absolutely, a short shaft even in aluminum can take 3500 pounds in tension as well as compression. That's the whole car standing on it or hanging by it.
In reality none of us would see even half of that even if you could pull 1 g in a turn.
Alum. Drive Shaft & 1/2 shafts
- Thread starter 73c34me
- Start date
absolutely, a short shaft even in aluminum can take 3500 pounds in tension as well as compression. That's the whole car standing on it or hanging by it.
In reality none of us would see even half of that even if you could pull 1 g in a turn.
mfain
Well-known member
The C4 shafts are in compression and acting as a suspension member when installed in the C4. Once they are shortened, they become a little stronger (torsionally), but I don't know how well they would stand up to a stout big block and big tires, especially with any wheel hop. I agree that you can probably get better quality and strength with a custom shaft. I had the Driveshaft Shop build mine (6061 aluminum) specified to handle 900 ft/lbs of torque each. Under symmetrical conditions, each halfshaft should only handle half of the driveline torque, but you can't always guarantee that. I paid just a little over $700 for the pair with high strength u-joints installed. By the time you figure core charges for C4 halfshafts, machining, balancing, and u-joints, you probably don't save all that much going that route. Speaking of wheel hop, on the C6 ZR1 (with solid axles and CV joints), GM went with a larger diameter left axle than the right for what they call "torque management". This is suppossed to reduce harmonics that contribute to wheel hop. I doubt that a large, hollow tube (halfshaft) would be prone to the same harmonics. I noticed that GM also put ZR1 axles in my Z07-equipped Z06, but that may just be because it was "part of the package".
