Can anyone tell me if the DTE Rear End Brace is realy needed or not.
I am replacing my clutch, flywheel a Exedy Twin Disk and also going with a LGM CF driveshaft for my 05 C6. I thought it would be a good time to do the DTE Brace if it is worth the money.

 

I've seen rears that didn't fail without having the brace and I've seen rears/parts of the rear fail with the brace installed.
Even when strengthening with hardened shafts and such, there is unfortunately still a lot of luck (and driving style variation) involved in how well a rear holds up.

 

One tuner/pro-racer I talked to said almost the same thing. Maybe the $380.00 could be better used someplace else.
Thanks

 

The only reason you would need this type of complete drivetrain support
( you forgot hardened half shafts) would be if you're making a lot of HP, and were going to drag the car regularly. Slicks etc.
Otherwise you're spending a lot of money for nothing. Call Ed at LPE He'll tell you that there 750HP twin turbo car only has an upgraded clutch, the rest is factory stock, and they don't break. Reason is simple, stock tires can't hook, they come lose at WOT, so nothing breaks. You start putting tires that will hook and you'll break everthing.
Then those parts you mentioned are needed. I'm only making 461 rwhp, still that's 542 at the crank, and I asked Andy Green of A&A corvette who did my motor if I need hardened half shafts etc when I finally did a clutch, and he said NO. He said that the tires will never hook on the street enough to break anything. He's right they don't. My .02 cents

Andreas g.

 

The odds are in your favor for extended driveline life when the differential strut is used, than if it isn't. Many folks doubted the product and it's ability to perform as claimed years ago when it was first released, but now it's quite commmonplace in application on many Corvette racing vehicles of all types and configurations.

Additionally, most of the differential failures that have occured when the differential strut was in place that we've seen photos of did *NOT* fail in the area that our product was targeted to protect, but rather from other areas of the diff. case/transmission where the differential strut wasn't secured to that yielded to the metallurgical stress of a hard launch or from internal component fracture etc.

Some of the fastest C5/C6 Corvettes have our product installed to this very day and our product was along for the 8-second IRS differential record that Major Spray sent a little over a year ago with his TH400 driveline setup. The cost of $379 would seem inexpensive compared to what a major driveline repair bill would be if you broke something catastrophically.

To each his own however and it's ultimately up to you if you use our product or not--it's your car, but at least you have sound factual information to pull from to base your decision.

 

I was caught up in installing one because they look so cool and I was going to have my drive train out anyway doing the clutch. The more I look at the strut arrangement and compare it to the mass of the trans. case I wonder how it can add any strength to the assembly
If the Trans. and the Differential tried to move apart I would think oil would leak out of the case. What do I know? I do know it looks cool.

 

I bought the C6 version since the C5 one was so well received. When the package was delivered I noticed that unlike the C5 picture which at the time was the only one on the site, the diff section only had a single support peice going left to right and no bottom braces going front to back on the transmission. It was only half of the same C5 product.

I sold it without installing it since the cases on the C6 tended to split along the bottom where there was no reinforcement and the transmission to diff had no bottom reinforcement so I didnt think it was worth installing and it certainly shouldnt have cost the same as the C5 model.

I am not an engineer and I'm sure my opinion isnt shared by everyone but I posted here not to bash DTE but to share my observation. At the very least, it is less support than the c5 model. Some will say that the c5 model was so good that 1/2 the support of that product is still worth it....I would agree with that for some people.

 

I understand that the C6 is weaker than the C5... perhaps nineball (who split his rear case) will chime in. The DTE brace was one of my first mods. It's pretty cheap insurance. None of the guys that run in our Corvette Challenge have ever broken a rear with it.

 

Or without it. That is what most of us are getting at.

 

FWIW, I recently installed the Lingenfelter 403 package and other mods....vastly increasing torque and hp. I asked the Installer the same question. He said, unless I was on a drag strip regularly and running slicks....he didn't think it was necessary (the emphasis being on the tires you run). I think he also said something about the C5 brace being more 'heavy-duty' than the one made for the C6.

I opted to not install the DTE brace, however, with the power I'm putting out even with the stock runflats....I'm not going to push my luck by loading-up on it right off the line.

 

I didn't say that did I? I've seen 3 rears break that didn't have them. Coincidence or not I don't know but I always get one. It's not a lot of money.

 

It is, or at least the 2005's rear was weaker than the C5s. Just not sure a brace is going to fix those weaknesses, might help a bit though.

 

The brace isnt going to keep the rear from breaking but if you look at a picture of a (at least a C5's) broken rear with the brace, it is a controlled break and doesnt take the transmission with it. The areas reinforced remained intact and the rear was in peices but it didnt break the trans output shaft.

It was DTE that commented on the C5's broken rear pictures in that particular thread, stating it did what it was intended to do. I dont see how the C6's brace could have done the same or nearly the same job not having the 2 bottom poles that attach to the transmission.

The C6's case is not as strong as a C5's. The center mount of the C5 allows the rear to sway absorbing shock and not torquing the case like a wishbone like all the C6 models...Z06 included.

 

This would be a good question to be answered by DTE. I would like to see a drawing showing the C5 & C6 cases and how the DTE Rear End Brace stops the movement.
A little engineering explaination of how the Brace works would be cool.
I do not think that the two struts runing horizontal to the cases can stop twisting of the cases.

 

C5 brace picture...scroll down:
http://www.dynotech-eng.com/dte_c5_diff_strut.htm

C6 brace Picture, scroll down:
http://www.dynotech-eng.com/dte_c6_diff_strut.htm

I just didnt see how trhey accomplish the same thing. It doesnt stop twisting, it holds the parts together so that when they break it limits the damage to the rear diff and not the transmission. I have pictures of a C5 rear that broke with it on the car and the transmissin didnt get affected.

 

Insurance??? Do you mean they pay to replace your rear if it breaks with the brace on?

 

The C6 rear diff splits up the center of the case from the bottom as seen on Nineball's diff failure. The C6 modle has no reinforcement at the bottom and there isnt any evidence of the side covers breaking where the strut would hold the cover together.

I read the DTE description and it describes protecting the transmission/diff interface where I have seen brakage in the past but the strut only holds the top together.

I have pictures of different types of failures if someone wants to host them.

There was a rumor of an aftermarket billet case in the works.

I will just stick with the C5's rear in the 2005. If it does break its only a 700 dollar core charge. GM made a bad move with this one.

 

No. Bad choice of words. It gives me peace of mind and is inexpensive to do when you change to a hardened output shaft.

 

This is all BS. Steel Ball Heim Joints are made to move from side to side. The struts will flex from back to front. If the case moves something breaks. When it breaks you have this really cool looking brace that keeps some big chunks from blowing away from the rear end plus you have spent $380 that you could have used to fix your car.

 

It's typical for folks to mock or poke fun at what they simply just don't understand and given the poor attitudes and goading that's going on in here, it's not even worth the time or effort for us to explain any of it anyway, as we've already covered that ground *many* times in the past. If we actually did point out where everyone was wrong based on their statements on many different areas of this product, it would only make that particular naysayer look foolish for having stated such silly remarks about a topic in the first place that they have no real idea about..

BTW- For the second time~ It's $379, not $380.....

Good day and certainly good luck.