IRS Race Axles
 

Does anyone have any experience with axles that are designed to twist?
Rather than standard axles which I always concidered would break if they were the weakest part in the drive chain and that race axles would just strengthen and move the break point somewhere else in the drive chain.

i am assumiing youre talking about launches breaking axles. when i had my tranny built the person who built it also builds trannys for some very fast drag cars. he told mu it being irs it would be delicate to drag race style launches, so he made some calls to california because i wanted to go with 930 stubs and cvs. what we found from erco was they had been breaking the bearings inside the trans when putting high load on them (launches) so they had machined the inside of the case to accept dual bearings (cost of about $1000 US) the bearing problem went away,but then the spider gears started breaking and that was the last i heard. that was 1 year ago. so basically the problem moved to the inside of the tranny everytime they fixed it one place it went somewhere else.what i decided to do was just leave the stock size stubs and put good polished german cvs on. that way if ,and when, it breaks it will break outside and i wont have to pull the engine and repair something in the trans.

You hit the nail on the head regarding my concern of breakage's while launching, I suppose I was being naive to think that the standard axles would be the weakest point in the chain. My box has been built around a rhino case with a fair amount of beefing up, welded 3rd&4th and HD side cover etc but nothing around the bearings. That said I have not gone for hefty 930 cv's but type2 although they must be stronger than type1's just for the fact of their size.

What you are saying make perfect sense, it's better to have the weakest point in the cheapest place to replace. I was just wondering if the race axles don't just add strength where you may not want it but would just take some of the impact out of the launch power.
I'm not building a strip car but I'm still going to have 160hp and 157ftlb that could cause some damage.

I totally agree with Lazarus.

Do the T4 CVs and call it done.

That being said "hop" when launching really breaks the most parts. So make sure you have the traction bar installed to help out. And watch how you take off.

Some IRS Beetles do very well at the strip though so do not think your party is over due to IRS! I bet you could run 11s with little little modification.

thats exactly why my car has nitrous. my plan is to leave fairly easy then once in second its time to go.i havent gotten a chance to get a time slip but i think the car has a low 9 mid 8 second 1/8th mile pass in it.a kafer brace or traction bar is a must. :agree:

I bet you are easily in 8s for the 1/8 with happy gas! :)

65cabby i also have a rhino case. I am planning to do a type2 cv joint setup also but i need help. Does your gear box use the car stub axles if not which stub axle was used.

Bag bug: I have type2 stub axles out of the box so that I can use type2 or 944 cv's.
I've also got 944 trailing arms and stub axles.
This link shows the differneces of the cv joints
http://www.blindchickenracing.com/Ho...joints_101.htm


On the left is a type1 axle and on the right a 944, this clearly shows the difference in spline lenght and why a type2 or 944 cv will not fit on a type1 axle because of the difference in width of the cv inner race.
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b1...4.jpg~original

Here we see the overall lenght of the different axles, from the top is the type1 axle (in a lovely shade of blue, don't ask!) then 2 different lenght 944 axles. But why have I got two different lenghts as I didn't think the 944 gearbox was off set?
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b1...3.jpg~original
The axle lenghts are :
Type1 416mm
944 382mm & 411mm
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b1...2.jpg~original

65cabby here in jamaica we have alot of guy's wanting to put type2 cv on their cars because they wil be going 2.0ltr type4 soon. The type2 axles are too tall to use on a car. I wanted to know which axle would be best to use with the type4 or type2 cv without increasing the rear track of the vehicle.

So would I.
I spent some of this afternoon reading stuff from Shoptalkforum and it appears the route to take is either machine down the inner race of the type2 cv so that it will fit the type1 axle, buy empi or similar race axles 16 1/4" or use 944 axles.
Although 944 axles changed lengths from 86 but I can't find any reference to their lengths before or after.
I've got a so called 'pair' of 944 axles but as I've said above are different lengths.

I believe 944 autos had a short axle, like auto bugs did...

Rich

I would like someone who has done this conversion to really help out here if their can't be a easy solution might as well go ahead and purchase the empi stuff.