, the turbo lag should keep the worst of the torque off the driveline at the critical impact. If it's a supercharger, hmmm, like I said, keep a spare!

This is why I eventually want to be able to tear down and inspect, and replace clutch packs, etc as necessary. I think the key would be to have a hot standby rear ready to go to put on while you take your time tearing down the other for inspection/freshening. Optimally, maybe even having a the whole tranny/diff with extra brace already on it would be the shiznit. All it takes it money!