I plan on installing hardened half shafts and 3.90's on my 06 c6 ls2 m6 z51... is there a forum on this? I couldn't find one in the dyi guide and was wondering if I should make one? I take pictures of everything I do so I'll know how to put it together later on.. Just a trick I use that helps.. A guy with 3 concussions attends to be forgetful...

 

I think it would be great for you to do it. Can you practice on your car and them come put 3:73 gears in mine?

Thanks!

 

Have you ever done this before? I assume you have all of the Kent Moore tools to work on a Getrag diff...

 

swapping out shafts is easy, dont need to mess with shims or anything, but its always good to check the backlash. which is what you need to do if changing gears.

-Carl

 

Yea might as well make a dyi from car on jack stands to the final torques.... There's a lot of good guides on this forum.. I can do a guide on the dyi head/cam swap.. There's a cam swap guide but not the h/c combo.. There's different guides for both of them and I just swap between them and figured it out... I would do the transmission swap from stands to break in if I could retrieve my old hard drive.

 

Between my neighbor and I... We have every tool.... If I don't have a tool neither does he... I'll buy it.

 

Hmm the rear axle getrag tools aren't to bad... more cheaper then having someone build it for me. I'll make a DYI guide on 3.90s and half shafts with these tools and a brace why not..... It'll be going down med Feb. At the moment my car is still waiting for my pulley and headers so I can finish my H/c combo. I need to get the car out of my one car garage before I can start this. I have never paid for labor for my car - painting the cf hood and alignment .. so I plan on keeping it that way

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SPX-Kent-Moo...item20c1293ac6

 

Hell yeah brother. Do it yourself is the way to go. I enjoy wrenching as much as driving it. Good luck and please take pics for us.

Thanks!

 

I have mentioned this to all the members who tried to tackle the gear swap; do youself a favor and let the pros do this. Here is why.

Using the Kent Moore tools, it only gives you the initial pinion shims to start. Then you have to assemble everything and see what kind of pattern/backlash on the ring gear you have. If it's too far off of center, you must disassemble the diff and reshim the case, side and the pinion until you have the correct pattern and the backlash. You must have selection of the side shims ($8 a piece) and pinion shims. Sometimes it takes 5-10 times to get the pattern and backlash just right. One in particular took me 8 1/2 hours to get the parttern/backlash where I wanted it.

If you decide to tackle this yourself and make a thread I'll be very interested in your thread!!!!!!! Let me know how it turns out.

 

Hmmm stooped me on that.. Shimming and backlash process.. I'm sure there's plenty of shops that done this countless times but I wonder how many are willing to help someone out. I'm sure there's a certain shim for each gearing ranges

 

I think you'll find this thread to be of some use to you.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c5-t...ld-how-to.html

 

If you were working on a 65-79 eaton diff I would say have fun with it. On the Getrag you are going to end up costing more then what it would just cost to pay someone to do it. First off, you WILL need all of the Kent Moore tools, those will range from $200 to $2000 depending on where you are getting them and which ones you are getting. That is only the beginning though, You said you have all the tools, do you have a 400-600ftlb torque wrench and the table to hold the pinion while you intall the pinion nut to 375ftlb. The side housing is also a main cap and it has a preload of .004 on it. That does not mean you can get away with no preload or setting it at .010. It has to be exact and there is a tool do that with and you will need the selection of shims. From start to finish on one of the diffs we will spend an entire day setting one up exactly where we want it to get that perfect pattern, backlash and preload. While we do sell rebuilt ones, do yourself a favor and take to someone that knows what they are doing. If you build it and it blows up, you will be buying one outright plus the core which is going to be extremely expensive.
Justin

 

I think this is great advice...but the problem is, if you get a rebuild from someone, will they warranty it? If not, you're paying the core again plus the labor to rebuild it.

Seems like these rebuilds have a "slab warranty" (to use an old term).

An exception is if they start to whine...my vendor replaced one rear I had when that happened, and I understand Rkt stands behind his work in that regard too. I would guess all good vendors like you would.

But with regard to the other reason they break...vendors can't be responsible when a rear blows from a 5000 rpm launch... I understand that.

That is why I went with a C5 rear...the cores are so much cheaper (like 1/3 the cost) when they blow, and based on my observations and experience, they all blow eventually if you race them. Possible exception with the c6Z rears, but no gears are available and the conversion is $6000.

BTW I heard rumor that the Motive sets on the market are currently whining - any truth to that rumor?

 

That is a rumor. Motive does not actually make the gear, they import it from the same company that makes the gears for Getrag that goes in the original ones. Yes you can get a bad gear, but generally it is more than likely the setup was off, or in some case we have had bearings that are bad. You can't really check those until they are in a car. We are working on a differential dyno so to speak, it is not for measuring power obviously but it will be used to pre run all of our differentials. This is probably a long ways out right now but we are working on it.
As far as warranty we can usually figure out what happened, even if it is just parts. If it is something we caused then of course we will take care of it. If it is something that a racing incident, ie wheel hope caused, then I will do my best to help someone but I am not going to cover the cost of replacing everything. More then likely we would sell them a new diff and deeply discounted price and then figure out what they need to change in the suspension to keep it from happening again. I believe in doing what it is right, if it is something we messed up then we will take responsibilty for it, if we did everything right and the cause was from something else then the owner needs to take responsibility also. You can pm vector vette and ask him what we did for his diff when it failed. We built him a full blown road race diff. For some reason I decided to deviate from a normal race diff and add some extra cooler fittings in the bottom. Well one of the welds had a small pin hole in it that we did not catch. While he was at a event it was leaking heavily, he called and we I told him to drive it and we would fix it later. When I received the diff back, what grease was left in it had turned to a solid and the ring gear was actually a nice gold color it had gotten so hot. We replaced the entire diff, that was a $4000 differential. I don't want anyone to assume that companies run from warranties, some do, but we stand behind everything we do.
Thanks
Justin

 

^^^ Justin that's a great reply. I appreciate stand up vendors and I have understood that you are indeed such. Can't argue with anything you said, makes perfect sense.

Good to know you're not running into troubles with the gear sets lately.

I will also add...I have a diff temp gauge on my car, and I'm amazed how hot the diff gets in normal highway use. I've seen 200+ degrees just cruising, on the road course, it was my diff that caused me to go in with 250+ temps before my oil or tranny temp got above 220. I think diff cooler or at least a gauge is a must for any road course work. Not so much on the drag strip as it doesn't get hot in those 10-11 seconds.

 

That is only one part of the Kent Moore tools you need. You also need the shim selector tool kit and a fair amount of shims to pick from for trial and error.

 

Yea from reviewing this guide http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c5-t...ld-how-to.html
and some info from most of yal...I'm glad I didn't tear into it. Yea It would been good to learn if I had a better budget but sadly I don't.. I really wouldn't mind learning but this is way to costly for a guy like me. I'll more then likely buy the parts my self and do the half shafts but let a good shop do the 3.90. Now witch shop I should go with? I'm thinking zip due to location and a good shop that replied first and they know what there talking about.. I have the rpm lvl5 transmission but had bad experience with them with bone stock corvette, so I won't be going with them anymore...I plan on making 460+ rwhp and doing a 150 shot maybe 200. Speaking of that I'll probably going to have to find a shop to fix that 3rd gear whine.....I only have 500miles on it also and I'm to scared to drag it with the wine

 

I actually just read your name, Semper Fi devil dog. How are you even affording this car. I know when I was in, well never mind we won't go there. What are you wanting done to the diff, I will work something out with you, Marine to Marine.
Semper Fi
Justin

 

Holy super awesome write up Batman!

 

"I have the rpm lvl5 transmission but had bad experience with them with bone stock corvette, so I won't be going with them anymore..."

Please elaborate!