Thread: Rear end question

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I have been debating on a new rear for my car.

I need to know first what are the signs of a rear going? I've swapped them out, etc, but never driven a vehicle while one was going on itself.

The reason i ask is my 70 nova (stock 10bolt) used to spin the left tire the fastest when on jack stands, or doing a burnout. Now for some reason, the right wheel is the quicker one, it burns out, etc. It's swapping back and forth. My friend said it's a sign of rear end failure. Is this true?

My biggest holdup on a new rear is this.

Do i want a spool, a posi-locker, or should i weld my axle/spidergears together?

I've been qouted $150 to get them welded together. I know i'll eat through tires quicker because they will ALWAYS spin at the same speed, even in curves, but other than that, and the fact i'll slide through curves, what are the other things i'll experience from getting them welded together?

The welding idea is deifantely the cheapest. $150. The posi will have to be bought, then installed, and will probably be more towards the $500 + range. The minispool is "only for circletrack use" ...so what do you guys think?

Dallas

This is a daily driver for now (but not for too much longer) but it will be street driven 3 days a week at least.

Do you have a posi or open rear now?If its an open rear you can pull out the spider gears and put in a pwertrax locker for about $300.On an open rear the wheel with the least traction is going to spin,left or right.

Never weld the spider gears it makes them brittle and they break very easy.
Using a spool or a mini spool on the street is not a good idea. As you said they always turn at the same rate and will slide around corners. Nice at 30 mph on a rain slick road with on coming traffic.
Save the money up and go with some king of posi unit.

Yep, just like everyone said....

ON A STREET CAR, DO NOT INSTALL A SPOOL
ON A STREET CAR, DO NOT INSTALL A MINI-SPOOL
ON A STREET CAR, DO NOT WELD THE SPIDERS TOGETHER

Do a search for Detroit Locker, Auburn and other limited-slip differentials. Check Jegs and Summit.

Well, that settles that subject! Thanks guys! I wasn't getting any input from any one i know around here so i was kinda torn! So, how hard is a POSI unit to install? I'll proabably install it with a new ring/pinion, but how do i know if i have the 8.2 rear or the 8.5 rear? I know it's 10-bolt and has 2.76 (or is it 2.73) gearing, but that's all. Are there casting numbers i can check? I want to get a posi setup with 3.42 or 3.55 gears (so it's still highway friendly), but i don't want to drop $100 into the rear end when the whole car was only $150, and the engine/trans swap was only $200. Should I just keep my open diff rear end for now and work on getting the rest of the car up to being powerful enough to actually NEED a posi unit? Right now I run a stock 83 305 v8 through a 1.76 geared Powerglide. It's not a drag car, cept on weekends occasionally, it's more of a daily driver street car. But it does do some racing.

Dallas

Also, anyone know if the rear outta a 78 or 79 camaro will fit? or how about an S-10 or S-15 jimmy? 80s model.

Like someone said, Pwertrax is nice I hear. A guy in my Ford truck club locally here in NC just installed one in his truck and only took a couple hours in a driveway to do and works wonders. He took it to the drag strip already and everything. Anyone else here use this? If so then give this guy your oppinion on it. I think it's a good and cheap way to go.

You can make both rear tires hook (or spin) equally by pre-loading the right rear tire. It's as cheap as buying one (1) rear air shock. Install it on the right rear in place of the standard shock and increase air pressure in it until the load on both rear tires is equalized. Incorporating a pressure gauge into the system, you can duplicate the pressure when you want to drag race and let the pressure out when tooling around town. I say that because the one shock on the right rear will "hump" the right rear up slightly and if you're sensitive to what others might say about it, you might want to bring the car back to level left to right when cruising. Personally, I would run it that way all the time, but then I'm old enough not to give a tinker's damn about what others think about me and my ride. But hey, it's cheap and it works!!!!

Tech that is a great tip... I heard something about using a air shock for that but I didn't understand and now I do. But yeah I guess Tech is right, you might as well do this since it's cheap and easy. Techy here is one smart cookie and knows his stuff so I am sure it will work.

Wow Tech, that's really impressive. I had thought about adding a few pounds of weight over the right rear tire in the trunk, but never though of an air shock. Could I install 2 air shocks and find the right pressure to make both spin? I was going to put coil overs in it, but the air shock seems like a cool trick!

Dallas

You don't need 2, only 1 on the right rear. On a front-motor, rear-drive car, the chassis twists in such a way on acceleration that the right rear and left front get light. The right front and left rear get heavy. All you're doing is adding a little pre-load on the right rear to equalize the weight on both rear tires under acceleration so that both spin or both hook up, depending on the amount of rubber on the road and the compound of the rubber. Although it may get a little spendy running 'em full time on the street, (soft rubber compound for hookin' up, so they'll wear out quicker than regular hard rubber street tires), a set of wide BFG Drag Radials aired to 22 psi will do wonders for hooking the car up after you have the weight equalized with the proper inflation in the air shock. And they're D.O.T. approved, so no hassles from the man. If you want 'em to last longer, mount 'em on an extra set of wheels and bolt 'em on the car for Saturday night playtime.

lol. I live in FL, we don't have many problems from "the man" down here. I don't know anywhere else that I can do 65 in a 40 with cops watching me make the nose bob up and down with open headers green blinkers, a burned out taillight, a heavily cracked windshield and 195/70/14 tires that have been burned down to complete baldness and are used as FRI,SAT,SUN night drag slicks. It's amazing how a regular $29.99 tire can be so sticky if you get it to the right baldness. Completely bald, 5 smoky burnouts and they still hasn't shown any tread/wire and those suckers HOOK. I have a set of M/T slicks in my shed for a 15" rim, and 2 15" rims i got from the junkyard (I get FREE slicks, as many as i want, 2 passes on them, in great condition) but I gotta tub the car out first. lofl. The 225/60/15s don't even tuck under without rubbing!

I seriously REALLY REALLY appreciate the tip, I never thought of that. Although in the latest superchevy I saw an impala (64ish) that launched off the line and got on 3 wheels cuz he had so much torque , an open diff and a good set of rubber on the back. Bet the homies can't do that in their 64' without hydraulics. lol
The caption said that he spent the whole night trying to twist the frame, and YES it will launch on 3 wheels. lofl.

I just bought a new intake (Edelbrock Performer EPS) and a new carb (Holley 4bbl from a ford ..my friend got it for me lol..but it looks to be a really low CFM carb, thinkin 390 or something) So for $155 i have gotten myself the following parts

New Dynomax full length blackjack headers (put on the car 2 months ago during the engine swap)

2. A 700cfm late 70s bbc Rochester Qjet (want a 600cfm badly!)
3. An edelbrock performer EPS intake.

intake $50, carb $15, headers $90. hehe. Good deals good deals.

Best part is the intake is out of box, brand new, guy never bolted it on. Setup for a spreadbore(?) (rochester qjet) carb, so i can use my current carb.

My plan is to convert the ignition BACK to HEI, get a carb spacer and the plugs to plug up the unneeded vacuum ports and clean my carb up real nice or have the holley rebuilt if i find out it's a decent cfm carb.

Wow, i just went really off topic. Oops!

Thanks for listening anyways!

Dallas

What is the best air shock? I was gonna try to find some N.O.S GMs. for originality purposes.

Welding the axles together,thats a bad idea