Ky bust's a pinion support

Maybe the vacuum pump sucked the pinion out of it .................

TravisRice wrote:Maybe the vacuum pump sucked the pinion out of it .................

If it came out of an S-10 that is probably the culprit.

138 wrote:how do those compare to the strange nodular cases? I got a 28 spline daytona pinion setup with a richmond gear 33 spline spool, I intend on 850-950hp n/a, powerglide, 3000lbs.... pushin it?

Hard to say, it depends on a lot of things. Weight, tire size, torque/power numbers, rear gear ratio used, actual "over all working" 1st gear ratio (1st gear ratio along with rear gear ratio), etc, etc. [EDIT= added] It's a good bet that the OEM Ford Daytona pinion support should handle more load than a normal Ford support just because the rear bearing is bigger. But the Daytona mounting flange is still damn thin when compared to a beefy aluminum pinion support's mounting flange.

I know a few guys that only run a standard pinion size in their T/S 4.70 cars. But they get away with it because some of them are gearing their cars for the 1/8 mile (like 5.14 to 5.67 gears) & more ratio takes some of the load off the pinion. Besides some of these guys couldn't run a big pinion even if they wanted to because a 4.86 is the biggest ratio offered in the big pinion 9" gear (that I have heard of anyway).


I will say that in my opinion for any/all drag car setups with a 5 bolt pinion support layout (regardless of thirdmember case design/material & pinion support design/material) they really need to have pinion support studs & thick hardened washers (vs just bolts) & the studs really need to be upgraded to 7/16 from the stock 3/8 size.

3/8" ARP stud kit, Strange nodular iron case, big bearing alum support is whats in mine.............so far so good..........we'll see with the new bullet.

Switching to the bigger 7/16 studs can cause a problem or two. One PITA problem with switching to the bigger studs can sometimes be finding pinion depth shims with the bigger holes. If careful, the holes on thicker depth shims can be drilled out using a step uni-bit & going slow. But even doing that can sometimes have fuked up results on the paper thin shims like the .005" stuff.

thanks for all the info dave... I do have an aluminum support (Southern Speed), the car will be geared for 1/8 mile, and I was looking for studs last week to replace the bolts...again thanks for all the great info, you and richter both... sorry to hijack your thread ky

KY JELLY wrote:Gonna try to make Jackson Bcr.

I know that feeling Randy.

No problem 138 on hi jacking the thread. One reason I like to share stuff so we can all talk about it. The gentleman at strange said the iron case would probably be enough for my application , but the ultra case was definitely better.

I am mainly looking at my future plans and I have been down this road before , you can pay now or pay later. I personally would rather be over kill in the rear end department and the price difference is very little when you consider the strength the extra studs and bearing sizes add.

KY JELLY wrote:That depends on what the m-5 is being burned in

you may need a pinion girdle! i bet procomp's got one.

That deal got the roller pinion bearing in it?

A side note, this brings up a good topic........I just have the regular driveshaft loop in the front on my deal, I may add a hoop to the ladderbar crossmember or even buy or fab one of them hoops that go around the pinion itself.

i have 2 loops and just added some joint girdles last time i changed converter.the M/W shaft makes it a pain to get the bolts in.

two driveshaft loops here. thinking of building a tube also like the promod guys. safety is cheap no matter what the price.

Its kinda hard to see in these pics , but my drive shaft can not hit any of my suspension unless its bent quiet a bit. Very little of the drive shaft sticks out behind the rear loop / enclosure which is built into the chassis and it fits very snugly inside of it. I also have chassis braces that run from the kick up and down to the bottom frame cross member between the 4 link bars and the drive shaft. I have seen those rear loops that bolt to the pinion support they look like a good deal .

The pinion support mounted rear ds loops have good & bad points, but are the best idea in most cases (in my opinion) when certain class rules call for a rear loop within 6" of the rear U-joint.

The bad is they do make it harder to install the driveshaft as it's something else to fuuk with back there. The one piece units are the worst cuz you have to remove the pinion support bolts/nuts every time, the two piece units are a little easier since the loop is separate from the mounting ring. And they can sometimes have clearance problems hitting the diagonal link on some ladder bar cars, but then so can the chassis mounted rear loops mounted within 6" of the U-joint cuz they usually are a taller/longer oval shape.

The good is since the pinion mounted loop can be made perfectly round (& thus a closer/tighter fit around the driveshaft, there is less loading of the loop when a drivshaft comes loose vs a chassis mounted rear loop that as mentioned usually is a taller/longer oval shape allowing the driveshaft to flop around more.

KY JELLY wrote:No problem 138 on hi jacking the thread. One reason I like to share stuff so we can all talk about it. The gentleman at strange said the iron case would probably be enough for my application , but the ultra case was definitely better.

I am mainly looking at my future plans and I have been down this road before , you can pay now or pay later. I personally would rather be over kill in the rear end department and the price difference is very little when you consider the strength the extra studs and bearing sizes add.

Thats exactly what I did when I built my car. I went ahead and used the 40 spline MW axles and aluminum case. It seemed a little overkill but I have had zero issues with any of it. Well, other than a broken gear or two.

Mark Williams has a neat new rear loop, for theirs and the Ford 9". It would be a piece of cake to make one.

Doug Rahn wrote:Mark Williams has a neat new rear loop, for theirs and the Ford 9". It would be a piece of cake to make one.

The MW loop layout is very similar to the two piece loop I have been drawing up. The difference on mine is I have the bolt together joint back at the mounting ring instead of at the loop. But I may simplify it & just make it one piece, I haven't decided yet though.

truck pullers have had that kinda loop for years

I like that loop, very simple and easy to get the U-joint out. I had to do a loop/scatter shield for my truck to meet class rules and I fabbed up a combo unit out of a piece of .120 CorTen 6 5/8"diaX8" long tubing and mounted it to the pinion support. Works great and isn't all that hard to remove. Could you do something similar with your deal Dave? Lots of pullers and mud draggers are needing something like that to meet rules needing D/S loop U-joint scatter requirements.

is it just me or does it look like a drive shaft would shred that thing in a second?

The three basic "round tubing" style pinion loop designs on the market now for drag cars are..........

#1 "Open design" The loop & mounting runners are made of tubing, and the pinion mount it's self made of plate (much like the MW design).

#2 "Enclosure design" The loop is made of tubing, the mounting runner is made of sheet/plate rolled into a large tube, and the pinion mount it's self made of plate (like the design Jerry Bickel uses).

#3 Is a cross between both of the above where the mounting runner is a rolled enclosure combined with tubing runners (makes for the strongest & heaviest design).


The way the different assorted rule books/class rules read, if your making the pinion loop out of 100% 'moly material, any of the above designs will work fine & still be fairly light. But if your wanting to make the loop assembly 100% out of mild steel for a sportsman type class, design #2 & 3 are probably going to be heavier. This is because the ms plate material rolled into the large tube runner shape for these designs is probably going to have to be thick material compared to the allowed paper thin .050" thick sheet material the 'moly loops can use for the rolled runner part.

I do like the idea of making the loop 100% round & with as small of an inside diameter as possible, fitting the driveshaft as tightly as possible (without rubbing it of course) to reduce the amount the driveshaft can flop around inside the loop.

I would probably use 1" OD tubing for the loop it's self (both cm & ms) vs the allowed 7/8" tubing just because I have a 1" bending die. In the NHRA general regs it calls for loop tubing to be no thinner than .065" (but doesn't specify ms or cm at that thickness). So for a mild steel loop I would probably use .083" ms tubing since the stuff can sometimes be in the .073 - .079 range when sonic tested depending on where you get it. For a cm loop I would just use the .065" thick stuff.

There is one on the market similar to what schmitty is talking about made without using 7/8" or 1" round tubing for the "loop" (it's either plate rolled & welded into a big tube shape, and/or just really big OD tubing used). But I really haven't looked into that design yet