narrowing a rear differential

[grumpyvette]

the stock read differential in many cars was never designed to handle near the loads that a hopped up engine and slicks and 3500rpm launches can produce, a much stronger rear like the ford 9" or Dana 60 or 14 bolt GM truck differential has the strength if fitted with the correct mods but it might be and probably will be to large/long or not have the correct bolt pattern or rear brakes that allow the wheels you want to be fitted to your car,now with some research, and careful fabrication different tube ends and shorter axles with the correct bolt pattern and brake mount adapter flanges can be fabricated and fitted to a narrowed heavy duty truck rear differential that is designed to handle the higher shock loads, the combos are almost unlimited. but careful fabrication and measurements are required after verifying that the combo of parts you select will work together, naturally custom made axles and end plate adapters will be expensive but you can make many custom rear differential combos with strength and far larger brakes than the factory ever designed for your muscle car.
now you generally CAN,T just grab your welder and a pipe cutter and fabricate a new rear differential, but with some advice and research, you can usually get the necessary parts, kits and components to fit custom built axles to a shortened rear differential, just remember the two axles are frequently NOT equal length and they generally are heat treated, and don,t start cutting or welding without a good understanding of exactly what your intended finished product will be, or the mistakes made can get very expensive. if your not experienced, its usually a better idea to eat the high costs and have a well known shop that's got the experience build your rear differential for you, just keep in mind costs easily exceed $2k-$3k for a complete rear in some cases, and if YOU don,t measure correctly its hardly their fault if the rear gets built to the wrong dimensions using your measurements for length, pinion angles, suspension bracket placement, centering, brake clearance, back spacing, wheel lug pattern or axle lengths, etc.
remember that since your having custom axles made there can be custom features like a dana 60 can have ford brackets outer flanges and bearings and ford disc brakes with a chevy wheel lug pattern as an example, provided you discuss all the required parts changes and measurements with the guys building the custom rear differential and axles to fit it of course

If your looking in salvage yards for a dana 60 rear differential, the forward housing, on performance car versions has 5 lug axles,it has provisions to bolt on a snubber on the car versions thats missing on the truck versions and the
u-joint, yoke or hub used on trucks doesn,t interchange with the car version
some truck versions use different axles
there are 6 lug and full float versions in trucks and a very similar looking dana 70

http://www.carcraft.com/howto/ccrp_0801 ... index.html

http://www.bsfab.net/?p=22

http://medusa.ih8mud.com/cruiser/D60HD/D60.html

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/REAR-END ... 0002r20351

http://www.moserengineering.com./Pages/axletech.html (lots of good stuff)

http://www.strangeaxles.net/catalog/index.html (lots of good stuff)

http://www.summersbrothersracing.com/axles.htm (lots of good stuff)

http://home.bresnan.net/~dazed/narrowinga9.html

http://www.artmorrison.com/multi-link-IRS.php

http://www.moserengineering.com/moser-60-musclepak-muscle-pak-pack-dana.item

http://dazed.home.bresnan.net/narrowinga9.html

http://www.kevinstang.com/Ninecase.htm

http://www.carcraft.com/howto/ccrp_0801 ... index.html

http://www.amazon.com/Differentials-Ide ... 188&sr=1-1

viewtopic.php?f=71&t=1282

viewtopic.php?f=45&t=757

http://www.quickperformance.com/Technic ... easure.htm

viewtopic.php?f=71&t=1340

viewtopic.php?f=71&t=1261

viewtopic.php?f=71&t=1198

http://www.currieenterprises.com/cestor ... rends.aspx (lots of good stuff)

http://www.mittlerbros.com/rear_end_par ... sories.htm (lots of good stuff)

http://www.markwilliams.com/ (lots of good stuff)

viewtopic.php?f=71&t=1025

viewtopic.php?f=87&t=1946&p=5160#p5160

http://www.crankshaftcoalition.com/wiki ... _a_rearend

http://www.ehow.com/how_5554769_narrow-rear-end.html

http://www.carcraft.com/techarticles/cc ... to_01.html

dana 60 vs 12 bolt chevy

viewtopic.php?f=61&t=2029

dana 60

Dana 60 differentials
Hemmings Muscle Machines - APRIL 1, 2006 - BY JIM O'CLAIR

http://mopedia.org/Dana_60

http://www.moparmusclemagazine.com/tech ... index.html

 

[grumpyvette]

Re: narrowing a rear differntial

http://www.carcraft.com/howto/ccrp_0801 ... index.html
here is great article to get the basics, or rear differential narrowing down.
If your going to do several rear differential narrowing jobs, its best to learn exactly how its done,
if you'll only do it once, for your race car, its cheaper and easier to locate an experienced shop, explain exactly what your goal is and expect the resulting machine work to cost a good deal more than you may expect, or to order a complete ready to bolt in rear differential from a well known specialty shop

removing spring and shock brackets and installing new ones is usually required

If your narrowing a rear differential lets say 6",you can,t just whack , off lets say 3" from each tube length and order 3" shorter axles, theres a great deal more involved

youll want to purchase or rent an axle alignment kit, when your narrowing a rear differential to prevent, component fit, alignment and bearing wear issues

your almost always going to find youll need custom axles as cutting and re-splining your current axles will usually result in splines that don,t have the correct heat treatment or tooth depth

more related links, below and earlier in this thread

http://www.moserengineering.com/

http://www.dragzine.com/tech-stories/dr ... entials-2/

http://www.camarotech.com/differential.html

http://www.currieenterprises.com/

http://www.markwilliams.com/

http://www.richmondgear.com/01gm.html

http://www.summersbrothersracing.com/

http://www.drivetrainspecialists.com/

http://home.bresnan.net/~dazed/narrowinga9.html

http://www.currieenterprises.com/cestor ... arend.aspx

 

[grumpyvette]

Re: narrowing a rear differntial

it naturally helps to have the correct custom brackets and measurements

http://www.jegs.com/i/Jegster/550/40011/10002/-1?CT=999

viewtopic.php?f=33&t=379

viewtopic.php?f=45&t=757

viewtopic.php?f=63&t=1755&p=4427&hilit=4link#p4427

viewtopic.php?f=71&t=1889&p=4974&hilit=angles+driveshaft#p4974